A gang of cute kids tries to right a wrong by sneaking into a gloomy mansion to find evidence that will exonerate an adult friend.
Looks almost like the 60-minutes was thrown together. It's like the producers thought they could just have the kids react to every spooky old house cliché and that would be enough. Unfortunately it's not. Basically the kids run hither, thither, and yon without plot or characterization. And when not just running around, there's freckle-face Speck (Belding) scrunching out a barely audible scream, again, again and again. All this may save on script, but it also gets tiresome. Meanwhile, movie vets like Grey, Mitchell, and the perennially sinister Zucco, get little more than a few lines and cameo appearances.,
Frankly, I liked Hal Roach's previous Our Gang attempt, Curley (1947), better. Too bad these attempts failed, but judging from Doc Robbin, the studio was pretty much at sea in knowing what a new formula might look like. After all, it's hard, if not impossible, to replace the likes of Spanky, Alfalfa, and Stymie.
Looks almost like the 60-minutes was thrown together. It's like the producers thought they could just have the kids react to every spooky old house cliché and that would be enough. Unfortunately it's not. Basically the kids run hither, thither, and yon without plot or characterization. And when not just running around, there's freckle-face Speck (Belding) scrunching out a barely audible scream, again, again and again. All this may save on script, but it also gets tiresome. Meanwhile, movie vets like Grey, Mitchell, and the perennially sinister Zucco, get little more than a few lines and cameo appearances.,
Frankly, I liked Hal Roach's previous Our Gang attempt, Curley (1947), better. Too bad these attempts failed, but judging from Doc Robbin, the studio was pretty much at sea in knowing what a new formula might look like. After all, it's hard, if not impossible, to replace the likes of Spanky, Alfalfa, and Stymie.