It's a Bear (1924)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
This Our Gang short is better than average but there still aren't enough laughs to make it a complete success. The story is pretty simple as the kids pretend to be hunting a variety of animals when they're invited to a farm where they try to capture real game. This gets boring after a while so they decide to try and track a bear but soon it's the bear stalking them. This Hal Roach comedy only contains a few laughs but there are a few notable scenes in its 20-minute running time. The highlight of the film has to be a scene where the kids are playing with a bow and arrow when a farm hand gets poked a couple times and goes after Joe who was the last one with it. Joe also has another memorable moment in a non-PC way. He looks up to one of the adults at the farm who just happens to be smoking a cigarette. Later in the film Joe tries to imitate him by smoking a cigarette and ends up getting sick from it. The final five-minutes is when the bear finally joins the action and this here features a lot of running around by the kids as they try to avoid the small creature. Joe and Farina get a couple good scenes here but just don't expect many big laughs.