Lazy Days

This Hal Roach comedy short, Lazy Days, is the ninety-second in the "Our Gang/Little Rascals" series and the fourth talkie. It begins with Farina just laying under the tree with sis Janine doing his every command. Oh, and Pete the Pup also serves a function here: he runs back and forth in some kind of see-saw contraption which not only swings Farina's hammock but also his baby brother's rocking bed! Elsewhere, the rest of the gang discover a baby contest notice and Joe decides to pass Chubby off as the "fattest baby" (Joe should be familiar with that one as he himself was passed off as such in the silent Cradle Robbers). I'll stop there and just say this was one of the most dreary of the early Our Gang talkies-despite some of what I just described-with a slow pace throughout. So on that note, Lazy Days is only worth a look once.

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.

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.

This early Our Gang talkie, the third one of its kind, features "Farina" and his pals down on the farm. It's a lazy day and Farina is so slow-motion that he even has another kid put a straw in his mouth so he can drink. At first, all the animals are lying around doing nothing, too, but eventually they get up and go for swim, or get something to eat,or play.....but "Farina" (Allen Hoskins) just likes there sounding like a young Stephin Fetchit, too "tired" to do anything.

Anyway, after about eight minutes, we finally see the rest of the gang, and things liven up. The kids discover a poster about a baby contest being held later that day with big prize money for the "biggest baby," "cutest baby," "strongest baby" all the way down to "homeliest baby." Wow, what mother wouldn't be proud of that? The kids decide to wash up the little ones, but they don't want any part of it so Chubby pretends, reluctantly, to be the baby. What happens in the contest, I'll leave up to you to see, but the ending is a surprise one.

Most of the gags in this 21-minute "movie" involve Farina. Some reminded me of sight-gags The Three Stooges used, such as a frog spitting a large spray of something in Curly's face. Here, Farina is the victim.

All in all, as other reviewers said here, this isn't one of the better Our Gang talkies, but it's worth one look.

"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.