General Spanky

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General Spanky

Cover for VHS release of General Spanky.
Directed by Fred Newmeyer
Gordon Douglas
Produced by Hal Roach
Written by Richard Flournoy
John Guedel
Carl Harbaugh
Hal Yates
Starring George "Spanky" McFarland
Phillips Holmes
Rosina Lawrence
Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas
Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer
Music by Marvin Hatley
Cinematography Art Lloyd
Walter Lundin
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s) December 11, 1936
Running time 71 min.
Language English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

General Spanky is a 1936 motion picture produced by Hal Roach. A spin-off of Roach's popular Our Gang short subjects, the film stars George "Spanky" McFarland, Phillips Holmes, Rosina Lawrence, Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas, and Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer. Directed by Fred Newmeyer and Gordon Douglas, it was originally released to theatres on December 11, 1936 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).

This film, a Civil War period piece, was intended as an experiment to determine if Roach could move Our Gang into features, as the double feature and block booking were slowly smothering his short subjects production. The film was a box office disappointment, and, after another year of shorts production, Roach ended up selling the Our Gang unit to MGM in May 1938.

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