Little Rascals in "Derby Day" (1923) (a/k/a "Little Jockeys")

Описание: With a little bit of capital (specifically fifty cents) Mickey (Mickey Daniels), Jack (Jack Davis), Jackie (Jackie Condon), and Joe (Joe Cobb) are able to set up a stand across the street from the horse race track, trying to sell lemonade, that-when squeezed-hits both Joe and Mickey in the faces, and hot dogs, for 5 cents each.

One of their customers is a new gang member of Asian descent named Sing Joy (Sonny Loy). Two more potential customers, Ernie 'Sammy' (Ernest Morrison) and Farina (Allen 'Farina' Hoskins), are so broke that Farina manages to eat two hot dogs on a stove without anyone looking. Mickey asks what's in the box that Ernie has. It's a jockey uniform of his dad's who is in the race.

Mary (Mary Komman), whose rich father owns one of the horses, stops by for some lemonade, while nearly charming the boys out of their socks. As the daughter of a horse owner, she invites them to come in free. The adult usher won't allow it, but Mary keeps talking to him as she signals the gang, managing to sneak her poor friends inside the track to watch the race, and fairly amusing mayhem ensues of course.

The whole thing is terribly exciting, and the gang is impressed. After the race ends, Mickey gets so excited, it gives him an idea, and he tells his friends his idea to form his own race, and they abandon the idea of selling food and drink. Instead, they decide to start up their own junior version, create their own race track, and have a derby of their own.

Though being kids, their own derby day is not quite like the adult version, with tricycles and neighborhood pets pulling wagons. Their steeds are not thoroughbred race horses but a motley assortment of cows, goats and mules. Instead of horses, one boy has a cow, another a mule; a third rides in cart driven by a goat and a fourth in a dog-driven cart. Farina (Allen 'Farina' Hoskins), whose vehicle is a tricycle, spikes the water of some of the animals before the race. During the climactic kiddie race, the animals end up getting too drunk, lazy and overworked to finish. So, the horse race becomes a foot race.

A 1923 black & white short silent comedy film directed by Robert F. McGowan, produced. by Hal Roach. It was the 19th Our Gang short subject released, and the last Our Gang comedy for Jack Davis. The Rascals, or Our Gang, series were nice, charming, pleasant, likable, enjoyable, fairly low brow short comedy films showing the antics of a group of kids including Joe Cobb, Jackie Cordon and Mickey Daniels.

Perhaps the biggest difference in the silent comedies is the general looseness of the proceedings. Where the Alfalfa/Darla talkies of the late '30s are tightly plotted sitcoms, sometimes with a moralistic bent (especially after the series moved to MGM in 1938), the silent shorts are more spontaneous, even haphazard. The kids themselves are refreshingly scruffy, and generally don't look like well-scrubbed, cutesy child actors. And of course, they don't have to memorize and recite dialog like the kids of the talkie era.

Despite the differences in race and social class among the kids, one senses an "all for one and one for all" attitude among the kids that is quite endearing today. The gang is racially mixed, which occasionally leads to some stereotypical sight gags and dialog titles in thick dialect, but the atmosphere is good natured. There are two African-American child actors present in Derby Day, Ernie "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison and Farina Hoskins, and they're very much accepted as members of the gang. This film also features a Chinese boy who appeared in two or three other Our Gang comedies of the period, and although we might wince when the title card tells us he's popular with the gang because they can all beat him up, in the scenes that follow he's treated in a friendly enough fashion. For the Hollywood of 1923, that's about as progressive as we can expect where race relations are concerned.

When the television rights for the original silent Pathé Our Gang comedies were sold to National Telepix and other distributors, several episodes were retitled. This film was released into television syndication as "Mischief Makers" in 1960 under the title Little Jockeys. Two-thirds of the original film was included.

Upon its original 1923 release, Motion Picture News reviewer Roger Ferri commented, "Hal Roach's company of clever juvenile comedians makes Zev, Morich, and Man o' War look like 'also rans' in Derby Day, about the funniest thing this mob has done for cinematographic entertainment. With the air topped with turf gossip this travesty on horse racing comes at an opportune time. . . . For originality, Derby Day can't be beat—you can't touch it. It's in a class by itself. . . description of the theme does the comedy no justice—it's got to be seen, and once your audience see it they won't forget it."

"Derby Day" is one of the earliest and most enjoyable of the Our Gang films which feature the original silent era kids, and is well worth seeking out.