Review of Norbert Aping’s book THE FINAL FILM OF LAUREL AND HARDY: A STUDY OF THE CHAOTIC MAKING AND MARKETING OF ATOLL K

The following is the final entry in this blog’s self-anointed Laurel & Hardy Month. Wondering why we did this? Click on the above image for our explanation!

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(PREFACE: Atoll K, Laurel & Hardy’s final theatrical film, seems to have undergone some revisionist viewing over the last few years. As a result, there are L&H fans who find enough in the movie to enjoy it, while others share the initial general consensus [including Stan’s] that the film is a painful disaster to watch; count me among the latter. [Full disclosure: I showed the movie at one of my Tent meetings a few years ago, and most of the attendees said they really enjoyed it.]

I state all of this to show that my review of this book is obviously colored by my take on the movie. Your mileage may vary.)

I am of two minds after reading The Final Film of Laurel and Hardy (McFarland, 2009). On the one hand, the book is a meticulously researched and detailed history of L&H’s final movie. On the other hand, considering how mostly unbearable the book’s subject is to watch, the book is rather like using a state-of-the-art telescope to examine an anthill.

Author Norbert Aping obviously wrote this book with the best of intentions, and he probably did so at the right time. For decades, L&H legend maintained that (a) everything that needed to be said about L&H’s movies had been said by the late 1970’s; and (b), the quality of Laurel & Hardy’s movies went straight downhill after they left the Hal Roach Studios and were forced into the “studio system” manner of making movies. But Randy Skretvedt’s glorious L&H bio proved the first theory to be wrong, and Scott MacGillivray’s revisionist bio put the lie to the second theory. So Aping must have figured that the time was right to revisit Atoll K and show that it wasn’t nearly as bad as it’s been made out to be.

The trouble is that Atoll K — or Utopia, as it is more commonly known from public-domain tapes and DVDs — speaks for itself, often quite bitterly. If you start watching an L&H/Fox film with the knowledge that The Boys were often hampered by the studio system, there are still moments — indeed, entire scenes — of the Fox films that you can enjoy. But you can make all the excuses in the world for Atoll K, and yet once you are assaulted with Stan’s sickly appearance, Ollie’s larger-than-usual obesity, horribly dubbed foreign actors, and subplots that come and go with the wind, the movie practically talks you out of laughing at it for long stretches of time.

Aping is so eager to plead a positive case for the movie, he ends up doing his own schizophrenic dance trying to cover his tracks. At one point, he’ll tell you that distributors who were several generations removed from the original film have tampered with it and ruined it with editorial omissions. Then later, he’ll say that excisions which were never called for by the movie’s original makers have considerably improved the story and tempo of the movie.

Aping also points out that different countries’ versions of Atoll K (in America, England, and Europe) are very different from each other, ostensibly concluding that if we could get only one, clearly realized version of the movie, we’d all realize what a masterpiece it could have been. But unlike film buffs who still search the world for a complete print of The Rogue Song or Hats Off, there’s never been a documented case of anyone (other than, perhaps, Aping) who has viewed Atoll K and determined that there’s a pile of gold buried somewhere beneath this drek.

Also, as detailed as Aping’s book is, it still leaves several questions unanswered. One is why Stan Laurel — who, at the Roach Studios, was famous for throwing aside a script in favor of improvising his comedy — was so unquestionably attached to the notion that a good script would have made this movie better, when all evidence along the way demonstrated otherwise.

Another anomaly is that Aping is inexplicably pleased about any script development that shows the supporting characters carrying the majority of the plotline and/or the comedy. For a movie that its European producers were eager to plug as Stan and Ollie’s return to the big screen, it’s very bizarre that nobody connected with the movie was bothered by L&H being removed from the storyline (by mostly inferior and irritating supporting characters) for long scenes at a time.

Aping’s obvious research and good intentions are to be commended, and any L&H buff would like very much to believe that the movie Aping describes is the movie as it stands. But considering that the movie inspires more nausea and sorrow than laughs from its viewers, one is very surprised that Aping maintains, in his final line of the book, that “These two comic gentlemen had no need to be ashamed of their final film together.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Laurel & Hardy biographies – Two more

The following is the latest entry in this blog’s self-promulgated Laurel & Hardy Month. Why are we promulgating this? Click on the above image to learn more! (And by the way, go see Stan & Ollie — it’s wonderful!)

Still cleaning out the ol’ bookshelf! Sorry if I have missed any of your favorite Laurel & Hardy biographies, but to paraphrase a line from Citizen Kane, they’ve been writing Laurel & Hardy books for nearly 60 years,  and I’ve only been reading them for 45!

I have three L&H books left to cover. One of them is a huge volume on Atoll K, which I will critique in my next blog entry. Today, I will cover two of the more acclaimed L&H tomes.

The Films of Laurel & Hardy, by William K. Everson (1967)

[NOTE: Portions of this book are available for free online reading. Click here to go to the online link to this book.]

Let me begin by saying that I lapped up this book when I was first getting into Laurel & Hardy movies. (When I was in the sixth grade in school, I went so far as to write about it for a book report.) I must also say that I don’t think the book has aged very well.

For many years, The Films of Laurel and Hardy — later inexplicably and incorrectly re-titled The Complete Films of Laurel and Hardy — was one of the few print sources for an evaluation of L&H’s movie teamwork. For this reason, it occupies a warm place in the hearts of many L&H buffs.

It is still worth a look, but certain elements of William K. Everson’s book have dated badly. The entry on Laurel and Hardy’s short Duck Soup (1927) was written (as a “lost” film) a few years before it was rediscovered. (Everson eventually wrote a critique of the film in another book, Laurel and Hardy [1975], sadly out of print but reviewed elsewhere on this blog.) And another “lost” L&H film, Now I’ll Tell One (1927), is for obvious reasons not listed in the book. It’s a pity that Everson didn’t do an update on his book before his death.

Even without the film rediscoveries, the book is lacking in many ways. Everson’s claim that Block-Heads (1938) is a “Stan Laurel Production” is in no way backed up by either film historians or even the movie’s credits. (Laurel’s production credit appears only in Our Relations and Way Out West.) In the entry on Beau Hunks (1931), Everson writes, “Four reels was a clumsy length for Laurel and Hardy, and they never repeated it.” But they actually did, when they made A Chump at Oxford (1940) as one of Hal Roach’s “featurettes” of the time; it was only when the movie proved to be a hit that L&H added an extended prologue to the movie.

The most annoying aspect of the book, though, is how condescending it is, particularly in reference to L&H’s “studio movie” years when 20th Century-Fox and M-G-M took Laurel’s control away from their movies. Everson suggests that Stan and Babe might have been “tired and played out” by this point, even though they went on to tour Europe for many years after their Hollywood stint. In light of the oft-repeated fact that the studios insisted on using typical make-up on L&H, thus “aging” their characters, particularly cruel is a 1944 photo of a made-up Stan, with Everson’s caption, “Laurel’s age was really beginning to show by now.” Even a cursory reading of John McCabe’s bio Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy could have told Everson about the studio-inflicted problems which he attributes to old age.

In terms of individual critiques, the book is still likable enough, and the generous helping of photos and publicity shots doesn’t hurt. But in the half-century since The Films of Laurel and Hardy was first published, many other L&H biographies have far surpassed it in terms of factual accuracy and empathy towards The Boys.

The Laurel & Hardy Encyclopedia, by Glenn Mitchell (orig. published, 1995)

When it comes to L&H biographies, The Laurel & Hardy Encyclopedia ranks up with the best recent bios and John McCabe’s many tomes. Just as he did with the careers of Charlie Chaplin and The Marx Brothers, Glenn Mitchell has exhaustively researched every aspect of Laurel & Hardy’s screen and stage work and compiled it into one handy, dandy volume.

Just looking up the Encyclopedia’s entries is half the fun. Mitchell has, naturally, synopsized and critiqued all of L&H’s team movies (as well as other vaguely related entries, such as L&H co-star Anita Garvin’s two-reeler A Pair of Tights, co-starring Marion Byron in an attempt to create a female Laurel & Hardy). Mitchell also has individual entries related to theatrical matters (“Reissues,” “Titling”), as well as the team’s varied subject matter and gag inspirations (“Hats,” “Eggs,” “Rebellions – by Stanley”).

All of it is written in a breezy, charming style evocative of Laurel & Hardy’s finest film work. If you are watching L&H and want accessible, enjoyable access to what you’re watching, keep this book next to the TV.

(POSTSCRIPT: Although we cannot print them here for copyright reasons, we’d also like to recommend two excellent L&H-inspired short stories: Ray Bradbury’s “The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair” (1988; click on the story’s title to read it for free online), and Cynthia Rylant’s “A Crush,” printed in Rylant’s collection A Couple of Kooks and Other Stories About Love (1990; sadly, out of print).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STAN & OLLIE (2018) – Bringing two movie comedy legends to (real) life

We proudly share the following movie review as part of this blog’s self-designated Laurel & Hardy Month. What in the world is that, you ask? Click on the above image to learn more!

When a movie had good intentions but eventually went off the rails, the late film critic Roger Ebert used to say that the movie “knew the words but not the music.” In Stan & Ollie, the music is so lush and sweet, you can forgive the words being a little garbled sometimes.

What I mean by that is, if you go in expecting a 100% factual story about the later career of film comedians Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, you will leave the theater grumbling to yourself and ticking off a checklist of everything the movie got wrong. But if you go to see a heartfelt story about two talented comics in the twilight of their careers, you will be richly rewarded, even if you’re not a Laurel & Hardy fan.

The film addresses the period where Laurel (Steve Coogan) and Hardy (John C. Reilly) took to touring European music halls in the early 1950’s after any chances of making new movies had mostly dried up. For dramatic purposes, the film condenses a lot of the true story. L&H actually made three separate tours of Europe that were mostly successful. Here, it’s a single tour that doesn’t really take off until L&H do publicity in local towns to promote the show. A subplot of the movie is Stan trying to get financing for a L&H movie comedy based on the Robin Hood legend. In real life, there was an attempted Robin Hood project, but that had mostly fallen through the cracks by the time L&H began their initial tour.

One could keep on nitpicking like this all day long, but in the end, what one is left with is the movie’s characterizations and situations, and happily, these shine like the midday sun. Let me add to the chorus of voices that have already declared Coogan’s and Reilly’s acting work remarkable, and this is another area that transcends nitpicking. Coogan gets Laurel’s voice, body language, and (seemingly) thought processes down pat. And yes, Reilly does have layers of prosthetics to help him show us the real “Babe” (Hardy’s lifelong nickname). But that only further demonstrates how Reilly managed to convey a vulnerable person breaking through those pounds of fake flesh.

The supporting actors deserve kudos as well. Nina Arianda and Shirley Henderson convey strength and humanity as The Boys’ wives, fiercely protecting their men from the world (and each other). Rufus Jones is a smirky delight as tour producer Bernard Delfont, trying to act as though he cares about Stan and Babe’s welfare while keeping one eye on the box-office take. And Danny Huston displays appropriate gruffness as L&H’s indulgent movie producer Hal Roach. (Well-meaning L&H historians have stated that Roach comes off as too harsh in this movie. The lawsuits that sailed back and forth between Laurel and Roach in 1939 [not depicted in this film] indicate that Roach was indulgent of Laurel’s creativity but never shy about asserting his authority when necessary.)

If you aren’t familiar with Laurel & Hardy’s movies, you’ll still appreciate Stan & Ollie’s subtle and layered portrayal of their real-life friendship. If you are a fan of L&H, you’ll be amazed at how their real-life story (at least in this instance) parallels their movie comedies. The overwhelming theme of all of their movies was of two naive friends trying to hold their own against a hostile world. In telling their late-life story, Stan & Ollie only deepens that theme.

(If, by chance, you want to hear more of what I have to say about this wonderful movie, click here to visit my Laurel & Hardy podcast, Hard-Boiled Eggs and Nuts.)

Laurel & Hardy biographies – Way out worst

The following is this blog’s latest entry in its self-anointed Laurel & Hardy Month. Not sure what that means? Click on the above image to find out!

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Thus far this month, we have tried to showcase some of the best biographical books about Laurel & Hardy. But some authors, sadly, didn’t aim very high. We wanted to highlight these books as well in order to let the reader beware — and to, let’s face it, give you a derisive laugh or two!

Let’s start with a book that was at least initially well-intended…

A Fine Mess!, by Richard J. Anobile (1975)

A Fine Mess! might be of limited value to those Laurel & Hardy buffs who literally want to study their heroes’ movies frame by frame. The book’s excerpts are taken from The Crazy World of Laurel and Hardy (1967), a “clip” movie compiled by “Bullwinkle” creator Jay Ward. I’ve never seen this compilation but have often read that it is one of the weaker L&H compilation movies, and this book gives me no reason to think differently.

The weakest element of the book is the style of its “author,” Richard J. Anobile. In the early 1970’s, Anobile made his reputation by reproducing frame-by-frame printed books that compiled scenes from great ’30s comedians such as The Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields. It was inevitable that Anobile would eventually get around to dissecting L&H’s work.

This frame blow-up method was welcome in the pre-video age, but these days it’s hardly the best way to analyze movie comedy, and L&H’s work suffers most by this method. Fields and the Marxes, while they certainly have their visual element, relied heavily on verbiage, so this framing method communicates their comedy fairly well. In the case of L&H’s minimal dialogue, one is left to look mostly at individual sight gags. And unless Anobile could have printed the 24 frames that each second of sound film contains, his method couldn’t possibly illustrate the joy of an Ollie double-take or a Stan eye-blink of cognition.

One is left to turn the pages at a rapid rate a la an old “flip book” and try to imagine the movie as it really ought to be. Laurel and Hardy’s comedy isn’t completely obliterated by Anobile’s method, but still, one is better advised to look for the McCabe or Skretvedt biographies, which distill L&H’s comedy far less clinically and more lovingly.

The Laurel & Hardy Scrapbook, by Jack Scagnetti (1976)

Virtually the only virtue of The Laurel & Hardy Scrapbook is that it has some very nice casual photos of Stan and Babe that I’ve not seen anywhere else. Otherwise, the book contains: the standard information on how the boys teamed; misinformation in some photo captions (for example, claiming that Stan’s finger-lighting trick from Way Out West was prefaced by Stan’s pouring gasoline on his fingers [kids, don’t try this at home!!]); and worst of all, “promotional” material for Larry Harmon’s abysmal L&H cartoons and a short-lived L&H pizza-restaurant chain. The best L&H books are a labor of love; this one is a labor to endure.

Stan: The Life of Stan Laurel, by Fred Lawrence Guiles (1980)

This book is as far removed from a reverential, John McCabe-type biography as L&H’s Hal Roach films are from their Fox features. Guiles has achieved the dubious goal of painting Stan Laurel as the typical womanizing, alcoholic, cold-blooded Hollywood idol — much, in fact, like the silent-film-star stereotype whom Laurel fan Dick Van Dyke portrayed in Carl Reiner’s The Comic (1969). Guiles admits in his introduction that he relied heavily upon the memories of Laurel’s ex-wife Ruth, and predictably, the ex doesn’t paint a pretty picture.

Guiles also takes great liberties in making some of his points. One example is his supposition that The Music Box came about because Stan’s ideas had dried up and one of his gagwriters suggested, “in desperation,” that L&H remake their silent hit Hats Off. (Considering that the movie went on to become their most celebrated, award- [their only Oscar] and otherwise, all artists should have such dry spells.)

The book is quite readable but finally ends up as another attempted debunking of a comedy great. Since Laurel was among the first to point out his own flaws, this attempt to display every one of them often comes off as strident. Though the author acknowledges John McCabe’s help in assembling his story, one imagines McCabe himself regretting the collaboration.

The Boys: The Cinematic World of Laurel & Hardy, by Scott Allen Nollen (1989)

If Charles Barr’s book Laurel & Hardy is academic analysis that makes sense, The Boys is the antithesis. Despite the book’s dedication “to all people who have laughed at a Laurel and Hardy film,” and an attempt at legitimacy by sporting a foreward by seminal L&H biographer John McCabe, most of the book comes across as the same sort of literary pretentiousness that Laurel himself poo-poos in McCabe’s foreward. It offers a few interesting insights, but not enough to actively seek out the book. Far from reflecting the author’s admiration for L&H, the book seems mostly intent on showing its author in a bright academic light (Look, Ma! My own book!), and it mostly fails.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Laurel & Hardy biographies – The John McCabe Collection

This is yet another entry in this blog’s self-anointed declaration of Laurel & Hardy Month. Tell me that again, you say? Click on the above image for a full explanation!

As noted elsewhere on this blog, Prof. John McCabe (shown above) met Laurel & Hardy during one of their British music-hall tours, began a friendship with Laurel that lasted the rest of Laurel’s life, and wrote the first full-fledged biography of the team, Mr. Laurel & Mr. Hardy (1961), which helped to re-establish worldwide interest in L&H’s careers and filmography. That book has been reviewed elsewhere on this blog (click on the book’s title to link to the review), but happily, McCabe’s interest in chronicling Laurel & Hardy did not end there. Here are three other such books that McCabe wrote or co-wrote; as I have become far too used to stating, most of these books are long out of print but are well worth seeking out.

The Comedy World of Stan Laurel (1974)

Though it is McCabe’s famed 1961 book that regained attention for the duo, I find Comedy World even more intimate and satisfying. It’s as exhaustive a history of Stan Laurel and his comedy methods as you could wish for, filled with detailed descriptions of his early work, priceless scripts of L&H stage and radio sketches, lovely photos, and reminiscences by many of Stan’s acquaintances and cohorts, including his widow Ida. If you (rightfully) share McCabe’s view of Stan Laurel as a comedy genius, this book will only reaffirm your faith.

Laurel & Hardy (1975; co-written with Al Kilgore and Richard W. Bann)

This book was invaluable in the pre-video age, when L&H movies were readily available only at the behest of UHF-TV-station programmers. Video and DVD supplies of The Boys’ movies have rendered the book somewhat dated, but it’s still invaluable for its many priceless stills of The Boys, in character and in casual and publicity shots. It also has a preface containing numerous tributes to Stan and Ollie from many celebrities. Its only other debit (a minor one) is John McCabe’s precious verbose vocabulary. Otherwise, if you don’t have instant access to their movies, it’s a quite enjoyable introduction to them.

Babe: The Life of Oliver Hardy (1989)

John McCabe’s very first words in the book read, “At last, at long last, Oliver Hardy.” And while this is not McCabe’s best Laurel & Hardy biography, McCabe’s sense of satisfaction in giving tribute to Hardy as a superb actor and the comedic equal of Stan Laurel are momentum enough to keep the book’s energy flowing, even through the less inspired sections.

Those lesser parts mostly consist of yet more McCabe synopses of L&H films, a modus operandi far better executed in the 1975 opus referenced above. Granted, nearly 20 years after the book’s first printing, perhaps McCabe felt these synopses were justified. Still, such plot re-hashings have been done far better in previous publications.

Far more satisfying are the book’s in-depth looks at seemingly familiar chapters of “Babe” Hardy’s off-screen life: his Southern upbringing, his early show-business and movie turns, and most touchingly, his third, final, and happiest marriage to Lucille, the woman he met, wooed, and then proposed to on a movie soundstage before they’d ever had a single date. Lucille’s tacit understanding of Babe’s shyness and sensitivity, amply illustrated in excerpts from McCabe’s interviews with her, provide an emotional underpinning not often found in L&H biographies.

The book is also nicely rounded out with observations by celebrities such as James Cagney and Dick Cavett, who voice their belief that Babe’s comic acting was often superior to Stan’s (an opinion abetted by Stan himself in the book). While there is no need to denigrate either comedian in order to build up the other — it reminds one of the many pointless academic debates, held for decades, as to whether Chaplin or Keaton is the funnier film-maker — such observations do much to turn the tide for Oliver Hardy, who has indeed been oft-overlooked through the years in favor of his more creative partner. This book finally, rightfully, and gracefully gives Mr. Hardy his overdue due.

Bonus photo: A pic that McCabe took of Babe when he met him backstage (McCabe can be seen in the mirror’s reflection).

 

 

 

 

 

Review of Charles Barr’s book LAUREL & HARDY, and an interview with the author

The following is yet another entry in this blog’s self-proclaimed Laurel & Hardy Month. Click on the above image to see why we’re making all this fuss about Stan and Ollie!

(READERS: This is one of the most obscure Laurel & Hardy tomes, mostly because it has been out of print for several decades. But it was the first L&H-related book I ever read and it holds a special place in my heart for that, so please indulge me. Used copies of the book are available at Amazon.com, and it is well worth the trouble of seeking out.)

This book contains exactly the sort of dry analysis that usually kills comedy, but author Charles Barr’s love of his subject shows through enough to transcend his sense of faux symbolism. (Example: According to Barr, in Sons of the Desert, Stan’s eating a wax apple represents him trying to eat from Eden’s garden of knowledge but getting only a “dummy” knowledge since the apple is fake.) If you can get past that collegiate kind of stuff, you’ll be rewarded with lengthy and satisfying analyses of some of L&H’s most wonderful comedies.

Barr gives very short shrift to L&H’s post-Hal Roach work (deservedly so, but it makes for bad film history), and my personal peeve with the book is that he calls Helpmates “an irreducible masterpiece” and yet denies it the same sort of lengthy treatment he gives to a lesser movie like Early to Bed. But if that’s a complaint, it’s only because Barr is so on-target about most of the movies he critiques, one wishes for more instead of less. Overall, it’s a very satisfying study of L&H.

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My modest introduction to Laurel and Hardy occurred when I was 10 years old and came across a funny-looking book in the local library. So my eternal blossoming love for L&H can be traced to a long-out-of-print but lovingly written analysis by British film professor Charles Barr, simply titled Laurel and Hardy.

Barr (pictured above) has since moved on to other endeavors, among them serving as film professor at the University of East Anglia and recently publishing a study of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. However, in 2002, Barr kindly agreed to submit to an E-mail interview about his L&H book, God bless him.

MMBB: What prompted you to write a book about Laurel and Hardy?

Charles Barr: I was young, and just starting to discover the full range and delights of their films; and the opportunity was there. The mid-’60s in England was a time of sudden expansion in film-book publishing, with a range of new paperback series. The most attractive of them was Movie Paperbacks, a spinoff from Movie magazine, for whom I wrote occasionally – both it and the books were edited and designed by Ian Cameron, who is still going strong in 2002. He was asking around for book suggestions, and accepted my L+H one with enthusiasm. He loved their films; they fitted well into a series that was designed to embrace unpretentious popular cinema as well as art cinema; and they offered such good scope for pictorial illustration, which was one of the great strengths of the series. One of the things that works best in the book, I think, is the layout of gag sequences.

MMBB: Do you still receive much response to the book?

Barr: To be honest, no. It’s been hard to obtain for a long time, and, as you well know, other and more thoroughly researched books have come out since. Occasionally, though, people tell me it should be reprinted, but I haven’t done anything about this.

MMBB: What about L&H appeals to you the most?

Barr: I need, again, to be honest: that should really be in the past tense, ‘appealed’. It is not that I have gone off Laurel and Hardy, I simply don’t now find myself watching their films much, or buying them on video. In doing the book, I had a total and joyful immersion in the films for a few months, seeing virtually all of them (the pre-1940 ones) several times, and then writing my notes up quickly and eagerly; and in a sense I was satiated. Maybe I am waiting till I have almost forgotten them, so that I can come back to them afresh in old age. I think what most appealed was, or is, the beautiful ‘logic’ of their humour, the way they played out the same kinds of exchange or adventure in endlessly varied ways, like musical variations, or a series of mathematical equations. I’ve always liked the line that is spoken in Christopher Isherwood’s 1945 novel about the film industry, Prater Violet: ‘the movies aren’t literature, they aren’t drama, they are pure mathematics’, and L+H’s best short films seem to bear that out, as some of the still-sequences suggest. I hardly need add, as an answer to this and to Q1, that I also laughed a lot at them.

MMBB: Do you have a favorite L&H movie? If so, why is it your favorite?

Barr: I guess The Music Box, because, as I see I say in the book (pp 135-6), ‘it seems to have in it everything that there is of Laurel and Hardy’, compressed into one short. But one could say that of other films: Perfect Day, Helpmates…

MMBB: You gave short shrift to L&H’s post-1940 movies. While most L&H buffs agree that they’re inferior, in retrospect, does it bother you that you didn’t give a more complete view of the final phase of their film career?

Barr: No, it didn’t and doesn’t bother me, because it was not aiming to be that kind of comprehensive survey. I hadn’t even seen tried to see all of the post-1940 films. I defer to the more conscientious scholarship of later chroniclers of L+H, even though I find some of thr writing a bit stodgy.

MMBB: Stan Laurel used to complain about how American television butchered the editing of his movies. Do you think the movies are better served by British television?

Barr: Yes, they have been, though I don’t think terrestrial TV has run their films as a series for many years now. Instead, they keep repeating other kinds of classic series, TV sitcoms (and the L+H shorts are surely pioneers of sitcom) like “Sgt Bilko” and “Dad’s Army” and “Fawlty Towers.” Incidentally, Basil and Sibyl Fawlty often make me think of L+H, though they lack their deep-down affection: the same frustrations and point-scoring and sudden violence, the same polished professional craft, the same inexorably mathematical logic with which stories and sequences develop…. perhaps TV should run some double-bills?

 

 

 

 

 

Laurel & Hardy’s “freak endings”

The following is another contribution to this blog’s self-designated Laurel & Hardy Month. Don’t know what we mean? Click on the above image for further elucidation!

SPOILER ALERT – Read no further if you do not want the endings of 24 Laurel & Hardy movies disclosed!

As the uncredited writer-director of pre-1941 Laurel & Hardy comedies, Stan Laurel had an unexplained penchant for “freak endings” — finales that involved some kind of physical distortion. Nowhere in any L&H bio is it explained why Stan preferred these, but they obviously made some people uncomfortable (see the entry on Block-Heads). And seen in the modern-day era of anything-goes comedies, this might have been Stan’s only means of expressing full-tilt lunacy.

Herewith, I have listed all of L&H’s infamous freak endings. I have also included entries on L&H’s more unusual car-crash endings (which are “freak” endings of a sort — where can you find cars that do these things?) and L&H movies whose finales involved murder or suicide — strangely nonchalant wrap-ups in light of how we now regard such matters. It makes for interesting film history to at least acknowledge such things.

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Liberty (1929) – Stan and Ollie escape from a skyscraper under construction via an elevator, which crushes a cop who has been searching for them. Final shot shows the cop as a midget.

Below Zero (1930) – Stan and Ollie are thrown out of a restaurant into the snow. Ollie comes to and calls for Stan, who has been dumped into a water barrel. Ollie asks where the water went, and Stan replies, “I drank it!” Stan emerges from the barrel with an abnormally swollen belly and no way to relieve himself. (A very similar gag appeared over 50 years later in Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas’s L&H-like comedy The Adventures of Bob and Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew [1983].)

Another Fine Mess (1930) – Vagrants Stan and Ollie escape from police on a tandem bicycle while wearing a horse costume [don’t ask]. They drive into another of those tunnels where a train is just waiting to run over Stan and Ollie, who emerge at the other end, each on a severed wheel of the bicycle.

Come Clean (1931) – Ollie, annoyed at Stan (who is taking a bath while completely clothed), pulls the bathtub plug. Sound effects suggest that Stan has slid down the drain. When Stan’s wife opens the bathroom door and asks of Stan’s whereabouts, Ollie replies, “He’s gone to the beach.”

Dirty Work (1933) – Stan accidentally knocks Ollie into a tubful of rejuvenating solution created by a mad scientist. In best Darwinian fashion, Ollie emerges a chimp (but still wearing his bowler hat). Stan pleads for Ollie to speak to him; Ollie-as-chimp replies, “I have nothing to say!”

Going Bye-Bye (1934) – An escaped convict (Walter Long) has threatened to tie the boys’ legs around their necks if he ever catches him. Final shot shows him having done so, with Stan and Ollie reclining in pretzel fashion on a couch.

The Live Ghost (1934) – An irate ship captain (Walter Long again) has threatened to turn Stan and Ollie’s heads backwards if they say the word “ghost.” They do, and he does.

Thicker Than Water (1935) – The ultimate in freak endings for this, their final “official” short subject. Stan gives Ollie a blood transfusion that goes haywire. Final scene shows Stan and Ollie doing imitations of each other (with dubbed voices).

The Bohemian Girl (1936) – Stan is placed in a crusher machine, while Ollie is stretched on a torture rack. Final shot shows a shrunken Stan tearfully looking up to an elongated Ollie, with James Finlayson doing his best eye-popping take at both of them.

Block-Heads (1938) – Stan had originally proposed an ending in which their neighbor/hunter shoots and mounts them like hunting trophies. Hal Roach nixed the idea and filmed an alternate ending with extras standing in for L&H, reprising their finale from We Faw Down (1928).

The Flying Deuces (1939) – Stan and Ollie crash an airplane. Stan survives but sees Ollie ascending to heaven. Final scene shows Stan as a lonesome vagabond who comes across Ollie reincarnated as a horse.

A-Haunting We Will Go (1942) – Stan and Ollie are a magician’s assistants. Final shot shows an egg rolling toward Ollie, who cracks the egg to find a miniature, tearful Stan emerging.

The Bullfighters (1945; shown at top) – Stan and Ollie are “skinned alive” by a gangster. Final shot shows them as walking, talking skeletons.

Bonus sections

Car-crash endings:

Two Tars (1928) – Irate motorists drive after Stan and Ollie through a railroad tunnel; a train passes through and scares the other drivers back. Final shot shows Stan and Ollie emerging from the tunnel in their squashed car.

Hog Wild (1930) – Ollie’s car is smashed between two tramcars while Ollie, his wife, and Stan occupy it. A (strangely unconcerned) tramcar conductor tells them to move out of his way. Stan nonchalantly signals for a turn and drives the elongated car away.

County Hospital (1932) – Stan drives Ollie home from the hospital after being mistakenly doped up; Ollie is incapacited in the back seat with a broken leg. The car crashes. Final shot shows Stan and Ollie’s car following itself in a circle.

Murder endings:

Be Big (1930) – Stan and Ollie are caught in a lie by their wives and try to hide behind the wall in a Murphy bed. The wives pull out their shotguns and blast the bed through the wall.

Blotto (1930) – Stan and Ollie escape Stan’s irate wife via a taxi. The wife aims her shotgun, blasts the taxi, and walks toward Stan and Ollie menacingly at the fade-out.

Chickens Come Home (1931) – Stan and Ollie are caught in a lie by their wives. They run off, followed by Stan’s wife, who tests her handy hatchet with a lock of hair to make sure it’s sharp enough to work on Stan.

Laughing Gravy (1931) – Stan and Ollie drive their landlord (Charlie Hall) to commit suicide (off-screen, suggested via sound effects). Stan and Ollie bow their heads in mourning.

Scram! (1931) – The judge who sentenced Stan and Ollie for vagrancy catches them drunk and in hysterics on his bed with his wife (more innocent than it sounds). Final scene shows the judge grimacing at them, Stan and Ollie gulping and turning out the lights, and sound effects of mayhem ensuing.

Pack Up Your Troubles (1932) – Stan and Ollie are rewarded for a good deed they did with an invitation to dinner. Unfortunately, the dinner’s chef is a cook whom they got in trouble during their army stint, and he had vowed revenge. “Well, if it ain’t the snitchers — and I got my knife!”

The Midnight Patrol (1933) – Stan and Ollie are cops who have mistakenly nailed their captain as having burglarized his own house. Stan and Ollie flee off-screen, the captain fires two shots, fellow officers remove their hats, and a command is given: “Send for the coroner!”

Bonnie Scotland (1936) – (This moment occurs near the beginning of the movie rather than at the end, but it’s definitely worth noting.) Stan is informed that when he was born, his father took one look at his face and committed suicide. Ollie says he doesn’t blame Stan’s father one bit.

Atoll K (1950) – Laurel & Hardy’s film career is brutally ended.

January 2019 = Laurel & Hardy Month!

(Of course, every month should be Laurel & Hardy month. But now I’m getting ahead of myself.)

If you subscribe to this blog and you keep up with new movie releases, you’re probably overly aware of two things:

(1) I have been a feverish fan of the movie comedies of Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy for most of my life. When I was a 10-year-old growing up in Illinois, a local kiddie TV show broadcast Laurel & Hardy’s short subjects every Saturday morning. I became an instant fan and have never outgrown them, even though I have probably seen each of their movies dozens of times.

(2) Jan. 25 is the U.S. release date for Stan & Ollie, a new British bio-drama that depicts the later years of Stan and “Babe” (as Hardy was affectionally known off-screen), as they tour British music halls with their comedy act after their movie prospects in Hollywood dry up. Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly are earning near-unanimous raves for their performances as the movie’s title characters.

With all of that in mind, I figure it’s time for my blog’s readers to get a full-fledged education in the world of Laurel & Hardy!

For the rest of this month, I will be posting a wide variety of Laurel & Hardy-related minutia at this blog: Reviews of biographies of the team, interviewers with their biographers, and basically just anything I can think of that connects to L&H! Naturally, once Stan & Ollie makes its way to my neighborhood in a couple of weeks, I will review that movie in due time (if not sooner).

(And this L&H tribute includes a shameless plug for all 67 episodes of my Laurel & Hardy podcast Hard-Boiled Eggs and Nuts, which I recorded last year. Listen to it for free online at https://anchor.fm/hardboiledeggsandnuts)

So get ready to find out everything you always wanted to know about Laurel & Hardy but didn’t even know to ask!