Official Officers

The Gang are inner city kids with nowhere to play, so they improvise a baseball game at a street intersection. The officer on the beat, "Hard Boiled" McManus, thinks the kids are nothing but troublemakers and sends them away. A police investigator witnesses McManus's cruel treatment of the kids and others and replaces him with a kinder, gentler officer. This officer befriends the Gang and makes them Junior Officers, complete with their own paddy wagon. The usual brand of Our Gang chaos ensues; will the Gang capture criminals and get back at McManus?

"Official Officers" is not the best "Our Gang" silent film, but it is better than average. Joe Cobb has some funny moments; Joe likes bananas, but the fruit vendor has placed them on a rope above his reach. No problem; Joe sits on a lift for painters and is able to capture some bananas as the painters climb up the side of the building!

There is not much focus on the Gang as officers; some comic moments could have been developed from this scenario, but they were not fleshed out for the film. All in all, however, "Official Officers" is above average. The print of the film viewed for this review is crisp and clean for the most part; it appears the film was saved for home movie use and it represents one of the cleaner "Our Gang" silent films in existence (many Gang films from this period suffer from being duped nearly white.)

A nice outing. 8 out of 10.