Peggy Eames Movies

Charlie Oelze, the Hal Roach Studio's special effects and "gadget" maestro, was given co-director credit on the silent, two-reel Our Gang comedy Tired Business Men. New kid in town Joe Cobb is initiated into the gang's new "Manhattan Club," a social center dedicated to the relaxation of youngsters tired of performing household chores. Undergoing a painful and humiliating initiation ritual, Joe is able to turn the tables on his tormentors when it is revealed that his dad is a cop. All of this is forgotten when notorious bank robber "Blow 'Em Up" Barnes takes refuge in the gang's clubhouse. Originally released on May 13, 1927, Tired Business Men is a slow, drearily paced comedy which actually plays better in its abbreviated TV version. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

If not the funniest of the silent Our Gang comedies, Seeing the World is certainly one of the most famous. James Finlayson is cast as the gang's schoolteacher, who manages to win a trip to Europe in a local contest. Gathering the kids together, Finlayson leads them on a whirlwind tour of Naples, Pompeii, Rome, the Vatican, Venice, London, and finally Paris, where the trip nearly ends in disaster atop the Eiffel Tower. The location sequences in Europe were filmed during a vacation taken by star James Finlayson and director Robert McGowan. Combining business with pleasure, the two vacationers hired local kids in each city and dressed them to look like the Our Gang youngsters (from a distance, of course); then, upon returning to Hollywood, McGowan matched the European scenes with studio mockups using the real Our Gang troupe. As a result, audiences were convinced that the kids actually visited the capitals of Europe, a deception still virtually undetectable. As a bonus, the film features cameo appearances by two other Hal Roach contractees -- comedian Stan Laurel and writer-director Frank Butler, both cast as very proper Englishmen. Seeing the World was originally released on February 13, 1927; unfortunately, most available prints are choppy and incomplete. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

According to the opening title of this silent Our Gang comedy, "Uncle Tom's Cabin had been translated and played in forty-two languages -- the gang decided to make it forty-three." In the kid's barnyard production of the Harriet Beecher Stowe epic, Mickey Daniels is cast as Simon Legree, Mary Kornman as Little Eva, and Joe Cobb (in blackface) as Uncle Tom. Despite a rowdy, vegetable-throwing audience, and the constant interruptions of their mothers, the kids' production is a marvel of ingenuity, complete with vibrating ice floes and heavenly "clowds" -- until the calamitous finale. Originally released on May 30, 1926, Uncle's Tom Uncle was remade as the 1932 Our Gang talkie Spanky. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi