Skippy (1931)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Skippy |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1931 |
| length | 85 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Norman Taurog |
| script |
Joseph L. Mankiewicz , Sam Mintz , Norman Z. McLeod , Don Marquis |
| production | Louis D. Lighton |
| music | John Leipold |
| camera | Karl Struss |
| occupation | |
| |
Skippy is a 1931 American comedy film directed by Norman Taurog and based on the comic strip of the same name by Percy Crosby .
action
Skippy, a wild, boisterous boy, is the son of doctor Dr. Herbert Skinner and his wife Ellen. Herbert Skinner sees a social and health problem in the Shantytown ghetto, which is separated from the rest of the city by a railway line. Therefore, he forbids his son to play there. But of course the boy does not abide by the ban.
One day Skippy and his friend Sidney are playing in Shantytown. You're helping one of the boys, Sooky, deal with the Harley Nubbins bat. The three boys become friends. Inadvertently, Harley breaks the windshield of his father's car with Skippy's jojo. To avoid the punishment, he now accuses Skippy and Sooky. Angry Mr. Nubbins demands money for the damage done.
Mr. Nubbins catches Sooky's dog and keeps it as collateral. Skippy slaughters his piggy bank and gives Sooky three dollars to trigger the dog, but Nubbins takes the money for the windshield. The boys are supposed to bring another three dollars for the dog. Skippy and Sooky spend the next two days selling lemonade and wood and doing street demonstrations. It'll make you two dollars. Skippy tries to borrow the missing dollar from his father, but Dr. Skinner doesn't give him any money. Thirty cents missing, but Skippy and Sooky visit Nubbins anyway. He tells them that the dog has since been shot. Sooky seeks consolation from his mother, while Skippy is angry with his father. He stays away from dinner and spends the night with Sooky.
When Skippy comes home the next morning, his father is waiting for him with a new bike. Skippy exchanges the bike with his girlfriend Eloise for her dog and brings the animal to Sooky. Dr. Meanwhile, Skinner has changed his mind about the residents of Shantytown. He buys a dog for Sooky and gives his mother a job. Instead of ensuring that Shantytown is demolished, he now wants to help its residents. He accompanies his son there and plays with him. In the process, he demolishes Mr. Nubbins' new windshield. The doctor wins the subsequent fight with Nubbins and shows Skippy that his father is also good at something.
background
It premiered on April 2, 1931 in Los Angeles and one day later in New York.
Robert Coogan was the younger brother of Jackie Coogan , who was probably Hollywood's best-known child star in the 1920s. For Robert it was his debut as an actor. Jackie Cooper, on the other hand, was already known for his appearances with the Little Rascals , as was Donald Haines. The other child actors Jackie Searl and Mitzi Green had also been in the film business for a long time.
Jackie Cooper was the nephew of director Norman Taurog, who needed a crying Skippy for one scene. Jackie struggled to bring up tears at the scene where he was told the dog that was being held had been shot. Taurog resorted to a rather brutal trickery. He ordered a man with a gun behind a truck to which the dog from the film (Jackie Cooper's own dog) was leashed. The man, out of sight of Jackie, shot a blank cartridge, causing Jackie to shed real tears. The scene could be shot, but Jackie could hardly be reassured, even when he was shown that his dog was alive. Even later, the event moved him so much that he named his autobiography Please Don't Shoot My Dog .
To date, the film is the only one based on a comic that was nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture . In the same year, almost the same team shot a sequel called Sooky , which, however, had less success.
The film is one of over 700 Paramount Pictures productions shot between 1929 and 1949, the television rights of which were sold to Universal Pictures in 1958 .
Reviews
Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times found Jackie Cooper to be a remarkable portrait in a film full of amusement and moving tenderness. Variety honored the child actors, screenwriters and director Taurog who would have turned the comic into an interesting film adaptation.
Awards
At the Academy Awards in 1931 , Norman Taurog was awarded the Oscar for Best Director . There were three other nominations in the categories of Best Film , Best Screenplay and Best Actor for Jackie Cooper, who was nine at the time, and the youngest person ever to be nominated for Best Actor.
Web links
- Skippy in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Skippy in the online film database
Individual evidence
- ↑ See Trivia on imdb.com
- ^ Mordaunt Hall : Two Boys and a Dog . In: The New York Times , April 4, 1931.
- ↑ See Skippy . In: Variety , 1931.