The Fourth Alarm

Fourth Alarm, The (1926)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Flat Our Gang short has the kids playing with firemen when the real pros are called away to fight a fire. While they're gone another fire breaks out and the kids are able to put it out by themselves so the fire chief makes them honorary firemen. Sure enough, it doesn't take long for another fire to break out and the Gang ends up causing more trouble. I must admit that THE FOURTH ALARM is probably the worst of the Our Gang silents that I've seen. I found the film to be incredibly hard to sit through and especially during the first ten minutes when there's not a single laugh to be had. There doesn't even appear to have been any attempt for a laugh to happen as all we get are scenes of the kids playing in water and eventually fighting a fire. None of the action here is all that memorable and even when the fire stuff does start it just isn't funny at all. It seems like without Mickey Daniels they were struggling to see who should carry the films. Joe and Farina get most of the action and Mary is here a tad bit more but they haven't too much to do.