One should know that what was once insanely popular in one generation is pretty much forgotten in the next. Such is the case with both the source material and film adaption of Skippy. Innocent, sweet and charming, Skippy is a delight.
Little Skippy Skinner (Jackie Cooper) is at heart a good kid, though prone to get into trouble. Though he is the son of wealthy Doctor Skinner (Willard Robertson), Skippy likes to slum it on the literal wrong side of the tracks, which he considers more fun. In Shantytown, Skippy is unofficial leader of a tween gang and soon bonds with a local boy, Sooky (Robert Coogan). Sooky's whole life is his dog, Penny, though the dog is technically illegal as Sooky's family is too poor to afford the $3 license.
Skippy does his best to scheme his way to get those $3. His efforts at getting at his savings flop, so he organizes a benefit, where Eloise Sanders (Mitzi Green), the girl who is sweet on Skippy, will be the openly hammy star. It is all for naught, as the evil dogcatcher Mr. Nubbles (Jack Rube Clifford) uses the money raised to repair the windshield Skippy and Sooky had accidentally damaged. It does not help that Mr. Nubbles is father to Harley Nubbles (Donald Haines), the Shantytown tween bully. More complications come when Skippy learns that his father believes the best thing to do is shut Shantytown down and has the power to do so. Will Skippy succeed in his efforts to save Penny and Shantytown?
What makes Skippy so successful is that we get this story from the kids' point of view. Skippy does not pretend to be highbrow. Instead, it is very open about how these kids, in their own world, operate. There are little touches that give us this perspective which make Skippy so sweet and delightful. At the benefit show, there is an offer for what they bill as a "cachurs gluv" for 31 cents. The use of the phonetic spelling shows the first commitment to making Skippy as real as possible.
The simplicity and directness in Skippy become more amusing when these kids attempt to take adult situations. Skippy's best friend and Eloise's brother Sydney (Jackie Searl) tells Skippy that he cannot fight anyone, even the smaller Sooky. "I'm nervous and I'm strung high", he tells Skippy. Later, Skippy asks Sooky, "What does your father do?". Sooky replies, "He just stays where he is. He's dead". It is said so matter-of-factly in a thoroughly innocent and guileless way that it makes it all the more hilarious.
A perhaps less-noted aspect in Skippy is how the kids are quite free of prejudice. There is one black member of Skippy's Shantytown gang, the perhaps ironically named Snowflake. None of the kids ever exclude him from the goings-on. His race is never mentioned or noted. He even participates in the benefit show when he is part of the sawing in half act. The fact that Sooky, who is supposed to be the one being sawed in half, has a white head but black feet make the scene sweeter.
Director Norman Taurog, who won Best Director for Skippy and was the youngest Best Director winner for decades until Damien Chazelle won for La La Land, should be credited for being able to get solid performances from his mostly child cast. Granted, the story of how Taurog got his nephew Cooper to cry by threatening to shoot his dog is cruel.
Minus that, the performances from everyone in Skippy are delightful. Jackie Cooper received a Best Actor nomination for the title role, making him at age nine the youngest nominee in this category. He more than earned that nomination. Skippy is sweet and well-meaning even when disobeying. Sydney bemoans how he and Skippy went to Shantytown despite Skippy's promise to his father that he would not go over the railroad tracks. Skippy replies that he kept his word to Doctor Skinner in that he did not cross over the railroad tracks. They went under them.
We first see Skippy calling out to his mother that he is getting dressed even though he is still in bed. Once he hears his father calling, one never saw a kid jump out of bed that fast. Cooper had the comic bits down well. However, Cooper was able to move your heart and bring you to tears. Late in the film, Skippy is praying for Sooky, devastated by the loss of Penny. Skippy's sincerity and compassion gets to you. Few child actors were able to cry as effectively as Jackie Cooper, his sweet face and genuine acting performance moving the viewer.
The other child cast members were equally strong. Robert Coogan was delightful as Sooky, so much so that he got his own film in a sequel. To be fair, Coogan was not on Cooper's level, but as he was much younger one can cut him some slack. Coogan has a wonderful moment where he applies a certain logic on how Penny is more thoroughbred than genuine thoroughbreds. It is an amusing moment where Coogan draws attention away from Cooper, not an easy task.
Searl and Greene were amusing as Skippy's wealthy friends, forever getting roped or roping themselves into Skippy's newest ventures. Haines' Harley Nubbins balanced being the bully with being himself bullied by his father.
In one scene, Harley was actually sympathetic. In their efforts to get money to bail Penny out, Skippy and Sooky see that Harley had bought himself an ice cream cone. Both of them do want the money but also a taste of Harley's ice cream. For once, Harley is the innocent party as his frenemies attempt to hoodwink him out of money and ice cream.
Skippy is a genuine cinematic treat: sweet, innocent and appealing to mass audiences. I think both the film and the comic book series it is based on have mostly been forgotten. If anything, more than likely if Skippy is mentioned, it will be the peanut butter that comes to mind, not the Academy Award-winning film. That is a real shame, for Skippy is a wonderful film, taking the child's perspective and giving us a nice glimpse on their unique brand of logic. A simple story told and acted well, Skippy charms.
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