Love My Dog

This is an excellent later silent Our Gang comedy, if you're fortunate enough to find a complete print as I did. This is the story of Farina (Allen Hoskins, the Gang's early African-American star) trying to save his beloved pooch from being gassed to death by the dogcatcher. With some modifications, this was remade with Matthew "Stymie" Beard (Farina's successor) and Spanky as "The Pooch" in 1932.

This film has it's amusing moments, as the gang disguises their dogs to keep the dogcatchers away. Scooter Lowry gives his dog an outrageous outfit and when the dogcatcher wonders what gives, Scooter says, "Don't you know a swiss goat when you see one?" Some Harold Lloyd moments occur when the dog tries to rescue a baby from a skyscraper ledge. But it's mostly Farina's show. There is an amazing moment when the dogcatcher catches Farina's hound and the camera stays to catch the impending horror on Farina's face for about three minutes. This is perhaps one of the greatest moments of real acting in the history of the silent our gangs and one of the many reasons film fans need to seek out (and DVD manufacturers need to get on the ball) the silent Our Gang comedies.