A Special Salute To Georgia Jean LaRue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                              Why do I even think of these things, darlings????  I guess, like Mrs. Lovett says in "Sweeney Todd," "Bright ideas just pop into my head!"

                               I got to thinking the other day about Georgia Jean LaRue.  Now, I will not blame any of my girls, if they do not recognize the name, BUT I am  sure some out there will have a vague recognition of the photo, and, once I tell you the whole thing, you will say, "Oh, yes!"

                                 This is Georgia, pictured above, performing in the 1937 Little Rascals short, "Reunion In Rhythm."  This is the one where the Adams Elementary School has a reunion, with older members of Our Gang--like Stymie, Mickey Daniels and Mary Lawrence--attending a sit down luncheon, while the reigning members perform a revue.

                                 The revue features three standout moments.  The first is a running gag, where Buckwheat, meant to announce the acts, but wanting to perform, keeps trying to recite the nursery rhyme, "Little Jack Horner."   The other, which I adore, is a sketch called "The Toy Shop At Midnight.," where the store is closed, and out of two gift boxes step Darla, dressed as a baby doll, and Porky, as a toy soldier, a la  "Babes In Toyland."  One of them has a big lollipop.  Sitting beside one another, on toy blocks, Darla does the most enchanting rendition of the song "Baby Face" I have heard to this day.

                                 Georgia's moment comes at the end.  Alfalfa is a hayseed farmer, content with how things are.  He is engaged to marry "Mirandy," played by Georgia.  But she will have none of it.  Explaining such, she walks out on him--the King of Crooners, darlings!!!!--but not before she brings down the house with a show stopping rendition of the song, "I'm Going Hollywood!"

                                  Now, you are all nodding, darlings!  Yes, Georgia was that girl!!!!!!  I have to tell you, the very first time I saw this, when I was a little kid, I thought Georgia was a grown woman, or at least a teenager, which, when you are a little kid, amounts to the same thing.  She was a good head taller than Alfalfa, and the voice that came out of this girl was not that of a child--she sounded like a full grown woman!!!!  Looking at it now, with my film acumen, she bears somewhat of a resemblance to Jane Withers, with the voice of a young Betty Hutton!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                 Which begs the question--why didn't this remarkable child go any further????.  She only appeared in another famous Little Rascals short, almost everyone's favorite, the classic "Our Gang Follies Of 1938."  In Club Spanky, after Darla sings "The Love Bug Will Get You If You Don't Watch Out," she zaps this patron couple with her wand.  Georgia is the wife, and she gets up, and, in that Huttonsque voice,  sings "That Foolish Feeling In My Heart."

                                  To this day, I cannot hear or sing "I'm Going Hollywood," without being influenced by Georgia, who, according to research, is still alive, and living somewhere in Tennessee.  Many ex-child stars have written or discoursed on the careers they had; Georgia should speak on the career she SHOULD have had--and why she didn't.

                                   So, the next time you see these segments, on TV, YouTube, or DVD, remember that is Georgia Jean LaRue you are seeing and hearing!!!!!!!!!!!!  Hers was a star that should have risen!!!!!!!!!!!

                                    Meanwhile, girls, mine is just breaking over the mountains!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!