The Sun Down Limited

Sun Down Limited, The (1924)

*** (out of 4)

Up to this point in the series there's no doubt that this film was the highlight of the Our Gang series. Mickey and Joe are playing at the railroad station when they're kicked out for causing too much trouble. The kids decide to get together and create their own train and railroad station, which they do but soon a neighborhood bully tries to cause havoc. This certainly isn't the greatest film ever made and no one will mistake it for a masterpiece but I think for the series it's the best I've seen up to this point. There's not too many great laughs but there are enough interesting visuals to make it worth viewing. The first nine-minutes have the kids playing on a train and of course Mickey and Joe end up starting it up and taking off on their own. Farina gets his food caught in the center of the tracks and ends up getting ran over several times which is the "joke" of this portion of the film. The second half has the kids building up their train and eventually taking it out for a spin. I must admit that I loved the look of the train because it really does seem like something these kids would be able to put together. I thought the imagination was quite high and especially how the used the dog to make the train run. This short runs 26-minutes, which was longer than your normal time but it never seems boring and certainly makes for some nice entertainment.