NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

classicsoncall This is probably the earliest Our Gang film short I've seen and it provided double the pleasure with a handful of Hal Roach regulars in support. Oliver Hardy in particular had a fairly significant role as a neighborhood cop, victim of a flea infestation that causes him to ditch his trousers and paint on a new set when one of the gang absconds with them. There was also the creative use of animation added to the live action, as the story introduces Garfield the Flea, starring act of 'Professor Clements Trained Flea and Insect Circus'. That was another first for this viewer, at least going this far back.I didn't recognize most of the Our Gang group in this one. My familiarity with them hearkens back to the Spanky and Alfalfa days, and I never caught this one as a kid growing up. But the antics are pretty much to speed with what I remember, as the kids wind up creating havoc in the most innocent of ways. You know, I can't help thinking that with the interracial component of these pictures, we would have a lot more tolerant society if everyone watched these before they started attending school.One last observation - I've come up with a little game for my family to holler out whenever someone spots a reference to Coke in a picture, and this might be it's earliest placement in a film that I've seen yet. There's a rather large advertising sign on the side of a building that you can't miss - 'Coca-Cola' in the distinctive trademark font one easily recognizes. For an instant, even though it's a black and white film short, you imagine seeing it in red.

Michael_Elliott Thundering Fleas (1926) *** (out of 4)The Our Gang kids help a flea trainer try and find his missing fleas but when they don't find the main one the trainer gets upset and lets them keep the ones they did find. This doesn't work out too well because the kids take the fleas to Mary's sisters wedding and soon they get loose and cause everyone to start scratching. This is one of the better Our Gang shorts thanks in large part to some nice animation but also some fine supporting performances by Oliver Hardy, James Finlayson and Charley Chase. Hardy shows up in a funny bit as a cop and Finlayson plays the preacher. Chase is the guy at the wedding wearing the large mustache and he has a funny bit. The mixing of animation and live action was certainly in its early days here but I enjoyed what they did. Most of the animation deals with the tracks done by the fleas including riding a bike and we get several animated clips of the fleas getting on the Gang's dog. The stuff at the wedding with everyone scratching themselves as pretty funny but there's no question that the main reason to watch this is for the supporting players and the animation.

Jackson Booth-Millard This silent film is included in Laurel and Hardy film collection, and it only features on of the pair, but I had to see what he was doing before he got with his partner. This was part of a little Our Gang comedy series starring the "Rascals", and it is June, the month of weddings, where little Mary (Mary Kornman) has a pretend wedding to a little fat kid (who almost resembles Hardy), and the little black kid causes a little trouble throwing a black polish covered shoe after the other kids have laughed at the "couple" kissing. After getting away the black kid walks with his dog past Professor Clements (George B. French) displaying his flea circus, with the marvellous flea Garfield performing. Garfield jumps into the fur of the black kid's dog, as he walks away to greet Skooter (Scooter Lowry) of the newly moved Swiss Family Robinson, and he manages to drop their fish bowl, causing fish to jump on the floor, into his mouth, and over the baby brother. The Professor extracts another flea from another dog, and he notices that Garfield is missing, and he offers a dollar to the kid who finds his prize fleas. The black kid's dog manages to knock over the flea circus table, and the fleas get into his fur, and some he shakes out to go up the leg of a police officer (Ollie, as Oliver Babe), forcing him to paint a new pair on his britches. Kids are all over getting fleas from wherever they can, including in other dogs, in trousers, and in amongst a man's beard which is set on fire by the light of a magnifying glass. The Professor leaves rejecting all these fleas, and the kids have to get ready for the wedding of Mary's sister, but they quickly advance to the food table. The black kid's dog shakes some fleas around the musicians, and when the black kid is picked up crawling around by his legs, he manages to drop the jar filled with all the kids' caught fleas. Sheldon the groom (Jerry Mandy) is already nervous, and he twitches even more with fleas up his trousers, concerning the Bride (Martha Sleeper) and the Justice of the Peace (James Finlayson, without his trademark moustache). Soon all the weddings guests are scratching themselves as the fleas scatter, into trousers, on noses and in moustaches, forcing the bride, groom and the man marrying them to go outside. The kids manage to find a bug spray canister which the spray on all fleas they can find, one protects themselves with a gas mask, and the film ends with a man posing as a statue scratching himself as an artist tries to paint him. Also starring Charley Chase as Mustachioed wedding guest and Charlie Hall as Musician. The kids are annoying, there might some small giggles in the film, but ti isn't one I'd want to see that often to be honest. Okay!

F Gwynplaine MacIntyre 'Thundering Fleas' has been marketed on video as an Oliver Hardy and Charley Chase film. In fact, Hardy shows up only briefly (as a burly cop) but has some funny moments. Chase is glimpsed in only a tiny bit role, hiding behind what appears to be Chester Conklin's moustache. (From Chase's brief days at Mack Sennett's Keystone studio.) The best performance here is by James Finlayson: clean-shaven, but sporting an odd bit of lip-liner pencil that makes him look as if he's wearing Little Richard's moustache! Technically, this is an Our Gang comedy, starring some of my least favourite Hal Roach brats: ugly Mickey Daniels, hideous Joe Cobb and untalented Scooter Lowry. At least Mary Kornman and her sister Mildred are excellent here (as the bride's younger sister and flower girl), wearing prettier frocks and more elaborate hairstyles than usual. James Finlayson's son Alexander shows up as a boy in the wedding party. Long-time Laurel & Hardy nemesis Charlie Hall is seen briefly, but has almost nothing funny to do.Here's the plot: the kids collect some fleas, and then the fleas get loose at Martha Sleeper's posh wedding reception. There's one very unpleasant gag sequence early on, when the kids harvest fleas from the beard of a sleeping man, accidentally setting him on fire when their magnifying lens works as a burning-glass. I couldn't help being reminded of real-life occasions when juvenile delinquents have deliberately set fire to a tramp or homeless person as a 'joke'. In this movie, when the burning man jumps off a quay into the water, the scene is shot in a manner that emphasises the danger he's in, rather than playing for comedy. I just couldn't laugh.Several shots are badly framed. SPOILERS COMING. Near the end of this movie, there's a crude and unfunny animation sequence, depicting a flea that doesn't look remotely flea-like. This is followed by a gag that might have been funny if done properly. The fleas get loose near a statue of the Discobolus, and the statue comes alive and starts scratching himself. This gag MIGHT have been funny, except that I could clearly see the actor playing the statue (in body paint) fidgeting slightly before he was meant to start moving, so I knew that the 'statue' was alive all along.There's a lot of itching and scratching in this movie, but not much to laugh at. My rating: just 2 out of 10.