tavm Review of Who Killed 'Doc' Robbin?

Who Killed 'Doc' Robbin? (1948)

Who Killed Doc Robbin was Hal Roach's second attempt at reviving Our Gang without actually using that name

[7/10 · 4 February 2015]

A few years after the M-G-M-produced-only series of Our Gang shorts was cancelled, OG creator Hal Roach had decided to revive the "kid adventure comedies" by producing a couple of features-or "streamliners" as these were usually a little less than an hour-featuring a new set of tykes. This is the second of them as I have yet to find the first one, Curley. To get the approval from his former distributor, Roach had to give up the right to purchase back the name "Our Gang" which he had originally reserved in the 1938 agreement when he sold the series to them. To help him, he got both his son, Hal Roach Jr., and former series director, Robert F. McGowan, to produce. McGowan also provided the story. To perhaps make the pictures more appealing, they both were made in color but it's not Technicolor but Cinecolor, a more inferior process though since the print I watched was washed out, it had to have looked better than that! Anyway, among the kids cast was Renee Beard-Stymie's younger brother-who portrayed Dis while someone else played his sibling, Dat. The settings are a courtroom and a haunted house. For a while, it looked like this would follow the plot of previous OG short, Little Miss Pinkerton, and have an actual murder but that turns out to not be the case. If you've seen most of the Little Rascals shorts like I have, you'll probably notice many gags and lines and chuckle with glee as I did. Oh, and there's at least one supporting player I recognized from a previous series short-Paul Hurst, previously a frustrated bus conductor in Going' Fishing, here playing a policeman who has to deal with the kids visiting a kindly man named "Fix-it" Dan in jail. So on that note, if you love the Our Gang/Little Rascals, you'll probably get some joy watching Who Killed Doc Robbin as I did. P.S. I noticed part of the score from Laurel & Hardy's Way Out West though Marvin Hatley wasn't credited here. Also, this would be "Uncle Bob" McGowan's last involvement in film as he'd retire afterwards. When there was a reunion of the silent Our Gang on television several years later, however, he turned up on the program in question-"You Asked for It"-along with teacher Fern Carter, and frequent series cinematographer Art Lloyd. I'll mention how that went when I review that program soon...