It’s the day after TOERIFC, and I feel like I spent all of the previous day blogging. Which I did, of course: blogging is more than just writing posts, it’s participating in the conversation, which our club is specifically designed to foster. On a TOERIFC day, I get the same blog-fatigue I get after I’ve written a particularly taxing post which, given my obsessive proclivities, a lot of them are. I have trouble writing off-the-cuff posts, even though (as a lot of people have discovered) they are often the ones that get the most traffic. I’m getting better at that, I think: to paraphrase Stan Laurel, I used to be unimaginative, but I’m better now.
Speaking of Stan Laurel, it seems to me you don’t hear a lot about him and his partner Oliver Hardy anymore. Laurel and Hardy were staples for me and my Dad when I was growing up. There was a show, I think it may have been syndicated, called “Laurel and Hardy Theater,” on every Saturday afternoon, which we never missed. I want to say it showed all their shorts, but I might be misremembering.
The boys first appeared as a bone-fide comedy team in The Second Hundred Years, a comedy short for Hal Roach studios. Over the next few years, they successfully made the transition from silents to sound — their voices actually enhanced their persona’s rather than harmed them, as it did for so many other silent stars. In fact, I can’t picture Stan without his reedy English accent or Ollie without that pompous Southern twang.
Until the mid-thirties, the pair made features and shorts for Roach; when the studio severely curtailed the latter, they began exclusively making features. Although several of their features (for example, Sons of the Desert and Block-
Heads) are considered classics, I think most fondly of their two-, three- and four-reelers. I saw The Music Box, wherein the boys try to deliver a piano, over and over; I laughed my ass off each time.
Roach kept Stan and Ollie on separate contracts so he could more easily control them. Stan had been fussing with him for a while over artistic differences, and when his contract ran out, Roach threatened to pair Ollie — who had a year left on his agreement — with Harry Langdon. This never panned out, and they split the sheets with Roach in 1940, signing with 20th Century Fox and MGM. The films after they left Roach are inferior, although they made a lot of money for their studios.
A couple of their shorts — including The Music Box and the silent Big Business — have been recognized as culturally significant and added to the National Film Registry. Today, however, you don’t hear a lot about Laurel and Hardy they aren’t mentioned much anymore. They aren’t mentioned in the same breath as Chaplin or Lloyd or Keaton. They seem to have been relegated to second- or third-tier status.
I haven’t seen any of Laurel and Hardy’s films in a long time. I wonder if I would think they are as good today as I did sitting next to my father, more than forty years ago. Time passes, tastes change and perhaps they aren’t as funny as I remember them. Maybe it’s time I revisited them to see; on the other hand, what if they don’t strike me the way they used to? What will happen to my memories then? Maybe it’s best to let the past alone.
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I’ve seen Sons of the Desert within the past year, and it is really damn funny, though it’s a perfect example of a movie succeeding in spite of some pretty dreadful directing. As I remember it, its just filmed scenes with every editing decision seeming false or awkward in some way. They even use star wipes, which I had no idea existed back then.
And although they aren’t as mentioned as Chaplin or Keaton, I do think they still have a following that’s comparable to Harold Lloyd or some such.
I haven’t seen Stan and Ollie in years myself. I thought they were funny too but now I can’t be sure although Krauthammer seems to confirm they are in fact funny. I grew up in a time when movie comedy was defined by the silents through the forties. Television would run Laurel and Hardy, Little Rascals, and Three Stooges in the same slots that are now filled with afternoon talk shows. I think I’ll rent Sons of the Desert and give it another look.
Like you I grew up watching Laurel and Hardy with my Dad, and I always loved them. I have dim memories of “Sons of the Desert,” to be honest, but I love “Way Out West” and “The Music Box.”
Last year, TCM had a 24-hour Laurel and Hardy marathon, including both their feature films and shorts. It was heaven!
Krauthammer: Thanks for the reassurance. If a film can be funny in spite of inept editing, etc., then it’s gotta have something. (see yesterday’s TOERIFIC). Unlike the singles — Chaplin, Lloyd and Keaton — it’s the interaction between the members of the team that provide most of the humor. Martin and Lewis was like that, as well — neither was as good without the other.
Greg, I hope you do rent it, and let me know what you think. I’m going to get some of the shorts I adored and do the same thing.
Good point about comedy shorts being taken over by the likes of Merv and Oprah and Montel. God, I miss them … but the humor was different, more innocent. Would kids these days laugh their tocuses off like we did? I don’t know.
Pat, I remember that TCM did that now that you mention it. But I, like a moron, missed it.
The boys are quite nostalgic for me. We had this humongous black and white television, bought by my folks the year I was born, and we used it throughout the 50s. The sound was scratchy and the picture worse, but I adored it anyway.
Rick: Maybe you can help solve this mystery. I love Laurel and Hardy more than I can relate here, I own the massive Region 2 box set of all their films, I have watched THE MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS a.k.a. BABES IN TOYLAND maybe 150 times in my life, I think THE MUSIC BOX may be the most perfectly timed short ever made, the revenge tale BIG BUSINESS is an eternal joy, FRA DIOVOLO is charming over and over and so on and so on………but………and here’s the big BUT…..are you sitting down?………I have NEVER liked SONS OF THE DESERT. The humor is just not there for me, and the story is tedious.
Am I banned from CCC? If not, help me out here please.
LOL.
You are forgiven, especially given that I haven’t seen any L&H in years. Actually, I am glad to hear that you still enjoy them. Maybe there’s hope for me …