Forgotten Babies
| Forgotten Babies | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Robert F. McGowan |
| Produced by |
Robert F. McGowan Hal Roach |
| Music by |
Leroy Shield Marvin Hatley |
| Cinematography | Art Lloyd |
| Edited by | Jack Ogilvie |
| Distributed by | MGM |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 16' 44"[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Forgotten Babies is a 1933 Our Gang short comedy film directed by Robert F. McGowan.
Plot
The gang tries to escape their babysitting chores by coercing Spanky (George McFarland) to mind their baby brothers and sisters while they go swimming. Unfortunately, the infants would prefer to run (or crawl) amok, forcing Spanky to take desperate measures.[2]
After Spanky is left behind, he tries to entertain the infants by telling them a Tarzan story. The only infant (Dickie Hutchins) who speaks is a child that repeats the word "remarkable". As he's explaining the action, Spanky doesn't notice that one infant has climbed the stairs. Once he realizes this has happened, he has to climb the stairs and use a cushion to bring him back down. The other infants, bored with Spanky's story, see that he's left the room and begin their destruction.
Spanky comes back to find Remarkable has taken some fish out of a fish bowl. He knocks Remarkable down (who walks off crying) and it takes him a few moments to retrieve the fish. The fish jump all over the place, one even going down the back of his pants. Once he places them back in the bowl, the stair-climbing kid is back at the top again. Spanky slips on his first try up the stairs with the cushion and slides back down. Meanwhile, Cotton (Bobbie Beard) and a girl are destroying the kitchen. The girl tosses all the food from the icebox onto the floor. Pete the Pup eats most of the stuff except a block of Limburger cheese. Cotton puts the vacuum hose into the flour canister and sprays the flour all over the kitchen.
After dragging the stair-climbing kid back down, Spanky resorts to gluing him (by sitting him in a puddle of glue) to the floor to keep him still. Just as the glue sets, one infant and Remarkable in the living room are pulling down lamps, overturning firelogs, and pulling down decorative pieces. Spanky enters only to say that he knows he was going to be in for it when everyone came back home.
Spanky enters the kitchen to find Cotton and the girl tossing all the dishes from the sink onto the floor. The girl falls off the chair onto the floor. As Spanky is scolding her, Remarkable has stacked all the dishes (cups and saucers) from the dining room into towers onto the table. Hearing the towers fall over, Spanky rushes in to find all the broken pieces. He also discovers all the chairs have been overturned. As Spanky scolds Remarkable, another child jumps on the bed in the room above them. The bed breaks and the collision with the floor breaks the ceiling in the living room. Ceiling plaster, wood, and dust fall down. Spanky runs from the room, trips in the living room, before climbing the stairs.
Cotton is now on sitting on top of the record player, spinning around. Remarkable plays with the telephone only to leave the receiver next to the radio, which he turns on. The broadcast (announced by Billy Gilbert) is of a murder-mystery called 'The 13th Murder' - it's at the point in the broadcast where Dr. Nemo (Billy Gilbert) is trying to murder Mary Dangerfield (Estelle Etterre). The telephone switchboard operator, thinking it's a real murder, sends the police to the house.
Before the police can get there, one wayward infant has overflowed the bathtub. The police arrive thinking the murderer is shooting a gun, only to discover that the screams were from the radio. The older kids arrive and admit they had left Spanky in charge. The overflowed tub is now dripping water through the floor and onto the officers. They look around for Spanky and find him in the kitchen. He has glued one of the kids to the floor, locked Remarkable and the girl in birdcages, put Pete the Pup behind a makeshift barrier in a large breadbox, and trapped Cotton's hands in spittoons.
Cast
- George McFarland as Spanky
- Matthew Beard as Stymie
- Tommy Bond as Tommy
- Dorothy DeBorba as Dorothy
- Bobby Hutchins as Wheezer
- Dickie Moore as Dickie
- John Collum as Uh-huh
- Dickie Jackson as Dickie
- David Holt - Our Gang member
- Pete the Pup as Himself
Additional cast
- Bobbie Beard as Cotton
- Dickie Hutchins as Baby who says "Remarkable"
- Tommy McFarland - Baby who breaks a lamp, jumps on the bed and overflows the bath tub
- Murlin Powers as Baby
- Duke Sexton as Baby
- Harry Bernard as Officer
- Estelle Etterre as Nemo's girl friend in broadcast / Telephone company operator
- Billy Gilbert as Radio station NIX announcer / Dr. Nemo, serial character
- Dick Gilbert as Officer
- Madeline McGowan as Telephone company operator
Notes
Forgotten Babies is a partial remake of Cradle Robbers.
See also
References
- ↑ theluckycorner.com/
- ↑ "New York Times: Forgotten Babies". NY Times. Retrieved 2008-09-19.