Clip description
After they rescue Hector from captivity in the Twirt mansion, with the help of Madeline Twirt (Eileen Alexander) and her lovesick suitor Horatio John Wart (Jimmy Taylor), the gang members realise they’ve run out of time. Wart offers to fly Hector to the racetrack in his aeroplane, but Hector falls to earth when the pilot shows off by doing a loop-the-loop. Fortunately, the aerial goat lands in a pond, where he’s reunited with the gang.
Curator’s notes
The film has a likeable sense of the absurd – at least if you’re not the poor goat. Hector gets flung into the pond by persons unknown, but you can just see their arms as they let him go at the top of the screen. The aeroplane used in this sequence belonged to a well-known aviator and aircraft designer, EW Percival. One of the likely influences on the film, apart from The Sentimental Bloke, was probably the American ‘Our Gang’ series of comedies in which a gang of street kids is always getting into scrapes.