The Little Ranger
| The Little Ranger | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Gordon Douglas |
| Produced by | Jack Chertok |
| Written by |
Hal Law Robert A. McGowan |
| Music by | David Snell |
| Cinematography | Robert Pittack |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
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Release date
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Running time
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10' 38" |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Little Ranger is a 1938 Our Gang short comedy film directed by Gordon Douglas. It was the 169th short in the Our Gang series, and the first produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, who purchased the rights to the series from creator Hal Roach.
Snubbed by his girlfriend Darla, Alfalfa accepts the invitation of tomboyish Muggsy to attend the local picture show. While watching the adventures of his favorite cowboy star, Alfalfa dreams that he himself is a Wild West sheriff, with his pals Buckwheat and Porky as deputies. Naturally, Darla also figures prominently in Alfalfa's dream, as does his archrival Butch. What happens next determines Alfalfa's destiny when he wakes up from his dream.
Dix Davis, Tim Davis, Calvin Robert Ellison, Joe "Corky" Geil, Henry Lee, Joe Levine, Harold Switzer, Fred Walburn
The Little Ranger was the first Our Gang entry to be produced at MGM. By 1936, Hal Roach, who had produced the series at his studio since 1922, had wanted to get out of the increasingly less profitable short subjects market and into feature films. While Roach successfully moved Laurel and Hardy into features and began producing several other feature properties such as Topper, the Our Gang feature General Spanky was a box office failure and MGM persuaded Roach to keep the series in production as a series of one-reel shorts.
Roach constantly fought with MGM to get distribution for a larger number of feature film releases as the studio's short subject output was reduced to only the Our Gang one-reelers. In early 1938, United Artists offered Roach a more lucrative and flexible distribution deal, prompting him to end his deal with MGM. This was done by delivering a final Roach-MGM Laurel and Hardy feature, Block-Heads, canceling two "All-Star" musical features Roach was contracted to produce for MGM, and selling the entire Our Gang unit to MGM.
The Our Gang sale - done at MGM's insistence rather than canceling the still-popular and profitable series - included the rights to the name, the contracts for the child actors and writers, and a provision that forbade Roach to produce any Our Gang-like films or to reissue the Our Gang films he had produced. Then-current Our Gang director Gordon Douglas was loaned out for a few months to launch the series at MGM, who would hire George Sidney as the permanent Our Gang director.
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