Laurel and Hardy

LAUREL AND HARDY
The Music Box
(29 minutes)

and

LAUREL AND HARDY
SONS OF THE DESERT
William A. Seiter
(1933)
68 Minutes

Seiter also directed Abbott and Costello in their films, Little Giant and The Marx Brothers in Room Service.

Laurel and Hardy have the reputation for being the longest lived pairing of characters in movie history. The also kept their own names in their work Stan Laurel always was Stanley (in some form or other) while Oliver Hardy was always “Ollie” (in some form or other).

Both Laurel and Hardy had careers before they teamed up in films in 1927. Laurel had made more than 50 films and Hardy had been involved in more than 250 productions including the 1925 version of The Wizard of Oz in which he plays the woodsman, a Knight of the Garter and a farm hand.

In 1921 Laurel and Hardy worked together on a short film called “Lucky Dogs”, but this was not as a team.

In 1926 they both independently signed contracts with the Hal Roach studios and appeared for the first time as a team in the 1927 short “Putting Pants on Philip”. The same year they made another short called “Duck Soup” (predating the Marx Brothers’ film of the same name)

From 1941-1945 they were with 20th Century and MGM

1945 The Bullfighters
1944 Nothing But Trouble
1944 The Big Noise
1943 The Dancing Masters
1943 Jitterbugs
1943 Air Raid Wardens
1942 A-Haunting We Will Go
1941 Great Guns

As a team they appeared in more than100 films. They star in 32 short silent films, 40 short sound films and 23 full-length feature films. They appeared on TV and made 12 guest or cameo appearances. One was the Galaxy of Stars which was a promotional film made in 1936.[5] On December 1, 1954 the pair made one American television appearance when they were surprised and interviewed by Ralph Edwards on his live NBC-TV program This Is Your Life.

Laurel and Hardy have a devoted following and an organization has formed called Sons of the Desert which has “tents” all over the country. Not a fan club, strictly speaking, but rather a groups of people dedicated to preserving the reputation of the duo and making sure that their films continue to be seen by upcoming generations

STAN LAUREL

Laurel was born Arthur Stanley Jefferson was born 16 June 1890, Ulverston, Cumbria, England, UK, about 80 miles from the Scottish border, on the West Coast of England. His father was an actor/theater manager, who moved tp Glaspw with his family to manage the Metropole Theater. In 1906, Stanley was working there collecting tickets and made his theatrical debut at the Panoptican Theater in Glasgow in Pantomime. In Britain this is a kind of performance akin to musical comedy. It is a family entertainment usually performed in the holiday season. It includes songs, slapstick comedy and dancing, employs gender-crossing actors, and combines topical humor with a story loosely based on a well-known fairy tale, fable or folk tale. It is a participatory form of theatre, in which the audience is expected to sing along with certain parts of the music and shout out phrases to the performers.

In 1910 Laurel, still using the name Stan Jefferson, joined the Fred Karno troupe where he worked part of the time as Charlie Chaplin’s understudy. The two arrived in NY on the same ship with the Karno Company.

Oliver Hardy

Hardy was born on the 18th of January in 1892. He died on the 7th of August 1957. He was named Norville Hardy, but appeared as Oliver or Ollie, although his friends called him “Babe”

His place of birth is debated, but the consensus is he was born in Harlem, Georgia to a confederate veteran, named Oliver Hardy and a woman named Emily Norville whose family went back to the 1600’a in Virginia. He was the youngest of the children and had a tragic event in his childhood when his older brother died in a swimming accident. Hardy pulled him from the water put was unable to revive him. He appears to have been a problem child and was sent to military schools to try to straighten him out.

He seemed disinterested in formal education, but showed a talent for singing and acting which his mother encouraged. He took lessons and bean performing, He changed his name to Oliver Norville Hardy as a tribute to his father who had died less than a year after his son’s birth.

He was also initiated into Freemasonry at Solomon Lodge No. 20 in Jacksonville, Florida where he had moved in 1913. He moved to Hollywood in 1917 and in the those four year he had also moved to New York and back to Jacksonville.

Like individual comedians, groups need to develop a persona with each member as well as a relationship with the other member(s) of the group.

Laurel and Hardy often have wives in their films with whom they have an antagonistic relationship. Stan is rather afraid of his wife, while Ollie tends to maintain he is the master of his home. Both have rather shrewish wives and the boys are rather misogynistic “having a hatred for or a distrust of women”

Laurel is known for his ability to “cry” whereas as Hardy has the ability to appear embarrassed.

Language and Slapstick

There are gags that are “running gags” and others which are “recycled”. In slapstick, a gag can be enlarged or drawn out. Some skilled comedians can manage to do this for a rather long time. Fields manages to play with a pool stick, a pool table and pool balls for almost 4 minutes after having been asked how he got the name “Honest John” until he answers it. Watch for similar elaborations with Laurel and Hardy. “The Music Box” is almost one long elaborated gag. The attempts to get into their houses at the start of Sons of the Desert is similar although admittedly much shorter.

Like Fields language is altered. With Fields it is his use of elevated in contexts where it would not be normally used, while with Stan Laurel it is generally misused and/or confused:

“Exhauster Ruler”

Laurel often misuses or confuses words in well-known phrases

“Life isn’t short enough"

He sometimes takes idioms literally:

Ollie: “You have to get up early in the morning to outsmart me”

Stan: “What time?”

Occasionally, Stanley slides into a kind of hyper-speech as he does in this film

Like Fields and West there are certain lines which are associated with the two. “Here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into”!

Note also that Laurel and Hardy use their own names. But name of vet doctor Horace Meddick (Horse Medic)

Sons of the Desert is regarded as one of the first of their full length films in which all the scenes actually follow from the story line, rather than being “skits” strung together.

Film begins with music which is associated with Laurel and Hardy films which is called (and copy written as) Ku Ku by Marvin Hadley. It is often known as “Dance of the Cuckoos” or “March of the Cuckoos”. It reportedly first appears in two of their 1930 shorts which are now lost. It is also said to be in Blondie of the Follies (1932) (MGM)

Many of the films have musical numbers in them – some of them like (The Devil’s Brother music by Daniel-François Auber) and Babes in Toyland (often called March of the Wooden Soldiers or Parade of the Wooden Soldiers music by Victor Herbert) and The Bohemian Girl (a comic version of Michael William Bafle’s Bohemian Girl 1843) are operettas or operas. Remember musicals have music in diegetic contexts which are not performance settings. In this film there are a number of songs which are in performance spaces or where songs would reasonably be expected to be sung in the real world. The most famous is “Honolulu Baby” written by Marvin Halley for the film. In the Sons of the Desert hall the group sings “Auld Lang Syne” Robert Burns famous song often associated with New Years and now sung around the world. Their closing songs (Tramp, Tramp, Tramp) is a kind of medley of a number of other songs.

THE SONS OF THE DESERT

The film is a pre code film, but just barely. This has some impact on the film’s reception and caused it to be edited later to conform to code standards. Some London critic said the Hula dancers are not in keeping with the standard of taste associate with Laurel and Hardy films

The film itself has a history. The short “We Faw Down” made 5 years earlier seems to be the most immediate predecessor of the film. There is an earlier film “Ambrose’s First Falsehood” with Charlie Chase and Billy Gilbert who both appear in Sons of the Desert.

There are, however all kinds of Mack Sennett comedies between 1914 and 1933 which reuse this same story. This is not uncommon in B films and on radio.

In 1933 Hal Roach flew to an MGM sales convention and forced down and tried to find a way to turn “Aw Faw Down” in to a feature length film since he was trying to move some of his popular stars into feature length films. Different staff for short and feature length.

Another film that was shooting at the time was called Convention City which has Dick Powell in it as was considered raunchy enough that all copies were later destroyed. In that film Powell sang a number in a night club and so Roach wanted a song in a night club in this film as well. As a result he hired Ty Pervis a kind of clone of Dick Powell who was to sing a song written for this film which turned out to be “Honolulu Baby” (which accompanied a performance called a “torrid Hawaiian dance” and which was cut in some places)

Charlie Chase, a well-known comedian in his own right plays the member of the Sons of the Desert whom the boys meet in Chicago and who turns out to be Hardy’s brother-in-law unbeknownst to either of them.

While there was certainly a script, much of the action was ad-libbed or worked out on the set. Comedians often need writers who understand the kind of materials the comedian works well with and in this case is was someone named Frank Craven who golfed with Hardy and whom Hardy specifically asked for. Craven is perhaps best known for his collaboration with Thorton Wilder on the screen play for Our Town.

Another well-known performer in the cast is Mae Bush, perhaps best known as someone referred to by Jackie Gleason (again as a nod to Laurel and Hardy) in his skits about someone doing sales during the commercials that ostensibly are interrupting a film. He announces the return to the film with a list of performs which invariably ends with “and the ever popular Mae Bush”

Laurel and Hardy films often reference the title of one or more of their earlier films. In this case, it is Mae Bush who says “Be Big!” a Laurel and Hardy short about another fraternal organization.

The film involves a fraternal order akin to the Masons (of which Hardy was a member), the Knights of Columbus, Elks, IOOF International Order of Odd Fellows and so on. It is unclear if this is a “secret society” (members are not known to the general public) or a “society with secrets” (the members are known, but the organization has secrets, usually about rituals). The fez’s make the members look like “Shriners”. The film is sometimes said to mock these kinds of organizations, but Hardy’s membership in the Masons gives one pause. The film uses the convention as a device to get the story rolling about getting away. It does poke fun at some of the antics at the convention as well.

Like individual comedians, groups need to develop a persona with each member as well as a relationship with the other member(s) of the group.

Laurel and Hardy often have wives in their films with whom they have an antagonistic relationship. Stan is rather afraid of his wife, while Ollie tends to maintain he is the master of his home. Both have rather shrewish wives and the boys are rather misogynistic “having a hatred for or a distrust of women”

Laurel is known for his ability to “cry” whereas as Hardy has the ability to appear embarrassed.

AFTER THE FILM

Kinds of gags (review)

Running gag (same gag repeated in film): throwing pots and pans, stepping on horn, bumping heads in attic, water throwing, slapping people with sticks when they bend over to pick up wallet. There are also the problems with the hats in “The Music Box” Some running gags are verbal – two peas in a pot/pod

Recycled gag) same gag in different films often with some variation) Dog bit me on the ankle W.C. Fields films, “Here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into”

Embellishment or drawing out of the gag. All the business with the front doors of the house or the setting up if the bed in the attic.

Impact on other comedians e.g. Jackie Gleason whose character along with Ed Norton belong to the “Racoons”; “The man is king of the castle”

In construction there is a build-up and a release which is more obvious in “The Music Box”. After watching the piano go down the stairs several times, one suspects that when the musician wants to pass them on the stairs that the piano will fly down the stairs again – bit it doesn’t, the hat does. Finally they are on the top of the stairs and all the stair bit seems in the past as the boys deal with the fountain. Just when one things the stair bits are over, the piano sides down again. Finally, the mailman tells them they should have just driven around the block to the front and not lugged it up there stairs – so the boys take it back down to put on the wagon, drive around the block and then unload it and wind up exactly where they were.

The workings of the world seem to be unclear to either of them, although Ollie thinks he has the better grasp. None the less the wo hoist the window to the second floor and then try to bring it down stairs whereas the obvious thing would be for one to go through the window and come down and open the front door and bring the piano in that way, but the obvious is not at all obvious to either of them.

Laurel and Hardy complement one another: Laurel is naïve and never quite understands what Hardy is doing when he becomes deceitful, and hence can’t follow his line of thought, hence when Hardy is trying to hide the fact that he wants to go to the convention from his wife, Stanley blurts it out. Stanley causes Ollie a good deal of trouble because of this, but the problem is really Ollie’s deceitfulness. In the end, Stanley wins out because he is ultimately honest.

In their characters, Stanley has the ability to cry easily and raise his voice to a squeak when he has been caught doing what he knows is wrong.

Ollie on the other hand has a talent for looking nervous and embarrassed, He has a number of find movements which he does on tables (his fingers often try to “walk away) or he plays with his tie or his hat.

Stanley also has problems with metaphor and takes them literally and asks questions based on the literal interpretation. He also mispronounces words (exhausted instead of exalted). He has problems with pronunciation (pot/pod)

The material often simply indicates in the script form that “the boys” should do something here.

The use of the camera is also very important. This film would not work as a radio program. The placement of the camera, duration of the shot, the editing are all crucial in keeping the film comedic. From the start, writers are needed who understand the comics themselves and know when to let them do what they do and not write in the gags – especially the visuals – for people like Laurel and Hardy.

Much of the humor is in the reaction shots here. The director needs to know when to cut to Hardy for his exasperated looks and just how long to hold them. Similarly there needs to be time for Hardy to “play” with his hand gestures, his fingering of he tables, ties and hats. This seems to have been a major problem with the move to MGM where no one there seemed to understand the kind of humor they were doing. Comparisons of the pre and post move to MGM films is interesting to see were things fall apart (as happened with Keaton).

The director also knows when to show something and when not to. The dish throwing episodes at the beginning of the film are shown, but the final one is not. Instead the disaster is heard though the wall into Stanley’s living room where the crashing of dishes and Hardy’s yells can be heard. Laurel reclines happily on the sofa eating and drinking while the background shows pictures falling of the walls. Only after it is all over do we actually see the results of what has been going on.