User Reviews

This Hal Roach comedy short, Ten Years Old, is the fifty-eighth in the "Our Gang/Little Rascals" series. As his leaving mother tells Joe she can't afford a cake, he resolves to make his own with help from baby sister Mildred and dog Pal. Lots of not-so-suitable stuff is put in like carpet tacks. When the cake is done, it's as big as the oven it was baked in! Meanwhile, rich boy Jackie also has a birthday party that day and invites many of Joe's friends to come also. So the rest of the gang resolves to eat Jackie's fancy refreshments before heading to Joe's. When only Farina and little sister Jannie arrive at Joe's a little late, Joe confronts Jackie at his house before Jackie suggests he bring his cake. With that, the kids all eat the unusual ingredient-filled wonder that has a bar of soap in one slice. It all comes to a close at the gift giving when Farina gives a "kitten"-actually a skunk...This short that I saw on YouTube was truncated from a two-reeler (usually 20 minutes) to about 12 minutes with the split at the six-minute cut. Also, all inter-titles were removed so some of what I wrote in the synopsis came from the book "The Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang" by Leonard Maltin and Richard W. Bann. Pretty funny short with plenty of sight gags concerning the cake that keeps rising and squirting at the gangs faces. My favorite scene comes from the beginning when Joe and Mildred keep hitting each other with a cabinet door as they're preparing the cake. I just wish it was the completed version I'd seen especially since, once again, the poster did a very good job in adding the familiar LeRoy Shield "Little Rascals" score as performed by the Beau Hunks Orchestra. The director here was not regular Robert McGowan but his nephew Anthony Mack. His name is actually Robert Anthony McGowan with his uncle being Robert Francis. Mack is not considered as talented as his uncle but here at least, the gags are well filmed. So on that note, I cautiously recommend Ten Years Old and hope another commentator will eventually review a complete version on IMDb. Update-4/7/16: I've now seen the completed version on YouTube with all titles intact. Rating gets upped from a 6 to an 8, same as its talkie remake in the series-Birthday Blues.