Our Gang Follies of 1938 (1937)

Directed by

Gordon Douglas

Genre

musical film

Country

United States

Runtime

21 min

Rated

NR

Rating

6.4 of 10 from 11 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This short film from the Our Gang series spoofs big movie musicals. Alfalfa leaves a kid-run pop music show to try opera singing, and the story mostly takes place in a dream where he imagines his future.

lightheartedwhimsicalplayfulenergeticsillynostalgicfast-pacedcampy

What happens

Our Gang Follies of 1938 (later reissued as simply Follies of 1938) is a 1937 American musical short subject, the 161st short subject entry in Hal Roach's Our Gang (Little Rascals) series. Directed by Gordon Douglas as a sequel to 1935's Our Gang Follies of 1936, the two-reel short was released to theaters on December 18, 1937, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Deriving its title from the concurrent MGM feature film The Broadway Melody of 1938, Our Gang Follies of 1938 is a spoof of the Broadway Melody films and other movie musicals of the time. In the film, Alfalfa (Carl Switzer) decides to quit a pop music revue put on by Spanky (George McFarland) and become an opera singer, famously singing a pastiche song entitled "The Barber of Seville" several times throughout the film. The bulk of the film is made up of a dream sequence, in which Alfalfa imagines himself twenty years later failing as an opera singer, while Spanky owns a Broadway nightclub with a lavish floor show. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

More like this

• Alfalfa's Aunt (1939)
• Alfalfa's Double (1940)
• Little Daddy (1931)
• Time Out for Lessons (1939)
• Rushin' Ballet (1937)
• Tiny Troubles (1939)
• Heebee Jeebees (1927)
• Tired Business Men (1927)