The little son of a doctor makes friends with a poor kid from shantytown.
First time viewing for me and I liked it very much. Jackie Cooper is great in the title role, so much that he got an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. The thing I liked most about this was how it shows what it is like to be a kid, especially in the early 1930s but still has some timeless quality. All the children in this film seem like real kids, not actors. It has a bit of Our Gang vibe to it, as in the scenes where the kids put on a show and sell lemonade. Cooper and Donald Haines were both members of Our Gang. Haines played a bully in this, just as he did in the Our Gang short The First Seven Years (1930) . Cooper and Haines appeared together in that one too.
Some interesting trivia is that Jackie Cooper was at the Oscar ceremony but fell asleep on Marie Dressler's arm, so he did not hear that he lost to Lionel Barrymore in A Free Soul. Norman Taurog, the director did win for this. He was Cooper's uncle (by marriage). This became infamous years later when Cooper revealed that Taurog got him to cry by pretending he was going to shoot Jackie's dog. His crying scene here is heartrending.
This movie is a MUST for Jackie Cooper fans or for anyone who likes sentimental comedy/dramas of the early 1930s.
First time viewing for me and I liked it very much. Jackie Cooper is great in the title role, so much that he got an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. The thing I liked most about this was how it shows what it is like to be a kid, especially in the early 1930s but still has some timeless quality. All the children in this film seem like real kids, not actors. It has a bit of Our Gang vibe to it, as in the scenes where the kids put on a show and sell lemonade. Cooper and Donald Haines were both members of Our Gang. Haines played a bully in this, just as he did in the Our Gang short The First Seven Years (1930) . Cooper and Haines appeared together in that one too.
Some interesting trivia is that Jackie Cooper was at the Oscar ceremony but fell asleep on Marie Dressler's arm, so he did not hear that he lost to Lionel Barrymore in A Free Soul. Norman Taurog, the director did win for this. He was Cooper's uncle (by marriage). This became infamous years later when Cooper revealed that Taurog got him to cry by pretending he was going to shoot Jackie's dog. His crying scene here is heartrending.
This movie is a MUST for Jackie Cooper fans or for anyone who likes sentimental comedy/dramas of the early 1930s.