Little Rascals : Big Business

Year Published: 1924

Creator: Niles Film Products

Complete Record: The Gang is managing its own barber shop, with harrowing results. No one gets hurt, but most of the customers wind up bald or close to it-- one kid even gets a prematurely fashionable Mohawk. Scenes involving close calls with sharp scissors might make some viewers wince, while the manicurist uses a device that looks like a wire-cutter. Another gag features a simple bit of trick photography, when barber Joe Cobb appears to use the bald head of one of his customers as a mirror. A baby in a highchair is given a fearsome-looking straight razor to play with. The basic plot involves a sissified rich kid in a Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit who breaks away from his repressive mother, gets his hated ringlets shorn off in the kids' barber shop, and proves he's a regular guy by triumphing in a fistfight. Freckle-faced Mickey Daniels is a strange choice to play the rich kid, as he just doesn't look the part-- his "sissy" outfit looks like a Halloween costume, not his normal apparel --but it hardly matters, as the story is secondary to the procession of gags in the barber shop.