ShangLuda Admirable film.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Verity Robins Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "Thundering Fleas" is an "Our Gang" film from 90 years ago. The basics are the usual: It is silent, black-and-white and runs for slightly under 20 minutes. Writer an director have made many of these films, but this one here may have bigger names than usual in the cast as Charley Chase and Oliver Hardy appear as well. Unfortunately, they are only in here very briefly. Blink and you may miss them almost. The story is what the title says. The kids cause some trouble with their fleas and a poor dog pays the sacrifice. Overall, this was a pretty wild little movie, but it lacked the heart and comedy that some other "Our Gang" short films delivered. I do not recommend this one here. Nowhere near the best the series has to offer. The most interesting aspect may be the occasional animation, which is very unusual for the franchise.

classicsoncall This is probably the earliest Our Gang film short I've seen and it provided double the pleasure with a handful of Hal Roach regulars in support. Oliver Hardy in particular had a fairly significant role as a neighborhood cop, victim of a flea infestation that causes him to ditch his trousers and paint on a new set when one of the gang absconds with them. There was also the creative use of animation added to the live action, as the story introduces Garfield the Flea, starring act of 'Professor Clements Trained Flea and Insect Circus'. That was another first for this viewer, at least going this far back.I didn't recognize most of the Our Gang group in this one. My familiarity with them hearkens back to the Spanky and Alfalfa days, and I never caught this one as a kid growing up. But the antics are pretty much to speed with what I remember, as the kids wind up creating havoc in the most innocent of ways. You know, I can't help thinking that with the interracial component of these pictures, we would have a lot more tolerant society if everyone watched these before they started attending school.One last observation - I've come up with a little game for my family to holler out whenever someone spots a reference to Coke in a picture, and this might be it's earliest placement in a film that I've seen yet. There's a rather large advertising sign on the side of a building that you can't miss - 'Coca-Cola' in the distinctive trademark font one easily recognizes. For an instant, even though it's a black and white film short, you imagine seeing it in red.

F Gwynplaine MacIntyre 'Thundering Fleas' has been marketed on video as an Oliver Hardy and Charley Chase film. In fact, Hardy shows up only briefly (as a burly cop) but has some funny moments. Chase is glimpsed in only a tiny bit role, hiding behind what appears to be Chester Conklin's moustache. (From Chase's brief days at Mack Sennett's Keystone studio.) The best performance here is by James Finlayson: clean-shaven, but sporting an odd bit of lip-liner pencil that makes him look as if he's wearing Little Richard's moustache! Technically, this is an Our Gang comedy, starring some of my least favourite Hal Roach brats: ugly Mickey Daniels, hideous Joe Cobb and untalented Scooter Lowry. At least Mary Kornman and her sister Mildred are excellent here (as the bride's younger sister and flower girl), wearing prettier frocks and more elaborate hairstyles than usual. James Finlayson's son Alexander shows up as a boy in the wedding party. Long-time Laurel & Hardy nemesis Charlie Hall is seen briefly, but has almost nothing funny to do.Here's the plot: the kids collect some fleas, and then the fleas get loose at Martha Sleeper's posh wedding reception. There's one very unpleasant gag sequence early on, when the kids harvest fleas from the beard of a sleeping man, accidentally setting him on fire when their magnifying lens works as a burning-glass. I couldn't help being reminded of real-life occasions when juvenile delinquents have deliberately set fire to a tramp or homeless person as a 'joke'. In this movie, when the burning man jumps off a quay into the water, the scene is shot in a manner that emphasises the danger he's in, rather than playing for comedy. I just couldn't laugh.Several shots are badly framed. SPOILERS COMING. Near the end of this movie, there's a crude and unfunny animation sequence, depicting a flea that doesn't look remotely flea-like. This is followed by a gag that might have been funny if done properly. The fleas get loose near a statue of the Discobolus, and the statue comes alive and starts scratching himself. This gag MIGHT have been funny, except that I could clearly see the actor playing the statue (in body paint) fidgeting slightly before he was meant to start moving, so I knew that the 'statue' was alive all along.There's a lot of itching and scratching in this movie, but not much to laugh at. My rating: just 2 out of 10.

OldAle1 This is an early-middle period "Our Gang" 2-reeler, notable for two things primarily: a Stan Laurel-less Oliver Hardy appearance, just before the two first teamed up, and some fine use of animation involving an aggressive and very bright flea that escapes from his master's flea circus courtesy of the gang and proceeds to wreak havoc on a wedding party after first bothering a police Officer (Hardy). I had a lot of fun with this, probably the first Our Gang film I've seen in over a decade, and was impressed both with the naturalism of many of the child performances, and the sly mimicry of the adult world that goes on throughout (the film opens with the kids staging their own mock wedding). The YouTube video I watched appears to be complete but the resolution isn't all that great.