![]() ![]() His books include The 151 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen, Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons, The Great Movie Comedians, The Disney Films, The Art of the Cinematographer, Movie Comedy Teams, The Great American Broadcast, and Leonard Maltin’s Movie Encyclopedia. He teaches at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and appears regularly on Reelz Channel and Turner Classic Movies. He is best known for his widely-used reference work Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide and its companion volume Leonard Maltin’s Classic Movie Guide, now in its third edition, as well as his thirty-year run on television’s Entertainment Tonight. Leonard Maltin is one of the world’s most respected film critics and historians. It’s easy to see why Jackie Cooper became a bona fide star in his own right.and I have an abiding affection for Norman “Chubby” Chaney, who was brought on board to replace rotund Joe Cobb. I marvel at the way Farina delivers comic dialogue as if he’d been doing it his whole life. I’m disarmed by the serious story elements in Small Talk, which casts the kids as orphans, and I love the pie fight that climaxes Shivering Shakespeare. I’ve enjoyed revisiting these early sound efforts, warts and all, and I still respond the way I did when I was a boy. I also developed a lifelong fondness for the bumbling slapstick of Edgar Kennedy as “Kennedy the Cop.” I remember watching them on television when I was not much older than the kids on-camera and falling in love with them. Yet there is an overriding charm and innocence to these shorts that saves the day. (A pint-sized prizefight in Boxing Gloves plays out in total silence.). The pace of these talkies is slow and the use of sound is awkward, hesitant at best. We also get our first look at future star Jackie Cooper. ![]() There’s no sign of Spanky, Alfalfa, Darla or Buckwheat instead, we see series veterans from the silent era who are outgrowing their roles (like Allen “Farina” Hoskins and Joe Cobb) and meet relative newcomers like Bobby “Wheezer” Hutchins and Mary Ann Jackson. The eleven two-reelers compiled here aren’t representative of the series that most people remember. Donald “Speck” Haines fights a duel with Jackie Cooper for the hand of fairy princess Mary Ann Jackson in The First Seven Years. ![]()
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