Lazy Days

This was a slow moving short picture. The general theme is lazy days of summer, but the film just plods along. It was only okay. There were some scenes that should have changed that could have helped the film along. The crying baby was annoying and the director should have reassured the baby so that the child wouldn't be crying so much. I'm sure a parent was on the site so the dad or mom was likely there to have assisted. Farina got the most screen time and did okay with what he was given. All the kids just had to do was act out being tired in the hot summer day and it made you tired watching it. The contraption that the Farina family invented for rocking the baby, rocking Farina, fanning Farina and playing music was clever.

One part was fun to see. In the background of the last quarter of the film, the kids are out near a public area and fairly close to a regular gas station and street and you can see the traffic going by. It was nice to see all the old autos and trucks going about their business unawares as this was being filmed on the next block. That road is probably a big 6 lane road now.

Joe reads an ad for a baby contest and gets the idea of having all the brothers and sisters of the Gang dressed up like babies to win all the prize money--including Joe's brother, Chubby (who looks NOTHING like a baby). In the end, it's all for naught.

One nice thing about the Our Gang comedies is that they were, for the 1920s and 30s, very egalitarian. After all, there were black kids in the gang (such as Farina, Stymie and Buckwheat) and they were treated by the other kids very well--in an era when Black-Americans were, at best, second-class citizens. Yet, sometimes, amidst this anti-racist casting decision by Hal Roach Studios, a bit of the sick prejudices of the age come clearly into focus. In this film, Farina plays a very different sort of character. Here in "Lazy Days" he's incredibly lazy and shiftless--and none of this routine is funny. What's worse is that the end, 'ol Petey the dog rolls a watermelon to Farina--and the credits roll!! Ugghh. Racist AND not particularly funny at the same time. Not surprisingly, when the series was syndicated for television, this was one of the few that was not shown as it was considered too racist for modern sensibilities.

Lazy Days (1929)

BOMB (out of 4)

The gang is sitting around bored out of their minds until Joe sees that a baby contest is being held. The gang gather up their younger brothers and sisters and enter the contest. This third short from the gang is without a doubt the worst I've seen and I might even take it further by saying this is one of the worst films ever made. I didn't find the previous two shorts funny but this one here is just beyond bad in its attempt for humor. I should restate that because there's really no attempt at humor because it appears the screenwriters found torturing a baby to be funny. There's a sequence where Farina has to give his baby brother a bath and as soon as the baby is put into the tub he starts screaming and crying in terror. Do they cut the scene? No they make it worst by putting water on him and then dragging him around the rest of the film. Screaming and crying is the baby the entire time. Is the torturing of this kid funny in 1929 because it's happening to a black kid? I'm really not sure where to stand on the racial issues of this back in 1929 but the scene is incredibly ugly and brutal and to me ranks as one of the nastiest things I've seen in any movie. Even without this scene the movie wouldn't fair any better as the jokes are lame (Chubby as a baby) and the film drawn out.

An OUR GANG Comedy Short.

It's LAZY DAYS for Farina, who is so tired laying in the shade that the least amount of effort is a bother to him. Only Fat Joe Cobb's plan to make money by entering the Gang's younger siblings in a baby contest can get Farina on his feet.

An amusing little film, with some good laughs. Chubby makes a unique 'baby', to say the least. Highlight: Farina washing his little brother, with help from a bee, frog & monkey.

"Lazy Days" is extremely difficult to watch, and I fancy myself an "Our Gang" fan, so that comment is not without consideration. The film is boring, with long stretches of unappealing visual gags and silence. The dialogue the kids say is lethargic and dull. Maybe I'm missing the point of the film, which is that this is a lazy day for the kids, but to me that doesn't equal entertainment.

Besides being boring, there is an air of manipulation that makes the film uncomfortable to watch. Farina's little brother doesn't like being undressed and drenched in a washbucket, and who could blame him? What's entertaining about seeing a little boy really cry his eyes out?

A dog from start to finish. 1 out of 10.