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Curley (Larry Olsen) and his classmates are distraught because they lose their beloved teacher (Helen Brown) in marriage to an army man (Robert Bentley), and then Curley finds out (or thinks he does) his new teacher is an old dragon (Edna Holland), so he and his friends decide to play some nasty pranks on her to chase her off. On his way to school though, Curley hails a ride with lovely Mildred (Frances Rafferty), and he spills out all the tricks they want to play on the teacher to her ... to later in class learn that Milded is in fact their new teacher, and knowing about all the little tricks, she makes sure they backfire with nobody coming to actual harm. Only Curley's coup de grace, to smoke out the classroom, goes off by accident, leaving him in tears and running away - and it leaves Mildred puzzled, as she was sure she had already figured him out and diffused the situation.

The afternoon of her first day, Mildred takes the kids to a picnic, only Curley's too ashamed to come as he thinks he has made her lose her job. Mildred though is a hit with the other kids, and gets a raving appraisal, and eventually she manages to track down Curley to make up with him over icecream and cake.

Curley was Hal Roach's attempt to come up with a new series (shot in somewhat unreal CineColor) to rival the success of his former superhit Our Gang - but after just one more film (Who Killed Doc Robbin?) the series was scrapped, and frankly from watching this movie it's not hard to see why: Most of the gags in the film seem stale, the "cute kids" angle is over-emphasized to a degree that the story is smothered ... and really, there isn't much of a story in the first place, the main conflict (Curley being embarrassed by what he did to his teacher) is lame, its resolution a non-climax, and the way to get to the resolution lacks excitement. Really, there are better ways to kill some 50-odd minutes.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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