As the trial for the murder of Hugo "Doc" Robbin, who was supposedly killed in an explosion, gets underway with his secretary Ann Loring being charged with the crime, a group of children burst into the courtroom claiming to have critical information for the trial. They are initially rejected but eventually succeed in telling their story. They claim that Robbin & their inventor friend Dan "Fix-It" Cameron had an argument over Cameron's atomic firing chamber being funded by Robbin for military use. Cameron refused to let Robbin get the device. The police arrest Cameron. The children decide to return to the house to find the device & clear Cameron's name. While there, they encounter various spooky incidents & are attacked by a giant gorilla.
After watching this rather infantile & extremely silly haunted house comedy intended for children, I came to the conclusion that the kids' films of the 1940s were absolutely terrible in their approach to entertaining the audience.
Who Killed Doc Robbin was made in 1948 & had all the hallmarks of being one of those Our Gang shorts made between 1922 & 1944 – sort of an early variation of The Little Rascals. Both the Our Gang shorts & this feature were made by Hal Roach Studios, which had great success with Our Gang.
Who Killed Doc Robbin is just plain bad. The humour is infantile & silly & with the two Black kids in the cast being used as the butt of some stupid gags, quite racist. The story is full of stupid things that won't happen in the real world – a group of kids bursting into a courtroom in order to derail a murder trial so that they can clear the defendant – in real life, the kids would be ejected from court or questioned by the police before allowed to give their testimony. Even Judge Judy, the queen of daytime court shows, wouldn't simply let this kind of thing happen. The haunted house format is used for some cliché gags with skeletons in upright coffins, 'dead' bodies in closets, the old 'sinister eyes peering through a painting' chestnut that never fails to make me laugh & the stupid idea of having the villain – George Zucco – in a gorilla suit. The film is ridiculous & should be relegated to the dust bin of obscurity.
After watching this rather infantile & extremely silly haunted house comedy intended for children, I came to the conclusion that the kids' films of the 1940s were absolutely terrible in their approach to entertaining the audience.
Who Killed Doc Robbin was made in 1948 & had all the hallmarks of being one of those Our Gang shorts made between 1922 & 1944 – sort of an early variation of The Little Rascals. Both the Our Gang shorts & this feature were made by Hal Roach Studios, which had great success with Our Gang.
Who Killed Doc Robbin is just plain bad. The humour is infantile & silly & with the two Black kids in the cast being used as the butt of some stupid gags, quite racist. The story is full of stupid things that won't happen in the real world – a group of kids bursting into a courtroom in order to derail a murder trial so that they can clear the defendant – in real life, the kids would be ejected from court or questioned by the police before allowed to give their testimony. Even Judge Judy, the queen of daytime court shows, wouldn't simply let this kind of thing happen. The haunted house format is used for some cliché gags with skeletons in upright coffins, 'dead' bodies in closets, the old 'sinister eyes peering through a painting' chestnut that never fails to make me laugh & the stupid idea of having the villain – George Zucco – in a gorilla suit. The film is ridiculous & should be relegated to the dust bin of obscurity.