Crying was child actor Jackie Cooper's stock-in-trade for years. His ability to shed tears in Skippy (1931), the film that made him a star, brought him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor at the tender age of nine. Later that year, he sobbed through The Champ (1931) as Wallace Berry's devoted son. So, naturally, for his first solo vehicle at MGM, the studio found him a story that would let him turn on the waterworks. In this adaptation of William Johnston's novel Limpy: The Boy Who Felt Neglected, he stars as a boy confined to a leg brace. Between his over-protective parents and bullying cousin, he has plenty to sob about until great Uncle Jonas (Charles "Chic" Sale) teaches the child how to live with his disability. For all the studio's efforts to craft the film as a vehicle for Cooper, however, the picture was stolen by Sale as his garrulous great uncle. The vaudeville comic had only appeared sporadically in films until 1930, when a Broadway flop sent him to Hollywood in search of steadier employment. With his knowledge of make up and physical comedy, he soon developed a line playing old men. He was only in his forties when he played a 70-year-old in this film.

By Frank Miller