Silent films - Mary, Queen of Tots (Our Gang Comedy)

Do you remember "Our Gang" or maybe they are more familiar to you as "The Little Rascals"?
I think it's about time we had a look at one of the films from this popular series!
Today I got "Mary, Queen of Tots" from 1925 for you.

Public domain via Wikipedia

"Little Mary of the Big House - - Father and mother are always too busy to remember that they love her - -"
Mary is lonely in the big house. Her governess is very strict and doesn't even allow her dolls. Her only friend is the gardener.

After finding Mary in the bathroom with a very wet dog, the governess tells her to stay in her room. Mary kicks a few things with a lot of verve and then sits on her bed crying.

Not to worry, though. Her gardener friend is approached by a lady who makes dolls together with her husband, and he buys four and sneaks into Mary's room to give them to her.
Mary reads to her new friends, but gets tired and falls asleep on the floor. The dolls and two plush animals, a dog and a donkey, come to life and explore the room.

When the governess comes in to check on Mary before going out, she finds the dolls and throws them right into the bin (which is an absolute shame as the dolls look really amazing, also she could have put Mary on her bed ... we don't like her).

Mary wakes up and runs outside to look for her dolls, but she just finds four boys who look like them!

She hugs them which confuses them highly, asks them why they ran away, and takes them back to the big house showing them around. "- - And this is the dining room." I love the reply. "That interests me - Let's eat! - -" (That could have been me.)
While Mary goes to the kitchen for food, the boys - Joe, Jackie, Mickey, and Little Farina - explore the house. They use the tea trolley as a scooter, Farina struggles with a chapeau claque - an opera hat that keeps folding and unfolding by itself -, they all take turns falling down on what Mickey is sure to be a magic rug (in fact just a rug on a very slippery floor), and they get nervous about a very loud wireless shouting HEY at them.
When the governess returns, she's shocked to see the boys who so much look like the dolls she has thrown away. Mickey tells her they have been invited to dinner, but she goes off to fetch the police.
Meanwhile, the gardener has found the dolls in the bin and Mickey explains that they model for the dollmaker couple. He also warns them that the governess will bring back the police.

The boys quickly hide in the kitchen, so the policeman only finds the dolls. He asks Mary if the governess is crazy. She tells him she doesn't know for sure, "mebbe", and he takes the governess away.

In another short it says "Mary - - She causes all the fights in the neighborhood - And there's lots of them - -"
Mary Kornman was the leading female character in the "Our Gang Comedies" from 1922 to 1926. Although this short is from 1925, I know I read somewhere that it might be the story how Mary came to join the gang, if only I knew where!

"Our Gang" was created by Hal Roach who also worked with Laurel and Hardy and with Harold Lloyd.
Roach said that he saw a few kids fighting about the best stick in a yard and thought that although they would have forgotten about those sticks in a few hours, they were so important to them now, just because that's the way kids are. This gave him the idea of a kids and pets series.
While of course dated in some regards, "Our Gang" is simply about kids from a working class neighborhood (which can lead to fights with wealthier kids) - playing, being themselves, full of fantasy, ideas, and enthusiasm, but also innovative in avoiding chores or schoolwork.

Between 1922 and 1944, there were 88 silent shorts, 132 sound shorts, and one feature length film.
Obviously, there were different children involved over such a long time.

We watched "The Little Rascals" on TV when I was a kid, but I don't remember anything (but the dog). I watched a few of the films and chose this one because it's just cute, especially the scene when the dolls come to life and explore Mary's room.
I wouldn't be surprised if they wouldn't pop up on the blog every, now and then ...


Sources and further info:

1. The Our Gang Story: A History of "The Little Rascals". On the YouTube channel of Legend Films
2. Our Gang/The Little Rascals (Partially Lost 1920s Silent Short and Foreign Prints). On: Lost Media Archive