Cast:
Jackie Cooper (Skippy Skinner), Robert Coogan (Sooky Wayne), Mitzi Green (Eloise), Jackie Searl (Sidney), Willard Robertson (Dr. Herbert Skinner), Enid Bennett (Mrs. Ellen Skinner), Donald Haines (Harley Nubbins), Jack Rube Clifford (Mr. Nubbins, Dog-Catcher), Helen Jerome Eddy (Mrs. Wayne), and Guy Oliver (Dad Burkey) Directed by Norman Taurog (#421 - Palm Springs Weekend, #523 - It Happened at the World's Fair, and #1174 - Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine)
Review:
The career of Norman Taurog really is a double-edged sword if you think about it. He was familiar with performances from a child as he entered that realm on the stage while being raised in his native Chicago. He appeared in off-Broadway for a number of years before he entered the film industry in collaboration with Larry Semon that saw him direct for the first time in 1920. He eventually graduated from shorts to features by the end of the decade with Lucky Boy (1929), which actually had a few portions of dialogue. By the time of Skippy (1931), Taurog was already a veteran of half-a-dozen films that clearly would serve him well as a recipent of an Academy Award. Yes, well, here we are with the film that saw him awarded one for Best Director that happened in the year of such films as Cimarron, The Front Page and Morocco (well, it only was the fourth ceremony held). As such, the film starred his nephew in Jackie Cooper for the title role after he had started appearing (read: dragged by his grandmother) in films at the age of 3, which resulted in a spell spent with Our Gang before Paramount borrowed him here. If you ever want to see just what kind of differences exist between the past and now when it comes to treating actors, Cooper shared just Taurog got him to cry, as related by his autobiography years later. When one sequence couldn't get the right amount of tears, Taurog chewed him out as a ham and called for the spare costume to be put on Robert Coogan. The next time that a scene was needed in tears, now again incurring the wrath of Taurog in not being able to cry on cue, decided to have someone take away Cooper's dog that he had with him on set. But that isn't all, he proceeded to have a security guard come up with a gun and make it seem like the guard shot the dog, which naturally led Cooper into hysterics; of course, if Cooper did the scene the way Taurog wanted in calmness, he could go see if the dog was possibly alive (well, the dog wasn't shot, but of course the real key to getting Cooper to cry a third time was far simpler: his mother talked him through the scene in why he would need to cry). Of course, Cooper has also stated that Taurog essentially was a contradiction: he called him both an effective director among the ones he could compare in making films but he also was a tough figure for a kid that basically suffered abuse from their grandmother. One would say, however, that Cooper thankfully ended up more fortunate than others of his time, which included a lengthy run on television, both as actor and director (coincidentally, Glamour Boy, made a decade after this film, saw him star as a has-been child star that even referred to "Skippy" for its promos). As for Taurog, by the time he retired in 1968, he had directed roughly 180 feature films, which included directing for stars such as Spencer Tracy, Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, and beyond.
Amidst all of that is the fact that this was based on the comic strip of the same name, as created by Percy Crosby in 1923, which served as an inspiration for Charles Schultz's Peanuts (if you would like to fall down the rabbit hole of where Crosby ended up, well, try this out) As such, the film was written by Norman Z. McLeod and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (both future directors) in screenplay, while Don Marquis provides additional dialogue, and Sam Mintz provided the story. There was a sequel with many of the same people returning in Sooky in the winter of 1931. What it all boils down to for this film is a a film threatening to choke in schmaltz that thankfully is at least endearing enough in the overall result to make it more than just a dated feature. It packs a bit of a punch in melodrama that will at least make one not have to spring a defense of a silly children's movie being, well, "made exclusively for children". It is Cooper who holds his own, a testament to solid timing and, well, the aforementioned treatment during production; the last crying scene (the one that wasn't conjured up with tricks) might actually be the most effective, showing just what really matters to a kid when they think about life that seems like it could go forever. Crosby once described the character as "the child in my soul", and it isn't hard to see how Cooper makes that seem engaging and useful for child adventure. A weaker presence would've been the last straw in an otherwise okay movie with characters that possess the amount of dimensions expected for such a simple-to-the-point story. Coogan (brother of the noted Jackie) is, well, I can give slack for a six-year-old, so go with that (Green does some sort of goofy yodel on occasion that is, well, embarrassing for any teen). The adults are about what you'd expect in mild-mannered foils, so there's that. As a whole, what does one expect from a film about kids trying to deal with shantytown shutdowns and trying to raise $6 (adjusted for inflation, that's about $100 today) to buy a windshield and save a dog from death? Well, you will get a film that shows its age along with a heart on its sleeve with an ideal (if not semi-coerced) performance from Cooper to make it all worth a viewing for those into curiosity for this sort of film.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
