War Feathers
About War Feathers
On a cross-country train the Our Gang kids take over a car for cowboys and Indians, using props from a novelty-company box, and the other passengers suffer. At the town of Red Dog they get off. An outlaw breaks jail with two partners, and the children end up at the bandits' hideout, the Whistling Clam ranch. Farina, who has swapped clothes with an Indian boy so the others will let him play, is carried off by a local tribe and then dosed from a book of horse medicine. He gets the bandits to drink the castor oil themselves. A mule starts a chain of accidents that drops the outlaws down a well, where the sheriff can take them.
Cast & crew
More about War Feathers
Robert F. McGowan directed, with his nephew Anthony Mack (Robert A. McGowan). Hal Roach wrote the story and produced with F. Richard Jones. H. M. Walker wrote the titles. Richard C. Currier edited. Pathé Exchange released the two-reeler on 21 November 1926. It is the 54th Our Gang short.
Themes
Making
Roach's Our Gang unit made it as a Western parody in two reels, with McGowan directing the regular child company and Currier cutting.
Preservation
A print survives. The Internet Archive holds a copy, and Wikipedia points to it as free to view.
Notes
- Joe Cobb, Jackie Condon, Johnny Downs, Allen "Farina" Hoskins, Jannie Hoskins (as Mango), Mildred Kornman, Scooter Lowry, Jay R. Smith, Bobby Young, and Peggy Ahern play the gang.
- Sam Lufkin is the sheriff. Dinah the Mule plays herself. Ham Kinsey is the conductor.
- The hideout is called the Whistling Clam.
- Scooter's sneeze gives the children away after Joe sticks a ham label over his mouth.
- Wikipedia notes that the short is free to view at the Internet Archive.
Scenes
- The gang turns a train car into a cowboy-and-Indian game.
- Farina talks the bandits into finishing the castor oil themselves.
- Dinah the mule sets off the tumble that lands the outlaws in a well.
Also available
- Internet Archive (OurGangWarFeathers1926)
