Directed by:
Norman TaurogScreenplay:
Joseph L. MankiewiczCinematography:
Karl StrussComposer:
John LeipoldCast:
Jackie Cooper, Mitzi Green, Willard Robertson, Jackie Searl, Enid Bennett, Douglas Haig, Dannie Mac Grant, Helen Jerome Eddy, Guy Oliver, Donald Haines (more)Plots(1)
Percy Crosby's popular newspaper comic strip Skippy comes to life in this 1931 film. Designed as a vehicle for Our Gang's Jackie Cooper -- then all of nine years old -- Skippy jettisons most of the trenchant cynicism of Crosby's creation (the strip was something of a 1930s Calvin and Hobbes) in favor of sentiment. Skippy, the son of the local health inspector (Willard Robertson) conspires with his best friend, Sooky (Robert Coogan), a poor kid, to raise enough money for a dog license. The mutt in question is eventually shot by the mean dogcatcher, and the effect on Skippy and Sooky (not to mention the audience) is devastating. The tragedy leads Skippy's dad to soften his disciplinarian stance and to draw closer to his son. Skippy was followed by an even more lachrymose sequel, Sooky, also released in 1931. Twenty-five years later, Jackie Cooper, by that time a prominent TV producer/director, tried to revive Skippy as a weekly series, with future My Three Sons co-star Stanley Livingston in the lead. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Cast
Jackie Cooper
USA
Best movies:
Producers' Showcase (1954) (series)
The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)
Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (2006)
Mitzi Green
USA
Best movies:
Paramount on Parade (1930)
Santa Fe Trail (1940)
Willard Robertson
USA
Best movies:
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)
The Last of the Mohicans (1936)
To Each His Own (1946)
Jackie Searl
USA
Best movies:
Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936)
Paramount on Parade (1930)
The Paleface (1948)
Enid Bennett
Australia
Best movies:
Strike Up the Band (1940)
Robin Hood (1922)
Waterloo Bridge (1931)
Douglas Haig
USA
Best movies:
Wings (1927)
The Scarlet Letter (1926)
The Strong Man (1926)
Dannie Mac Grant
USA
Best movies:
The Big Trail (1930)
The Champ (1931)
Platinum Blonde (1931)
Helen Jerome Eddy
USA
Best movies:
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Strike Up the Band (1940)
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Guy Oliver
USA
Best movies:
Beggars of Life (1928)
The Last Command (1928)
Male and Female (1919)
Donald Haines
USA
Best movies:
Manhattan Melodrama (1934)
Boys Town (1938)
Three Comrades (1938)
Robert Coogan
USA
Best movies:
The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)