Jackie Cooper Movies
American actor Jackie Cooper was in movies at the age of three; his father had abandoned the family when Jackie was two, forcing his mother to rely upon the boy's acting income to keep food on the table. Shortly after earning his first featured part in Fox Movietone Follies of 1929. Cooper was hired for producer Hal Roach's "Our Gang" two-reeler series, appearing in 15 shorts over the next two years. The "leading man" in many of these comedies, he was most effective in those scenes wherein he displayed a crush on his new teacher, the beauteous Miss Crabtree. On the strength of "Our Gang," Paramount Pictures signed Cooper for the title role in the feature film Skippy (1931), which earned the boy an Oscar nomination. A contract with MGM followed, and for the next five years Cooper was frequently co-starred with blustery character player Wallace Beery. Cooper outgrew his preteen cuteness by the late 1930s, and was forced to accept whatever work that came along, enjoying the occasional plum role in such films as The Return of Frank James (1940) and What a Life! (1941). His priorities rearranged by his wartime Naval service, Cooper returned to the states determined to stop being a mere "personality" and to truly learn to be an actor. This he did on Broadway and television, notably as the star of two popular TV sitcoms of the 1950s, The People's Choice and Hennessey. Cooper developed a taste for directing during this period (he would earn an Emmy for his directorial work on M*A*S*H in 1973), and also devoted much of his time in the 1960s to the production end of the business; in 1965 he was appointed vice-president in charge of production at Screen Gems, the TV subsidiary of Columbia Pictures. From the early 1970s onward, Cooper has juggled acting, producing and directing with equal aplomb. Modern audiences know Cooper best as the apoplectic Perry White in the Christopher Reeve Superman films. In 1981, Cooper surprised (and sometimes shocked) his fans with a warts-and-all autobiography, Please Don't Shoot My Dog. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1930
Originally released on June 21, 1930, the "Our Gang" comedy "A Tough Winter" was designed as a "pilot" film for a proposed series of two-reelers starring legendary black comedian Stepin Fetchit. Beginning with a lengthy sequence in which the Gang helps Stepin read a love letter (which segues into an impromptu song-and-dance), the film comes to a sticky conclusion as the kids try to clean up the aftermath of a messy taffy pull. Some of the best gags involve the hundred-and-one labor saving devices built by Fetchit to allow him ample time to goof off; also worth noting is a climactic bit involving crossed electrical wires, which was later reworked into the Laurel and Hardy feature Saps at Sea (1940). Because the comedy of Stepin Fetchit is today considered offensive by many observers, "A Tough Winter" has been withdrawn from the "Little Rascals" TV package, though it is available on home video. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stepin Fetchit, Farina Hoskins, (more)
- 1931
The "Our Gang" two-reeler "Bargain Day" gets off to a lively start as the kids help their pal Norman "Chubby" Chaney purchase a new hat. Meanwhile, Jackie Cooper's kid brother, played by Bobby "Wheezer" Hutchins, steals the Gang's baseball equipment, intended to go into business as a door-to-door salesman with his best friend Matthew "Stymie" Beard. One of their first customers is poor little rich girl Jean Darling, who ends up inviting the entire Gang into her parents' luxurious mansion. A slapstick riot ensues, with perennial Hal Roach policeman Tiny Sandford making a futile effort to round up the rampaging kids. The best bit is an ancestor of Abbott and Costello's "Who's On First", with Jean, Wheezer and Stymie attempting to ascertain the location of Watt Street. Originally released on May 2, 1931, "Bargain Day" was Jackie Cooper's last "Our Gang" film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Norman "Chubby" Chaney, Shirley Jean Rickert, (more)
- 1930
Popular child actor (and later radio and TV stalwart) Leon Janney made his one and only "Our Gang" appearance in "Bear Shooters." Ordered by his mother to look after his kid brother Bobby "Wheezer" Hutchins, nine-year-old Spud (Janney) is worried that he won't be able to join his pals on a hunting trip --- while his pals know that if Spud doesn't go, Spud's mule Dinah can't go either. A compromise is reached whereby Wheezer tags along with the rest of the Gang as they seek out "big game" in a nearby woods. But instead of capturing a bear, as they had hoped, the kids are confronted by a gorilla --- actually a heavily costumed bootlegger (Charlie Hall) who wants to scare the youngsters away from his hideout. Unfortunately for the crook and his partner (Bob Kortman), the kids are a lot more resourceful than they appear. Originally released on May 17, 1930, "Bear Shooters" slipped into Public Domain in 1984, and as such is one of the most readily available "Our Gang" talkies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leon Janney, Jackie Cooper, (more)
- 1929
Accustomed to being the center of attention in his family, little Bobby "Wheezer" Hutchins is upset when the spotlight is stolen by his new baby brother. Envious of the new arrival, Wheezer scheme to take the infant back to the maternity hospital whence he came. But Wheezer's sister Mary Ann Jackson and the kids' mother concoct a scheme that is guaranteed to teach the "little rascal" a good lesson. Originally released on October 12, 1929, this "Our Gang" comedy is seen at a disadvantage today due to a substandard soundtrack. Nonetheless, "Bouncing Babies" contains a generous supply of laughs, thanks largely to a typical Hal Roach running gag wherein Wheezer practices an ingenious method of "traffic control." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bobby "Wheezer" Hutchins, Mary Ann Jackson, (more)
- 1929
As usual, diminutive Our Gang member Allen "Farina" Hoskins is faced with an adult-sized dilemma. This time, Farina is a self-styled fight promoter, who hopes to strike it rich by staging a "heavyweight" bout between neighborhood fat boys Joe Cobb and Norman "Chubby" Chaney. Unfortunately, for Farina, longtime rivals Joe and Chubby have patched up their differences and are now the best of friends. All this changes, however, when pretty Jean Darling comes between the elephantine duo, whereupon Farina is able to promote the Battle of the Century in his barnyard boxing ring. When originally released on September 9, 1929, Boxing Gloves was advertised as an "all-talking" picture; in truth, however, it hovers hesitantly between a talkie and a silent film. This is never more jarring than during the climactic boxing sequence, in which several scenes are played out in utter silence, with no sound effects of any kind. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
In this urban drama, a teenage street punk learns a valuable lesson about the dangers of crime. Jackie Cooper is the tough gangleader with political aspirations. He tries to get himself involved in the graft and corruption of local city government. He almost dies after he is plugged by a gangster. That is the turning point in his life. He decides to forego the crooked path for the straight and narrow. He takes his sweetheart along for the ride. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackie Cooper, Maureen O'Connor, (more)
- 1933
Broadway to Hollywood is a through-the-years saga about a show business family. Frank Morgan and Alice Brady play vaudeville headliners of the 1880s whose fame is eclipsed by their son (played as a youth by Jackie Cooper, then as an adult by Russell Hardie). Morgan and Brady are reduced to bit roles in a musical starring their son and his wife (Madge Evans). Alas, Sonny spoils it all by drinking and philandering, while his wife dies in a freak accident. After Hardie is killed in World War One, Morgan and Brady raise Hardie's son, who grows from Mickey Rooney to Eddie Quillan and becomes a temperamental movie star. Grandpa Morgan gives Quillan a remonstrative on-set speech about professionalism, then drops dead as his chastened grandson goes back to work. Broadway to Hollywood is principally a showcase for several elaborate musical numbers originally filmed for MGM's abandoned 1930 extravaganza The March of Time. While the plotline veers towards the ridiculous, comedy buffs are advised to stick with the film for an uncredited appearance by Moe and Curly of the Three Stooges, both dressed in bizarre clown makeup and speaking in weird German accents. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alice Brady, Frank Morgan, (more)
- 1939
Once again, the Our Gang kids stage an elaborate musical show in Spanky McFarland's backyard. Angered over the fact that Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer has been chosen as the show's singing star, bully Tommy "Butch" Bond sneaks backstage with the intention of sabotaging the production. But Butch is hoisted on his own petard, and the show goes on as scheduled. The highlight of this middling one-reel Our Gang effort is the gang's presentation of a rip-roaring "mellerdrammer," replete with hero (Alfalfa), heroine (Darla Hood), black-hearted villain (Spanky McFarland), and an ersatz horse race. Captain Spanky's Show Boat was originally released by MGM on September 9, 1939. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George "Spanky" McFarland, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, (more)
- 1974
- PG
This speculative horror film details the tribulations endured by a specially-selected test group of 11 people who are informed that they will be the only occupants of a nuclear fallout shelter built half a mile below the Earth's surface. Chosen by project coordinator Peter Macomber (Bradford Dillman) as a fair cross-section of humanity, the group includes a politician, a businessman, an athlete and an author. As it turns out, the "survivors" are unwitting participants in one of those contrived psychological experiments featured so often on programs like The Twilight Zone. To make matters worse, someone's left a vent open, releasing thousands of ravenous vampire bats. Produced in Mexico, this tepid psycho-thriller plays out like the aforementioned TV drama, albeit padded out to 100 minutes. Said padding seems comprised of equal parts dull dialogue and interminable battles with the winged foes -- which are admittedly quite realistic and make for some genuine creep-out scenes. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- 1928
This historical shorts present some lesser known slapstick clowns. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1935
Cast in the title role Dinky is Jackie Cooper, who wasn't all that dinky by 1935. Mary Astor co-stars as Mrs. Daniels, Dinky's mother, who has been framed on a fraud charge and sent to prison. By bundling her son off to military school, Mrs. Daniels is able to keep her shame a secret from Dinky. Upon learning the truth, our young hero voluntarily pulls out of the school and takes up residence in an orphanage. But now it's his turn to hide the truth from his mother, by pretending via correspondence that he's still a cadet in good standing. This surfeit of self-sacrifice comes to a merciful end when Mrs. Daniels is proven innocent. Featured in the cast as bullying cadet Jackie Shaw is Richard Quine, who like Jackie Cooper grew up to become a busy TV and movie director. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackie Cooper, Mary Astor, (more)
- 1932
A young boy from a broken home must choose between his real dad and his step-father in this drama. His real dad is permissive; his new father is quite strict. His real father wants him back, but ultimately, the boy opts to stay with the stepfather because he understands that the discipline is good for him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackie Cooper, Conrad Nagel, (more)
- 1961
This fantasy-comedy is directed by Don Taylor whose specialty is horror and action flics, and clearly not talking ducks and children's tales. Beetle McKay (Mickey Rooney) and Admiral John Paul Jones (Buddy Hackett) are two wacky sailors who make friends with a talking duck, a verbose avian that possesses a secret formula. It seems the formula is needed by the Navy satellite program and so the talky mallard is worth quite a bit. But in the meantime, the duck is hooked on booze and is a failure at taking to the water or even sounding like a normal duck. So the sailors have their work cut out for them as the deadline for launching the satellite approaches. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mickey Rooney, Buddy Hackett, (more)
- 1932
Produced by William Randolph Hearst's Cosmopolitan productions for MGM release, Feller Needs a Friend teams child-star Jackie Cooper with rustic comedian Chic Sale. Cooper plays Eddie Randall, a physically challenged boy who is overprotected by his parents. He finds a kindred spirit in his aged uncle Jonas (Sale), who tries to treat Eddie like a regular kid. The boy is forced to suffer the taunts of his snotty cousin Froggie (Andy Shufford) before a happy ending can be considered. Based on the William Johnson novel Limpy, Feller Needs a Friend was co-scripted by Sylvia Thalberg, the sister of MGM-head Irving Thalberg. Watch for silent-film comedian Max Davidson in an amusing bit. The film is also known as When a Feller Needs a Friend. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackie Cooper, Chic Sale, (more)
- 1929
In this musical comedy, a young man from Virginia who is heir to a wealthy estate falls in love with a girl who longs to be a Broadway star. He moves to New York to be with her but discovers that she's a lot more interested in her career than in settling down. Hoping to turn her gaze away from the Great White Way (and onto himself), he buys up controlling interest in the show in which she has just been cast -- and fires her. However, the young man first discovers unemployment makes her no more inclined to walk down the aisle with him, and besides, he now has the Actor's Equity to contend with. The cast includes John Breeden, Lola Lane, DeWitt Jennings, and Stepin Fetchit, and features the songs "The Breakaway," "Walking with Susie," and "The Varsity Drag." At this time, no prints of this film are known to exist. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sue Carol, John Breeden, (more)
- 1948
Monogram's French Leave received an inordinate amount of press coverage because of its teaming of two former child stars. Jackie Cooper and Jackie Coogan play a couple of amorous merchant seamen on the loose in a small French village. Hoping to score with the local mademoiselles, the two Jackies become sidetracked with black market activities. The boys bend a few laws along the way, but everything turns out just fine. It was French Leave that convinced Jackie Cooper to seek out acting lessons rather than coast on his past fame; as for Jackie Coogan, he wouldn't truly make a comeback until losing his hair and re-emerging as a cantankerous character actor on such TV series as The Addams Family. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackie Cooper, Jackie Coogan, (more)
- 1940
Though its title suggests a war picture of some sort, MGM's Gallant Sons actually concerns the efforts of a group of kids to solve a murder. Young Johnny Davis (Gene Reynolds) is beside himself when his gambler father (Ian Hunter) is arrested for murder. In truth, Davis' pop is shielding several other people, whose reputations might have been ruined during his trial. Sensing that something is amiss, Johnny's pal Byron Newbold (Jackie Cooper) and his ragtag collection of tenement cronies play detective themselves to clear the elder Davis' name and trap the actual killer. Bonita Granville, at the time Jackie Cooper's girl friend, plays the only female member of the crime-solving gang. Coincidentally, Cooper, Granville and costar Gene Reynolds would later go into the production end of the business; in fact, in the early 1970s Reynolds would hire Cooper to direct an Emmy-winning episode of MASH. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackie Cooper, Leo Gorcey, (more)
- 1938
Too old to play the cute MGM urchin any longer, 16-year-old Jackie Cooper signed with Monogram for a group of above-average programmers. Gangster's Boy was the second of this series, all of which followed a predestined pattern of shame and redemption. Young Cooper is a high-school honor student who is revealed to be the son of an ex-gangster (Robert Warwick). Shunned by former friends, Cooper nonetheless stands by his dad, defending him to a hostile community. Father and son eventually prevail over provincial bigotry, though Cooper seems happier about the whole thing than the ever-sullen Warwick (an actor better suited to the role of a business executive or Shakespearean ham). Sentimental to the nth degree, Gangster's Boy was a success, prompting a third Cooper Monogram "special" with a similar plotline, Streets of New York (39). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackie Cooper, Lucy Gilman, (more)
- 1940
Former child star Jackie Cooper headlines this sentimental behind-the-scenes comedy drama. He plays an ex-child star who now jerks sodas for a living in Hollywood. He gets back into the movie business when he overhears a conversation between producers discussing their newest prodigy. Cooper butts in and suggests the producers remake Skippy (a real-life 1931 film that made young Cooper a star). The bigwigs like the idea and then hire Cooper to become the boy's acting coach. Once back on the backlot, Cooper finds both trouble and romance while helping the young boy adjust to life as a movie star. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackie Cooper, Susanna Foster, (more)
- 1978
This third entry in the made-for-TV Having Babies saga was first telecast March 3, 1978. Susan Sullivan heads the cast as Dr. Julie Farr, presiding over three impending births. In true soap-opera fashion, Dr. Farr cannot help but get involved in the lives of her troubled patients. Marnie Bridges (Jamie Smith Jackson) must not only cope with parenthood, but with a faithless husband (Michael Lembeck); Gloria Miles (Rue McClanahan), left alone with her two children, suddenly goes into labor miles from the hospital; and Leslie Wexler (Patty Duke Astin), Dr. Farr's best friend, must decide whether or not to postpone a crucial mastectomy to have her baby. Having Babies III became a weekly TV series on March 7, 1978, again starring Susan Sullivan. Shortly thereafter, the title was changed to Julie Farr, MD. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1931
Veteran character actress Margaret Mann makes the first of two memorable Our Gang appearances in Helping Grandma. The owner of a tiny general store, "Grandma" (Mann), loves to have the kids around, even if they pay for their penny candy with expired subway tokens and buttons. Local skinflint Mr. Pennypacker (Oscar Apfel) tries to purchase Grandma's store for a ridiculously low sum, while a pair of representatives from a chain store make a more generous offer. Thanks to the gang's well-meaning "assistance," the chain store men are very nearly scared away, while mean Mr. Pennypacker almost persuades Grandma to give up her store. Truth and decency prevail in the end, again largely thanks to the youngsters. A lengthy comedy segment, in which little Stymie Beard tries to purchase ten cents worth of "It," is often cut from TV prints due to its allegedly offensive content (which is offensive mainly to those who find offense in everything). Enhanced by a marvelous musical score by Marvin Hatley, Helping Grandma was originally released on January 3, 1931. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackie Cooper, Farina Hoskins, (more)
- 1941
In this drama, two childhood sweethearts endure the first pains of adult love. The young lady is beginning to feel frustrated because her beau has been spending too much time building gliders. When his uncle is visited by a cute, and flirtatious older friend, the precocious lass begins dating him. She is soon to discover that the sophisticated gent has much more than the innocent pleasures of dating upon his mind. Oh my! ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackie Cooper, Jane Withers, (more)
