O'Shaughnessy's Boy

Circus animal trainer Wallace Beery (as "Windy" O'Shaughnessy) shows son "Spanky" McFarland (as "Stubby") how to train a lion cub while well-proportioned wife and mother Leona Maricle (as Cora) thrills audiences on the flying trapeze. She suffers from psychological problems, and leaves the circus due to Mr. Beery's drinking and carousing. Beery, devastated because he no longer has the companionship of his son, is disabled when his right arm becomes tiger food. He hits the skids as a one-armed-man, but will soon receive a second chance with both the circus and his son.

When his mother is taken the biggest of the big tops, young Jackie Cooper (as Joseph O'Shaughnessy, a slightly older "Stubby") is placed in military school under the guardianship of mean aunt Sarah Haden (as Martha Shields). The court grants Beery custody of son Cooper for a three month trial period. He takes his boy back to live at the circus, where Beery's been re-hired (despite now having only one arm). Trouble is, teary-eyed Cooper misses his mother and feels none of the old closeness with Beery. Can Beery win back both his son's heart, and his courage in the cage?

"O'Shaughnessy's Boy" capitalizes on the chemistry of its stub-nosed co-stars, who won box office battles in "The Champ" (1931). It also features some good MGM resources, although you'll mainly see them being wasted in this film. The biggest distraction is the fact that Beery is supposed to be playing a man with one arm through most of the movie, and it's obvious he's simply hiding his right arm under an over-sized coat. Most of the performances are overwrought, although Beery and Ms. Haden have some good moments. "Spanky" McFarland and Cooper were both in "Our Gang".

***** O'Shaughnessy's Boy (9/27/35) Richard Boleslawski ~ Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Sara Haden, Clarence Muse

Ever since they were teamed in The Champ MGM saw Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper as money in the bank and they were cast together again in Treasure Island and now this film O'Shaughnessy's Boy. They also were together in The Bowery but that was under another company banner. After this though Cooper was getting a bit too old for these kid roles as he moved into his teens.

Instead of a boxer past his prime Beery plays a circus lion tamer at the top of his game. He's married another circus performer Leona Maricle who is a neurotic away from the high trapeze. She's brought her sister Sara Haden who is miles from her kindly spinster aunt role in the Andy Hardy series. She caters to Maricle's neurosis and eggs on a split between Beery and her.

But Beery gets along great with his son first played by Spanky McFarland. But it all goes bad for Beery when Maricle and Haden leave taking his son with him and Beery loses his right arm in the arena after a cat mauls him.

The rest of the film is Beery trying to get his son back who eventually grows up to be Jackie Cooper.

The Beery/Cooper chemistry was still working albeit a bit creaking now that Cooper's voice was changing. Leona Maricle's character was somewhat underdeveloped, we never really find out why she's such a neurotic only that Haden caters to it. Henry Stephenson also has a fine role as commandant of the military school that Cooper attends.

Jackie Cooper whose career was made with his films with Wallace Beery was like all the rest of his contemporaries who could find nothing good to say about him in real life. Knowing that you may be seeing some of the greatest acting in history in O'Shaughnessy's Boy.

This one is oddly titled, since it is O'Shaughnessy (Wallace Beery) rather than O'Shaughnessy's boy (Jackie Cooper) who is the central figure in this film. For the first part, O'Shaughnessy's boy - son- is even played by Spanky McFarland.

Windy (Beery) is an animal trainer and performer with a circus. His wife is an acrobat. But her sister Martha (Sarah Hayden) is putting ideas in her head and slowly driving her mad by saying bad things about being in the circus, living with the circus, being married to Windy. Martha is so uptight the Pilgrims would have asked her to leave. Martha convinces her sister to leave Windy and take their son Stubby and come live with her some place where Windy can never find them. Distraught over losing his wife and son, Windy gets careless with a new act he is trying and loses an arm to a tiger. Having lost his son, his arm, and his nerve, he wanders about for years looking for the boy and his ordeal gets worse before it gets better.

I won't say how, but Windy does find his son who is now played by Cooper. So needless to say about half of this film has no Jackie Cooper in it at all. By this time, 1935, Cooper is aging out of those cute little kid roles that MGM hired him for, so less is not more. This is not to say that Cooper was not a good actor. He's still a good actor in Superman, even very recognizable at age 55.

So the accent is on Beery as Windy, who is quite good in this one. It is much better than most of the production code roles he got at MGM because there is so much emotional range involved. The cinematography is excellent too, with camera great James Wong Howe getting very creative with the circus shots. With Willard Robertson as the owner and manager of the circus and the best boss you could ever ask for, who incidentally played Jackie Cooper's dad in 1931's Skippy.

This was the last of six films that Wallace Beery made with munchkin Jackie Cooper. rawthah contrived story where Windy O'Shaughnessy and his son Stubby have adventures working at the circus. kind of a cute-sy story where the love between dad and son is really the main point, and the stories are usually pretty silly and over the top. a whole lot of time spent on Windy spinning a yarn right near the beginning of the film. we see that Windy has his vices, so his wife up and leaves with their kid. and all the money. so Windy tries to earn money quick, with a tiger act, but loses his arm in the process. and now he's on a mission to find the wife and kid. Spanky McFarland (Our Gang) plays Stubby as a little tot; Jackie Cooper and his bent lip is the older version. Cooper had a pretty long career, as actor, then director. Windy does his best to show Stubby that he loves him and it can be like it was before. The prim and proper statesman Henry Stephenson is the Schoolmaster at Stubby's school. Beery had won the oscar for Champ. Directed by Dick Boleslawski. he died unexpectedly, so young at 47, of a heart attack, part way through "The Last of Mrs. Cheyney" (That was a fun Joan Crawford project. so many legends in that one.) O'Shaugnessy is pretty good. Have only seen this one on Turner Classics. not bad.

Wallace Beery won a well-deserved Oscar for his role in 'The Champ', as a washed-up boxer who tries to redeem himself for the sake of young son Jackie Cooper. After that film's success, MGM (and other studios) kept trying to repeat it with diminishing returns, in other films starring Beery as a crusty but good-hearted mug redeemed by Cooper. When Jackie Cooper outgrew such roles, Beery kept rehashing the formula with other child actors. The formula outlasted Beery himself. He died just before shooting was to begin on 'Johnny Holiday' (one more instalment in the Beery-brat bonanza) and the film was made with William Bendix (a better and more sympathetic actor) in Beery's role.

"O'Shaughnessy's Boy" is hardly as good as 'The Champ', but it has some good production values and was made fairly early on, before this formula got too clapped-out. More so than usual, Beery in this film plays a role that resembles himself: in real life, he was an animal-trainer in the circus who was clawed by one of his charges.

Windy O'Shaughnessy is a wild-animal tamer in the circus, utterly idolised by his young son Joseph (played in these early scenes by Spanky McFarland). In a very brief role, Leona Maricle gives a stand-out performance as Windy's wife Cora, a trapeze aerialist with emotional problems. I found her *extremely* credible, and poignant. Ace cameraman James Wong Howe uses very tight framing shots and slow pans across Maricle's upper torso to make it seem as if this actress is doing a trapeze act, and the effect works very well. Cora's sister Martha (Sara Haden) urges her to leave Windy and give her son a stable existence away from the circus.

After Windy discovers that Cora has run off with his son and his money, he gets too close to a lion and is severely clawed. He loses his right arm in hospital, and the circus goes on without him. Wallace Beery spends most of this film portraying an amputee, but the trickery is not convincing: in too many shots, the bulge of his arm inside his coat is too obvious.

There is an extremely impressive montage sequence, in which Windy seeks his son in orphanages. (But he knows that Cora took their son, so why is he looking for the boy in orphanages?) After several years, one-armed Windy learns that Cora took her trapeze act into vaudeville (hardly a more stable existence than the circus!), and she died in an accident onstage. Young Joe (now played by Jackie Cooper) is in a military academy.

Jackie Cooper's roles at this time were nearly as formulaic as Beery's. Moviegoers in the early 1930s wanted to see Jackie Cooper cry: here, the movie gets this over with by introducing Cooper with a close-up of his tear-stained face.

The reconciliation between father and son is awkward. Windy tries to get his old job back in the circus, despite his lost arm. But now Windy is intimidated by the huge beasts... Willard Robertson gives a splendid performance as Beery's employer, but his part is badly written. Robertson plays a circus owner who is financially solvent *and* generous to his performers. I've met several circus owners (including Billy Smart, Henry Fossett and Irvin Feld) who were solvent *or* generous, but I've never heard of a real-life circus owner who was both. There's a painful scene in which Robertson tries to goad Windy back into the lions' cage, to prove he hasn't lost his nerve. But Windy is older now, and has only one arm, so he can't be expected to recapture 'the old days'.

African-American actor Clarence Muse had the misfortune to live at a time when black performers were usually cast in 'yassuh' roles. Cast here as Beery's assistant, Muse has a larger and better part than usual. He gives an easy and ingratiating performance in a long scene with Cooper and a dog; the only unpleasant note in this delightful sequence is the 'darky' dialogue that Muse is lumbered with.

Sara Haden usually played sympathetic spinsters; here, she's a harridan who tips her spiteful hand when she declares she'd rather see young Joseph 'in his grave' than reconciled with his father. The production values in this film are hardly MGM's best, but are above average. The circus and midway scenes have the look, feel and sound of the circus scenes in 'Freaks'. There's even a brief appearance here by a German-accented midget who looks and sounds like Harry Earles from that cult film.

James Wong Howe's excellent photography goes most (but not all) of the way towards disguising the fakery in the scenes when Beery must be on screen with a wild beast. The action scenes in this film labour under a double handicap, because Wong must make it appear as if Beery and a tiger are on screen in the same shot, while at the *same* time he must conceal Beery's right arm when one-armed Windy fights the tiger. Even the brilliant Jimmy Howe isn't quite up to this task.

During one early scene, Beery speaks dialogue whilst cuddling a lion cub. The lion ad-libs a yawn, and Beery charmingly ad-libs to cover for this. In real life, Wallace Beery was an extremely unpleasant man (many people have testified to this), but he was a genuinely talented actor within his narrow range, and he gives a fine performance here. I'll overlook a dialogue error, in which he refers to a Sam Browne belt as a 'John Browne'. "O'Shaughnessy's Boy" is a splendid film which adults and intelligent kids will enjoy, and I'll rate it 8 out of 10.