"Birthday Blues" is an American black-and-white film from 1932, so still relatively the early days of sound film and one of the dominating (recurring) forces in film back then were the Little Rascals and here we have another film with the that runs for slightly under 20 minutes as they mostly do. The title already gives away that it is birthday time, but not for one of the Rascals, but for his mother actually. And it's Dickie's. The Rascals shorts frequently have one member of the gang in the center and this time it is him, one of the few (male) Rascals who led a life that wasn't cut really short for whatever unnatural reason. Dickie wants to get his mother a present as his dad seems to be ignoring her (birthday) completely. Kind boy he is. But things are not always the way they seem as the ending tells us. The best moment of it all by today's standards is when we hear how they considered 2 dollars (or 1,99) a decent amount of money. O tempora, o mores. Anyway, I personally am not the very biggest rascals fan and this one here could not change it for me. Hasn't aged too well in my opinion sadly, especially in terms of the comedy. And boy this one had a few annoying sound effects really. How could anyone find these funny. I give it a thumbs-down. Watch something else instead.
Review of Birthday Blues
