Skippy
US (1931): Family/Drama/Comedy
Percy Crosby's popular newspaper comic strip "Skippy" comes to life in this 1931 film. Designed as a vehicle for Our Gang's Jackie Cooper -- then all of nine years old -- Skippy jettisons most of the trenchant cynicism of Crosby's creation (the strip was something of a 1930s "Calvin and Hobbes") in favor of sentiment. Skippy, the son of the local health inspector (Willard Robertson) conspires with his best friend Sooky (Robert Coogan), a poor kid, to raise enough money for a dog license. The mutt in question is eventually shot by the mean dogcatcher, and the effect on Skippy and Sooky (not to mention the audience) is devastating. The tragedy leads Skippy's dad to soften his disciplinarian stance and to draw closer to his son. Skippy was followed by an even more lachrymose sequel, Sooky, also released in 1931. 25 years later, Jackie Cooper, by that time a prominent TV producer/director, tried to revive Skippy as a weekly series, with future "My Three Sons" co-star Stanley Livingston in the lead. (Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide)
This film is the source of the famous story in which director Norman Taurog (Cooper's real-life uncle) threatened to shoot the dog if Cooper did not cry on camera. Cooper did cry, and so did the audience. He became the first (and to-date, only) child actor to be nominated for a Best Acting Award.Skippy was unquestionably the first and only time a peanut butter was named after a movie.
4 nominations, 1 Award
· Directing 1930-31: Norman Taurog
· Best Picture 1930-31: Adolph Zukor, studio head
· Actor 1930-31: Jackie Cooper
· Writing (Adaptation) 1930-31: Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Sam Mintz