| General Spanky | |
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| Directed by | Fred Newmeyer Gordon Douglas |
| Written by | Richard Flournoy John Guedel Carl Harbaugh Hal Yates |
| Produced by | Hal Roach |
| Starring | George McFarland Phillips Holmes Rosina Lawrence Billie Thomas Carl Switzer |
| Cinematography | Art Lloyd Walter Lundin |
| Music by | Marvin Hatley |
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| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Release date |
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Running time | 71 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
General Spanky is a 1936 American comedy film produced by Hal Roach. A spin-off of Roach's popular Our Gang short subjects, the film stars George McFarland, Phillips Holmes, Rosina Lawrence, Billie Thomas and Carl Switzer. Directed by Fred Newmeyer and Gordon Douglas, it was originally released to theaters on December 11, 1936, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).
This film, a Civil War period piece, was intended as an experiment to determine if Roach could move Our Gang into features, as the double feature and block booking were slowly smothering his short subjects production. The film was a box-office disappointment and, after another year of shorts production, Roach ended up selling the Our Gang unit to MGM in May 1938.
When Roach bought the rights to the back catalog of Our Gang films he had produced from MGM in 1949, he did not buy back the rights to General Spanky. The film was part of the pre-May 1986 MGM catalog acquired in 1986 by Turner Entertainment Co., which holds the rights today as a subsidiary of Warner Bros. General Spanky was released on VHS and LaserDisc in 1991. In 2016, it was released on DVDinRegion 1 by Warner Bros. via their Warner Archive Collection.
Spanky (George McFarland), Alfalfa (Carl Switzer), Buckwheat (Billie Thomas) and others form an army called "The Royal Protection of Women and Children Regiment Club of the World and Mississippi River". The group sees unexpected action when Union troops approach, engaging in battles more farcical than fierce. Using clowning tactics instead of military tactics, the kids stop the advance . . . and later save an adult friend from the firing squad.
The film was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Best Sound Recording (Elmer A. Raguse).[1]
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