The best George McFarland’s movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best George McFarland’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about George McFarland.
The Woman in the Window
7.6/10
A seductive woman gets an innocent professor mixed up in murder.
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine
6.8/10
A well-established tale of a long-running feud between two mountain clans.
Kentucky Kernels
5.9/10
The Great Elmer and Company, two out-of-work magicians, help lovelorn Jerry Bronson adopt Spanky Milford, to distract him. When Bronson makes up and elopes, the pair are stuck with the little boy. But Spanky inherits a Kentucky fortune, so they head south to Banesville, where the Milfords and Wakefields are conducting a bitter feud.
Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage
7.8/10
Out-takes (mostly from Warner Bros.), promotional shorts, movie premieres, public service pleas, wardrobe tests, documentary material, and archival footage make up this star-studded voyeuristic look at the Golden age of Hollywood during the 30s, 40, and 50.
General Spanky
5.9/10
Orphaned shoeshine boy Spanky is working on a Mississippi riverboat during the Civil War. There he befriends young runaway slave Buckwheat. After wronging a vicious gambler, Spanky and Buckwheat are forced to jump ship. Finding solace at a nearby house, the two are picked by Marshall Valiant for an important mission. This inspires Spanky to organize the local kids to form a small army of their own.
Hollywood’s Children
7.2/10
A documentary about child actors in Hollywood, exploring their history from the early days of film.
Bedtime Worries
7.4/10
Spanky's parents are trying unsuccessfully to get Spanky to spend a peaceful first night in his own room.
O'Shaughnessy's Boy
6.2/10
A circus wild animal trainer searches for the son who was taken away from him by a meddling relative years earlier.
The Famous Ferguson Case
6.4/10
A foreword warns against the peril of yellow journalism, and the story illustrates it by following events in the upstate New York town of Cornwall after prominant financier George Ferguson is killed. Two types of New York City journalists descend on Cornwall, one interested in facts, the other in getting sensational "news". Mrs. Ferguson is known to have been friendly with a local banker. The Fergusons quarrel the evening he is killed (by "burglers", his wife tells the police later), and she is arrested, spurred on by the "bad" journalists, who also manage to badger the banker's wife into the hospital. Meanwhile, young Bruce Foster runs the Cornwall Courier, and shows the big city reporters how to dig out real news while they attempt to subvert justice for their own ends.
Choo-Choo!
7.5/10
The gang trades places with a group of orphans about to take a train ride.
Spooky Hooky
6.9/10
The gang puts a phony absent note on their teacher's desk so they can go to the circus, then have to get it back when they find out that the class was going on a field trip to the circus anyway.
Practical Jokers
6.1/10
Butch has been playing practical jokes on the gang, but now they get their turn.
I Escaped from the Gestapo
5.5/10
A forger is forced to work for a Nazi spy ring. His conscience gets the better of him, though, and he secretly conspires with the FBI to turn over the gang.
Arbor Day
6.6/10
Truant officers mistake 2 midgets for members of the gang.
Seeing Hands
6.7/10
This serious Pete Smith Specialty series entry encourages industry to hire people with disabilities to help with the war effort. As a boy, Ben Helwig was blinded in an accident while playing baseball. He eventually acquired a guide dog and now works in a defense plant.
Honky Donkey
7.2/10
Wally, the rich kid of Our Gang team, brings his pet mule along with the gang back home.
Robot Wrecks
5.8/10
Spanky and the gang discover a demonstration of a "human-like" robot named Volto and are inspired to create a robot themselves to do their chores for them. Slicker Walburn convinces them they will need "invisible rays" to bring it to life which he just happens to have to sell to them. As they rush off to get their money, Slicker gets Boxcar Smith to wear the robot's outer body so when he "brings" the robot to life, it will be Boxcar bringing it to life. The gang unsuspectedly gets their robot to mow the lawn at Froggy's house, but with a signal from Slicker, Boxcar runs amok and mows down everything in his path. Froggy gets to explain what happened to his parents who bust up the fraud and get the miscreants to work with the gang to clean up the mess.
Football Romeo
6.7/10
Darla pretends to like Butch, hoping to motivate Alfalfa into a better performance in the football game against Butch's team.
Wedding Worries
5.8/10
The Our Gang kids worry that Darla's new stepmother will be an evil stepmother like of fairy tale fame.
The Pooch
7.5/10
The gang tries to save Petey from the dogcatcher.
