This Hal Roach comedy short, Second Childhood, is the one hundred forty-forth entry in the "Our Gang/Little Rascals" series and the fifty-sixth talkie. A rich old woman who's celebrating her 65th birthday is grouchy to her servants. Then a toy airplane stumbles into the house and Spanky arrives to retrieve it. The elderly lady demands 75 cents for the damage to her vase but Spanky instead offers to work for it with help from the gang. I'll stop there and just say the transformation of the grandma character is a sight to see here. Zeffie Tilbury-who previously appeared in Laurel & Hardy's The Bohemian Girl which also featured Darla Hood-is quite a joy as the cantankerous-turned-childlike-old lady. So on that note, Second Childhood should really please any Our Gang fan out there. P.S. This was the third consecutive OG ep to feature Darla with blond hair since she probably had just finished TBG and hadn't time to change back to her natural brunet color. Ms. Tilbury was legally blind by this time and had to be guided off-set. And this was Gus Meins' final OG short as director, graduating to features afterward before committing suicide on August 1, 1940 under pressure of scandal.
Review of Second Childhood
