Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Paramount Pictures was one step from receivership until Mae West and Bing Crosby signed with them during the Depression. But this film I'm sure kept the wolf from the door for a little while. Skippy which is based on a popular comic strip of the day was the career role for little Jackie Cooper while he was a child star.Cooper was one of the few child stars to have a real career in front of and behind the camera and it was a long one. He also played a wide range of characters. Yet when his name is mentioned today the first thing that comes to mind is the little kid with the knickers and somewhat pouty, but with a good heart and a set of values that he did not get from home completely.Skippy is the child of town doctor Willard Robertson and Helen Bennett and he's a good kid at heart. But Robertson who's a fundamentally decent man doesn't want him playing with the kids on the other side of the railroad tracks. That's shantytown and there were plenty of them in America in 1931. Skippy is a film of its time although I'll bet that people who lived in those shantytowns did not part with the nickel needed to see Skippy, it was needed for important things like food.Robertson as director of the board of health also wants to clean the place up. But with scant regard for the people who live there. So when Skippy makes friends with a slum kid who lives there played by Jackie Coogan's brother Robert and his mother Helen Jerome Eddy and their dog it turns out to be a turning point in everyone's lives.With his decent, but thickheaded father and a mother oblivious to all except what's within the four walls of their home, Skippy grows up with an intuitive sense set of good values. It's what makes Jackie Cooper's character such an appealing one to this day.Skippy brought home a Best Director Oscar for Norman Taurog and a few other nominations. Taurog gets it for some superb direction for a flock of kid players who are the ones carrying the film. It musn't have been easy, but the results are great.Skippy is a film firmly within the Depression times it was made, but it has a universal family appeal to this day.

Percy Crosby's cartoon "Skippy", premiered in "Life" magazine in 1923 and became an instant success. It featured the doings of Skippy Skinner, a little boy living in the city, who was equally at home stealing apples, playing baseball or just trying to understand the world of adults. At one point, Crosby was earning over $2,000 a week - the strip was a phenomenal success and there were Skippy dolls, toys and comic books. Australia also had it's own version, "Fatty Finn", which was turned into a movie that is still fascinating with it's glimpses of Australian suburban life in the 20s. MGM found an ideal "Skippy" in Jackie Cooper (who claimed he only got the part because his uncle was the director). Regardless, he was perfect in the role and even looked like the character.Skippy would rather hang around in Shantytown "a beautiful place", much to the disgust of his father - a pompous doctor who is head of the local council. With his friend, snivelling Sidney - "say I can get away with murder at my place because I'm nervous and strung high", he makes the accquaintance of Sooky (Robert Coogan) a child so poor that even the Shantytown kids shun him. "Gee, it's elegant over here - alleys, goats and dumps". Skippy meets Sooky's mother (sad faced Helen Jerome Eddy) and Penny, his "thoroughbred" dog of mixed breeds. Their arch enemy is Harley Nubbins, whose father is the local dog catcher - of course the inevitable happens and Penny is caught. Skippy and Sooky then have to find a way to raise the $3 needed for a dog license. From selling old bottles, running errands to selling lemonade - nothing works, finally they decide to put on a show. Ordinarily things would end happily but in this movie, this is the time when you reach for the tissues. The movie ends on an extremely positive note and I really liked the way it explored the relationship between father and son, how the father sheds his stuffiness and comes to an understanding about his son and his problems and instantly goes about trying to help him.Robert Coogan was Jackie's little brother but, unfortunately, he didn't inherit the talent - even though he was very cute as Sooky. He made a follow up, "Sooky", in 1931 and a couple of others and then resurfaced in the 40s. Mitzi Green was mightily talented but you would have to seek out her other movies to see her at her best. In this one she was definitely a minor character, Skippy's neighbour Eloise, who recites poems at the drop of a hat ("Ode to a Dead Dog") and has theatrical ambitions. Jackie Searl had more to do as Sidney, Skippy's sidekick and did what he did best - playing an obnoxious little tattle tale. This is a beautiful little trip down memory lane to a time when children were allowed to be children.Highly Recommended.

SKIPPY (1931) has nothing to do with the Childhood of a certain obnoxious and whining 'Sports Commentator' on ESPN, whose arm waving and mugging for the camera is reminiscent of Benito Mussolini. Nor is it directly related to a similarly named (but excellent) peanut butter. It is a heart warming film about Children and their simple but important life forming adventures.The film centers around two (2) characters SKIPPY (Jackie Cooper) and his new found friend SOOKY (Robert Coogan). SKIPPY is from the right side of the tracks, SOOKY the wrong, Shanty Town, which SKIPPY finds far more interesting then his native haunts. Excellently directed by Norman Taurog, slighting neither the Child actors nor the Adult supporting cast, there is a fine morality lesson here showing the importance of friendship and loyalty, both in joyful times and in tragedy. It also shows the importance of parental understanding for Children's problems.Norman Taurog won the Best Directing Oscar for his sensitive handling of what could have become maudlin. Sad to say this film is seldom seen today nor its sequel SOOKY (1931). The film is appropriate today for Parents to watch with their young Children ages four (4) to eight (8) for it still has lessons of value to teach. After those ages in the 21st Century they will be to bored or cynical to care and that's a shame.Note for the Historical challenged, Mussolini (1883>1945) was a minor league Fascist dictator in the first half of the 20th Century. History has not been kind too his legacy. Nor will it be to his imitators, take note IL BAYLESS.P.S. Rewatched today on TCM (02/22/2011) to see if our review holds up, IT DOES! So our only conclusion from the negative votes is that these must be from 'kiss-asses' to SKIPPY 'Peanut Butter For Brains' BAYLESS or sycophants of the ESPN (Eastern SeaBoard Propaganda Network)! Neither attributes flattering to those voters! As for the Peanut Butter SKIPPY. It is our favorite, low fat, extra crunchy.

SKIPPY (Paramount, 1931), directed by Norman Taurog, which has nothing to do with a development of the peanut butter product, is a cute story based on the then popular comic strip character as portrayed by Jackie Cooper in a performance that earned this 10-year-old child actor an Academy Award nomination as Best Actor. Losing to one more than twice his age, Lionel Barrymore, for A FREE SOUL (MGM, 1931), SKIPPY did earn other nominations: Best Picture, Best Screenplay (Norman Taurog and Joseph L. Mankiewicz) and Best Director (Taurog, who won the honor that year).The story opens in a small wholesome town where the camera sets focus on the Skinner household. There's Herbert Skinner (Willard Robertson), a town physician, his wife, Ellen (Enid Bennett), and their little boy they call "Skippy" (Jackie Cooper). Getting ready for breakfast. Mr. Skinner calls for his son to get out of bed and dressed. As he is calling, the camera then pans upstairs into Skippy's bedroom where the boy is still in bed, pretending to be putting on his clothes lazily asking his parents downstairs which shirt to put on. After heading down for breakfast, Skippy is visited by the neighborhood kids, Sidney (Jackie Searle), an obnoxious tattle-taler, and his sister, Eloise (Mitzi Greene) who takes the time to recite a poem, "In Memory of a Dead Dog." Later, Skippy, who spends his free time in a "swell" district known as Shantytown, located on the opposite side of the tracks where poor people live, meets and befriends another boy called Sooky (Robert Coogan). At first Skippy wants to fight him, but when Sooky stands his ground, they become instant friends. Their day consists of innocent fun that lands them into trouble when they accidentally break the windshield of the mean Mr. Nubbins (Jack Clifford) car, whose profession is dog catcher. Later, Mr. Nubbins takes away Sooky's dog, Penny, for not having a license, placing the animal in the pound. Sooky is able to retrieve the dog, only if he comes up with a $3 fine for the license. With Skippy's help, they do, but Nubbins takes the money to replace his broken windshield, forcing the boys to come up with an additional $3 by 3 p.m. in order to get Penny, or else she'll have to "be destroyed." The boys attempt to get that extra cash first by getting some money from Skippy's piggy bank, collecting empty bottles, doing errands, selling lemonade and putting on a show for the neighborhood kids. While the boys successfully raise the money, the unexpected occurs. Skippy soon finds himself resenting his father, who not only warned him to stay away from Shantytown, but has looked down towards those the people whom Skippy finds to be just plain ordinary folks as he and his parents are, with the exception of having more money than they do. As with most family movies, and later TV sit-coms, there's a moral lesson here to be learned. In this instance, rather than the children, it's learned by the parents, particularly Skippy's.Featured in the supporting cast are Guy Oliver as "Dad" Burkey; Donald Haines as Harley Nubbins and Helen Jerome-Eddy as Sooky's widowed mother, among others. Eddy, a familiar face with sad expressions in many movies of the 1930s, is quite believable and natural as Sooky's struggling poor mother.SKIPPY is a cute, simple, funny and heartwarming story focusing solely on children, something quite rare for that time, with the exception of comedy shorts featuring Hal Roach's Our Gang (or The Little Rascals). To enjoy this sort of tale about the true loyalty and friendship between two boys is to really love and understand children. Movies such as SKIPPY could also be related by those who had grown up in such an bygone era. Director Norman Taurog presents the children, not just its stars, as normal every day innocent kids. SKIPPY could very well been set in any time frame, any location, whether during the Tom Sawyer era of the 1800s, or pre or post World War I. In other words, kids will always be kids.Aside from Jackie Cooper's fine performance, ranging from conniving, gentle and extremely tearful in that one climatic scene between him and his Dad, there is Robert ("Bobby") Coogan, the younger brother of Jackie Coogan, whose days as a top child star, which began in the early 1920s, were just about ending. Cute as he is natural, little Bobby Coogan comes very close in upstaging Cooper. So successful was SKIPPY, Paramount turned out an immediate sequel, SOOKY (1931) with the majority of the cast, minus Mitzi Green, reprising their roles.Unseen for many years, both SKIPPY and SOOKY were resurrected during the early years of cable television's U.S.A. cable network way past the midnight hours around 1987 before turning up again on Retroplex in August 2010, and Turner Classic Movies where it premiered February 22, 2011.Regardless of its age, SKIPPY is still timely, thanks to a literate script. For comedy, it delivers, For serious moments, it doesn't hold back. The crying scenes cannot actually be viewed without shedding at least one tear of emotion. As young as both Cooper and Coogan are, or were, they have presented themselves as real professional actors, or in better terms, common every day kids pretending to be somebody else, that as Skippy and Sooky. (****)