tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47698967563594176882024-03-13T21:05:37.623-07:00the scribe filesMusings on people who make me laugh... most of them dead.The Scribe Fileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13107548080136525630noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4769896756359417688.post-83415240493541520952017-08-09T12:06:00.002-07:002017-08-10T08:48:59.799-07:00Laurel and Hardy. Alive and kicking.<style type="text/css">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JAlzLopNTNU/WYsqJ-9fmHI/AAAAAAAAAnc/7X85_dctJJEhFxxSgqcElcJDeyV9VneDgCEwYBhgL/s1600/SPOT%2BOF%2BTROUBLE%2BEHRET%2BAPPROVED%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="999" data-original-width="1600" height="248" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JAlzLopNTNU/WYsqJ-9fmHI/AAAAAAAAAnc/7X85_dctJJEhFxxSgqcElcJDeyV9VneDgCEwYBhgL/s400/SPOT%2BOF%2BTROUBLE%2BEHRET%2BAPPROVED%2B1.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<div class="p1">
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I
grew up watching the classic comedians in their classic comedy films. That’s
where I first fell in love with them, in these perfectly crafted films created
in their perfectly controlled environments. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It
wasn’t until years later — thanks to public domain VHS tapes and, later,
YouTube — that I got to see a lot of these acts in their natural habitat: live,
on stage, via television. That’s where you get to witness the
lightning-in-a-bottle of so many of these “<i>you really had to see them in the
flesh to appreciate them</i>” acts, despite celluloid’s best efforts. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Abbott
& Costello chew up the scenery with ruthless abandon on the Colgate Comedy
Hour, as do the unleashed and unhinged Martin & Lewis (who always seemed
particularly shackled in their Paramount films). Even the Curly-Joe De Rita
haters have to agree that that the Phase 4 Stooges really come to life when you
see them live on the Steve Allen and Ed Sullivan Shows. (Now imagine seeing the
original Curly Howard live… now that would be something.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And
while none of us alive ever had the pleasure of seeing The Marx Brothers at
full throttle in “<i>The Cocoanuts</i>” or “<i>Animal Crackers</i>” (unless
you’re really, really old, in which case, thank you for taking the precious
time to read this blog), we can still catch glimmers of Harpo and Chico in
action on kinescopes. Even Buster Keaton left a legacy of “live” recordings
behind. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But
wait. Who’s missing from this list?<b> Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There
is absolutely NO true filmed record of Laurel & Hardy performing live, in
character, on stage. None.* So what’s that leave us with? Audio, precious,
precious audio — via two complete stage performances unearthed in two separate
but wonderful book/CD releases: <a href="http://laurelandhardyonstage.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #954f72;">“<i>Laurel
& Hardy On Stage!</i>” by John Tefteller</span></a>, with assistance from
Randy Skretvedt and Peter Mikkelson, and <a href="https://www.laurel-hardy-publications.com/spot-on" target="_blank"><span style="color: #954f72;">“<i>Spot On!</i>”
(love those exclamation points!) from Michael Ehret and Nico Cartenstadt</span></a>.
That these two books came out within two years of each other is like getting
two Holy Grails for two Christmases.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now,
of course, the difference between Laurel & Hardy and the acts mentioned
earlier is that Laurel & Hardy were born of film, not the stage. Yes, both
performed on stage individually early in their careers, before they met (Laurel
more so than Hardy), but their characters, their rhythms, their nuances, their
every behaviour were created within the Hal Roach Studios walls. They only took
to the stage out of jobless necessity, once Hollywood dismissed them. That’s
why these recordings are a revelation.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Away
from the studios and forced into a new reality, Laurel & Hardy adapt freely
and easily into their new milieu. And they’re so… <i>happy</i>. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lFvBBOdTtow/WYtY2m3QBjI/AAAAAAAAAoA/xrUE3nwliFgXakMV_ZMZ0AO8pZ-9yft4QCLcBGAs/s1600/LH_colorized_SPOT%2BON.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="474" data-original-width="680" height="278" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lFvBBOdTtow/WYtY2m3QBjI/AAAAAAAAAoA/xrUE3nwliFgXakMV_ZMZ0AO8pZ-9yft4QCLcBGAs/s400/LH_colorized_SPOT%2BON.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<div class="p1">
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After
so many dismal years toiling at Fox and MGM (and there’s times in those first
films when Stan looks downright suicidal), the boys have entered an obviously
joyous — and well deserved — third act. You can hear it, it’s indisputable,
it’s on tape. The rapturous laughter these two “has-beens” (in Hollywood’s
minds and, therefore, likely their own) receive from the audience must have
boggled their brains. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So
what did Stan & Babe give the audience in return? They gave their all.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAd1jfD828Y&t=6s" target="_blank">“<i>The Driver’s License Sketch</i></a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAd1jfD828Y&t=6s" target="_blank">”, recorded in Copenhagen in October 4 (or
5) 1947</a>, starts with much stamping and whistling from the audience as “The
Cuckoo Song” heralds their entrance. It’s obvious this is going to be a
lovefest. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now
this sketch isn’t <i>totally</i> unfamiliar. An abbreviated version
of the script was first published in John McCabe’s “The Comedy World of
Stan Laurel” in 1974, and for 40+ years that had to suffice. It reads funny
enough, with exchanges such as:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">COP:
Have you ever been arrested for breaking the traffic laws?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">OLLIE:
Oh, yes sir. For speeding once. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">COP:
Speeding? How fast were you going?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">OLLIE:
Ten miles an hour.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">COP:
Ten miles an hour? That’s not speeding, my dear boy. You can go ten miles an
hour any place.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">STAN:
Not on the sidewalk, could you, Ollie?</span></div>
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0Qp0D7mW_L0/WYstpIsRltI/AAAAAAAAAn0/oT2R--mBZKwSUwFIVrcTlO72Vs68n-wUgCEwYBhgL/s1600/LH%2BDRIVER%2527S%2BLICENSE%2BPAGE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="588" data-original-width="774" height="303" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0Qp0D7mW_L0/WYstpIsRltI/AAAAAAAAAn0/oT2R--mBZKwSUwFIVrcTlO72Vs68n-wUgCEwYBhgL/s400/LH%2BDRIVER%2527S%2BLICENSE%2BPAGE.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAd1jfD828Y&t=6s" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">LISTEN TO "THE DRIVER'S LICENSE SKETCH" (CLIP)</span></a></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="p1">
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">Anyone
who’s seen Stan & Ollie can pretty much imagine that scene in their mind’s
eye, so that helps. But imagination and “the real thing” are two different
animals, and there’s a happy looseness to the performance that can’t be
captured on the printed page. It’s the Stan and Ollie we know from their films,
but more carefree. In the end, when Babe bids the audience adieu with a final,
“Good night and God bless”, you get the sense that it’s Stan and Babe who truly
feel blessed. </span></span></div>
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<!--StartFragment-->
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“<i>Spot
On!</i>” propels us five years into they boys’ future to their 1952 British
Tour — specifically <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ucYOQjYZEk" target="_blank">April 1952 and the Empire Theatre in
Nottingham, England</a>. For anyone who thinks that “<i>Atoll K”/“Utopia</i>”
(a film I happen to love, <a href="http://thescribefiles.blogspot.ca/2016/01/no-atoll-k-isnt-utopia-but-its-nice.html" target="_blank">but that’s a different story</a>) was some
sort of depressing final curtain for Laurel & Hardy, well, the tapes tell a
different tale. </span></span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eNz6Xl2zQqw/WYsqKF8CyDI/AAAAAAAAAnk/LGnd3n_whqUP07qlP3KVIXv47Px3B5gQwCEwYBhgL/s1600/SPOT%2BOF%2BTROUBLE%2BEHRET%2BAPPROVED%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1397" data-original-width="1600" height="348" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eNz6Xl2zQqw/WYsqKF8CyDI/AAAAAAAAAnk/LGnd3n_whqUP07qlP3KVIXv47Px3B5gQwCEwYBhgL/s400/SPOT%2BOF%2BTROUBLE%2BEHRET%2BAPPROVED%2B2.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ucYOQjYZEk" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">LISTEN TO "ON THE SPOT" (CLIP)</span></a></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="p2">
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">McCabe,
again in “The Comedy World of Stan Laurel”, called it “a sketch he (Stan) later
destroyed because of its inadequacy”. Well, I guess the audience’s definition
of inadequacy was miles aways from Stan’s. Lord, just based on the laughter
alone, how I’d love to be able to see this act. And look, it seems Stan Laurel
agrees with me:</span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">“<i>I
think this was one of the funniest routines we ever did, on many occasions we
received great applause, the audience became hysterical - I regret that this
act was never photographed</i>.” - Stan Laurel to the anonymous recipient of
the “<i>On The Spot</i>” tape</span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">Surprisingly,
“<i>On The Spot</i>” (aka “<i>A Spot Of Trouble</i>”) comes across as even more
deliriously funny than “<i>The Driver’s License Sketch</i>”. These are two
“aging” comics getting by on audience nostalgia? You could’ve fooled
me. </span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">Based
loosely on their 1930 film “<i>Night Owls</i>”, the 20-minute sketch is broken
into two acts: the first somewhat verbal, the second almost entirely pantomime.
Stan is gloriously goofy throughout Act One, and unashamedly so. When he told
McCabe, “<i>Of course in music hall… you have to be broader, and you get more
unreal</i>”, he wasn’t kidding. “The fiddle and the bow” (as New York Times
famously dubbed them) are playing the audience like a violin. </span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">When
you hear them reenacting the totally physical “two men in a bed” routine from “<i>Berth
Marks</i>” (here on a railway station bench), the laughter is practically
deafening — and that’s the maddening part. Essentially you’re left watching two
of the world’s greatest pantomimists blindfolded. It’s like listening to The Beatles with earplugs. It’s almost cruel.</span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">Fortunately,
both books come compete with original scripts (Stan may have destroyed his
original of “<i>On The Spo</i>t”, but apparently Babe kept at least three
iterations) so you can read along with the recordings. I’ll let the books
themselves tell the history of these discoveries, their origins and how the
recordings happily ended up in the able — and mighty generous — hands of Mr.
Tefteller and Mr. Ehret. All I’ll say is “thank you” to everyone involved in
bringing these recordings to light. You’ve done a great service to Mr. Laurel & Mr. Hardy.</span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Because,
honest to god, if you could capture love on magnetic tape, that’s what’s done
here. The love of audiences for Stan & Ollie during their lifetime. Stan
and Babe’s love of performing. And the love between two men operating in
perfect synch… this playful, joyful fiddle and bow.</span></span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</div>
<div class="p2" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><b><span style="color: orange;">But don't just read about them. Buy the books!</span> </b></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dnVmebuPROU/WYsqJJ8-IMI/AAAAAAAAAnk/HsQMt_hPFfcC0sOtfqScqToIYezClGgtwCEwYBhgL/s1600/Front-Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="941" data-original-width="750" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dnVmebuPROU/WYsqJJ8-IMI/AAAAAAAAAnk/HsQMt_hPFfcC0sOtfqScqToIYezClGgtwCEwYBhgL/s400/Front-Cover.jpg" width="318" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">*16mm silent home movie footage of Stan and Babe performing the Driver’s License Sketch exists, and may make it to DVD one day.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><b>All images and audio courtesy of John Tefteller and Michael Ehret.</b></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Laurel & Hardy: On Stage! is available at <a href="http://laurelandhardyonstage.com/" target="_blank">http://laurelandhardyonstage.com/<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></a></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Laurel & Hardy: Spot On! is available at <a href="https://www.laurel-hardy-publications.com/spot-on" target="_blank">https://www.laurel-hardy-publications.com/spot-on</a></span></span></div>
The Scribe Fileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13107548080136525630noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4769896756359417688.post-82468485714515557522017-08-08T09:13:00.000-07:002017-08-08T12:44:17.157-07:00On the authenticity of Buster Keaton<div class="p1">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">I've seen Buster Keaton’s </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><a href="https://www.nfb.ca/film/railrodder/" target="_blank">The Railrodder </a></i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">a zillion times. It was <a href="http://thescribefiles.blogspot.ca/2016/01/growing-up-scribe-or-face-launched-life.html" target="_blank">the first Buster Keaton movie I saw as a kid</a> and, if I'm lucky, it'll be the last one I see on my deathbed.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">And speaking of lucky, a few weeks ago I had the rather insane pleasure of spending the day with the film’s director Gerald Potterton. Together we sat and watched an hour or so worth of outtakes from the shooting of the film, recording our conversation for <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CineMuseum-LLC-159896897434725/" target="_blank">Cinemuseum’s</a> upcoming blu-ray collection, <i>Blue Collar Buster Keaton</i>. More specifically, these outtakes were culled from the “making of” documentary filmed during production, <i><a href="https://www.nfb.ca/film/buster_keaton_rides_again/" target="_blank">Buster Keaton Rides Again </a>— </i>a close runner up for the zillion views record.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">With director Gerald Potterton, April 2017.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Watching the outtakes (and a further hour’s more I set aside) for these films I’d seen again and again and again, I noticed something for the first time. And how oh how had I never seen it before? </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">At no point do we see a double for Buster</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">. No stand-in wearing a porkpie and slapshoes; no stuntman waiting around to do the dangerous stuff.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">But boy, did he ever deserve one. At the beginning of<i> The Railrodder</i>, Buster emerges from the Atlantic Ocean. The scene was shot off the coast of Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia in late September 1964… and I can guarantee that water was beyond freezing. (Trust me, I’ve been in the Canadian Atlantic in July and that was an endurance test.) Yet Buster trudges out of the brutal sea time and time again in infinite variations of the same scene — wearing a straw boater, wearing his trademark porkpie, no hat, jacket on, jacket off — even in his rusty old age, a bit of water isn’t going to stop the little iron man.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-F_u1z5u1Kek/WYndQDZsTWI/AAAAAAAAAm4/poxYO7tg0XsloG_C6L6aT4hBgYNmOYtIgCEwYBhgL/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-07-03%2Bat%2B10.54.56%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="995" data-original-width="1382" height="287" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-F_u1z5u1Kek/WYndQDZsTWI/AAAAAAAAAm4/poxYO7tg0XsloG_C6L6aT4hBgYNmOYtIgCEwYBhgL/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-07-03%2Bat%2B10.54.56%2BAM.png" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">...again...</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">...and again.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Now reality is, Buster had come to rely on stuntmen at this point in his life. They’re pretty obvious in </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0);">A Funny Thing Happened To The Way To The Forum </i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0);">and </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The Scribe</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0);">. But that was more to accommodate his four-packs-of-Winstons-a-day ravaged lungs than his ability to face danger or the elements.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Which leads me to a scene in </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Buster Keaton Rides Again</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0);">, a pretty contentious one where Buster bickers with director Potterton. Essentially, Potterton has an idea for a gag: Buster’s putt-putt is doomed for a head-on collision with some other speeders over a mile-high trestle bridge.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Potterton even sketches it out for him, but Keaton doesn’t think too much of the gag. (“</span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Getting on it, getting scared, isn’t going to mean anything.</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0);">”) So he suggests amping it up somehow — let me be engulfed by a giant map caught in the wind. Potterton vetoes it…. it’s too dangerous.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">So they shoot it Potterton’s way. Then Buster goes away and stews about it overnight. He grumbles, he fumes, he bitches to Eleanor about it. (“<i>That is not dangerous, that’s child’s play, for the love of Mike. I do worse things in my sleep than that.</i>”) Then they shoot it Buster’s way.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XJEXLopwyRs/WYnfM-V59LI/AAAAAAAAAnA/eNbEU2oeexwKu9MF-mEZAsS2hFEaSLkxgCLcBGAs/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-08-08%2Bat%2B11.55.18%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1065" data-original-width="1413" height="301" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XJEXLopwyRs/WYnfM-V59LI/AAAAAAAAAnA/eNbEU2oeexwKu9MF-mEZAsS2hFEaSLkxgCLcBGAs/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-08-08%2Bat%2B11.55.18%2BAM.png" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>"I says 'Who suggested the gag?', he says 'You did'. I says 'I generally know what I'm doing.'"</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Now when you watch the finished scene, there is absolutely no way you can </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">technically</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> spot that it’s Buster. He’s obscured from the waist up in the giant map. The scene is shot from what seems to be five miles away, so the figure on the scooter is literally a dot. It could have been a double or a dummy for all anybody cared.</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="s1"></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-align: center;">So why the battle? Why push so hard for something that really doesn’t matter. For something where nobody — </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-align: center;">nobody</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-align: center;"> — would know the difference.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-align: center;"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Because Buster would know. And Buster knew the audience would know.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>And that’s why, for the love of Mike</i>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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The Scribe Fileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13107548080136525630noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4769896756359417688.post-41808893218296410582017-05-05T13:54:00.004-07:002017-05-30T16:41:06.020-07:00The Buster That Could've Been: Ten stone-faced alternate realities<div class="MsoNormal">
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<b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“I’ve had a very <i>interesting</i> career. In other words, I have no complaints.” – Buster Keaton to Tony Thomas, 1960</span></b></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Interesting</i> is an understatement. Buster Keaton’s tumultuous 65-year career in vaudeville, film and television was a literal rollercoaster of ups, downs, missed opportunities and fascinating “what if’s”. If the fates had played out just a little differently, what could Buster’s alternate reality have looked like? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="s2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-align: center;"><b>#1 Hollywood's first child star. </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-align: center;">Apparently, in 1913 or thereabouts, William Randolph Hearst approached Joe Keaton with the idea of casting The Three Keatons in a screen version of George McManus' comic strip, "Bringing Up Father". Nix, said Joe. “<i>Nobody’s going to see The Three Keatons on a dirty sheet for a nickel</i>.” (Or words to that effect.) </span><span class="s1"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">But imagine the highly visual, hugely physical Keaton family act on the big screen. It’s a natural, I tell ya. And though the chronology isn’t quite right (Buster would have been 18 in 1913, not exactly a “child”), picture pint-sized Buster as celluloid’s original </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">enfant terrible</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">, bedevilling parents Joe and Myra in a series of split-reel slapstick escapades. Because there’s no filmed record of The Three Keatons’ act, it’s easy to forget just how big-time Buster was as a kid. What a shame there aren’t even a few fragile frames of nitrate where we could “keep our eye on the kid”.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="s2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><b>#2. Huge in France. </b>1934. With his </span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Hollywood career in tatters, a bad marriage, depressed, alcoholic, unemployed — why not a completely fresh start? After all, Josephine Baker and le jazz hot were just a few of the American imports impacting Parisian culture at the time, and “Malec” had already been embraced by the French intelligentsia. If Hemingway could find his muse in Paris, why not Buster?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So let’s imagine an alternate reality where Buster sails to France to film “Le Roi de Champs Elysees” and figures, “I think I’ll just stay”. He finds a small studio willing to give him creative freedom, and the language barrier actually works to his advantage, minimizing dialogue and accentuating pantomime in his Parisian productions. His creative use of sound informs (to a greater point than it ultimately did in reality) the work of Jacques Tati and Pierre Etaix, and ultimately he joins his old friends Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy, playing the “Antoine” role in their Franco-Italian production “Atoll K”. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="s2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><b>#3. Fred Mertz.</b> </span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Buster’s established stoneface persona would have captured the same good natured </span><span class="s3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">curmudgeonliness</span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">William Frawley brought to the role of Ricky and Lucy Ricardo’s landlord and best friend. Plus Fred Mertz was allegedly an ex-vaudevillian, creating the perfect rationale for Buster to engage in some slapstick shenanigans with Lucille Ball. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Btw, is it just me, or is it weird that Lucy — who professed a huge admiration for Keaton, considered him a mentor, and who’d forged a friendship with him on the MGM lot in in the ‘40s — never had Buster as a guest star on "I Love Lucy" or her later "The Lucy Show"?* It wasn't until the summer of 1965 that they "officially" performed together, in what was technically Buster's final television sketch, on "A Salute to Stan Laurel". At least we have that, but seriously, WTF?</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">*Same goes for Red Skelton, who never invited Buster on his TV show. What’s up with that?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #232323; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px;">#</span><b style="color: #232323;">4. A B-Western sidekick, just like Al St. John. </b><span style="color: #232323; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px;">Buster’s old Comique cohort Al St. John enjoyed an entire second career (and gained a certain immortality) as “Fuzzy Q. Jones”, a bearded, bumbling but brighter-than-he-seems codger in countless horse operas alongside Lash Larue, etc. etc.</span><span style="color: #232323; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px;"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">From the dawn of talkies to the advent of television, B-westerns were legion — and the lone prairie turned out to be the last refuge for many a silent comedian; Andy Clyde, Snub Pollard, Jimmy Aubrey, Poodles Hanneford and even Max Davidson found themselves bringing comic relief to any number of B-westerns from the ‘30s into the early ‘50s. Could Buster have found a home in the cinematic sagebrush?</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He certainly had an affinity for the old west, as seen in his silent classics “The Paleface” and “Go West”. Obviously, Buster belongs in the wide open plains. Into the ‘40s he has a secondary sidekick role (literally the sidekick to grizzled sidekick #1 Si Jenks) in the less-than-aptly named Action Pictures’ less-than-classic Cinecolor nature film, “God’s Country”. The film isn’t really a western, but anything where Buster’s porkpie hat is replaced by a coonskin cap gets by on a technicality. </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Buster came closest to reaching true “western sidekick” status in the early ‘60s, when he was cast as Ernie Kovacs’ native American partner-in-crime in the pilot for the half-hour sitcom, “Medicine Man”. Sadly, Kovacs’ tragic death in a car crash kept more than one episode from being filmed. What a damn shame on so many levels. While the finished pilot isn’t great (Kovacs can’t quite pull off the con-man-with-a-soft-heart, and Buster’s role — imagine Chief Rotten Eagle from “Pajama Party” — would draw plenty of PC winces today), who wouldn’t have loved seeing Buster popping up on their TV screens, week after week after week, with one of the era’s most idiosyncratic comedy stars?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="s4" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><b>#5. A pioneer in sound film. </b></span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Buster Keaton, the quietest of the silent clowns, had a simple philosophy when it came to sound: </span><span class="s4" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">“We talk when we’re supposed to talk, but we lay out material that doesn’t call for dialogue.”</span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> In other words, unless you have a reason to talk, don't.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">With the advent of talkies, Chaplin managed to avoid sound. Keaton didn’t have the luxury — or the interest, frankly — to do so. He had every intention of embracing this new technology… on his own terms. MGM, unfortunately, had other ideas. “So the minute they started laying out a script, they’re looking for those funny lines, puns, little jokes, anything else.” </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Unfortunately, due to MGM's approach to talkies, Buster wouldn't have the opportunity to put this theory into practice until his first Educational shorts. "The Gold Ghost" gives Buster a full three lines of dialogue (one of them being “Stop!”) in the first reel. Ultimately, the Educationals would acquiesce to “modern” expectation (these churned out cheapies affording very little time or “artistic vision), although a few gems still reveal Buster’s austere approach to sound (notably "One Run Elmer"). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="s1">But given the opportunity, it’s easy to imagine Buster creating films in which silence is anything but silent, and the aural experience would be every bit as quirky as the visual. The French comic filmmakers </span><span class="s4">Jacques Tati and Pierre Etaix were masters at this, and both readily acknowledged the influence of Keaton in their work. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Finally, look at 1965’s “The Railrodder”. Technically, yes, it’s a silent film — but really the only reason it’s silent is that Buster has nobody to talk to. So why talk? A more recent equation would be Robert Redford’s 2013 solo performance in “All Is Lost”, with its single line of dialogue: “<i>fuuuuuuuck</i>”. Give me a moment while I picture Buster in that role. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(35, 35, 35); color: #232323;">#6 MGM’s comeback kid.</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(35, 35, 35); color: #232323;"> By the end of 1932, Buster was given the boot by MGM and was pretty much washed up in Hollywood. The road back led to Florida, Paris, England and ultimately Educational’s address on Poverty Row. A humbling return to MGM as a gagman seemed to cement Buster’s bottom-tier status at the studio where he once reigned — until he was offered a high-profile (and well publicized) supporting role in the Nelson Eddy/Jeanette McDonald operetta, “New Moon”.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(35, 35, 35); color: #232323;"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">How thrilling must this have been for Buster? An opportunity to vindicate himself in a major MGM production, far away from the Columbia “cheaters” currently bearing his name. A role like this could have re-established Keaton’s worth to MGM — if not as a star, then as a solid, reliable, laugh-getting contract player. He must have been salivating at the opportunity.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But it never happened, and of the many dashed dreams Buster encountered in the wake of his initial MGM firing, this one must have really hurt. In the end, Keaton was cut from the final film (although he can be glimpsed in a few frames). One theory was that he was “too funny”, upstaging everyone and stealing the picture. (Buster being “too funny” and having his scenes cut accordingly is always a great story, as in the legend of “Limelight”.) The real story, it seems, was that Buster shared a number of scenes with Nat Pendleton, who fell ill and couldn’t complete the picture. With Pendleton gone, and Keaton’s role so dependent on his presence, the easiest thing to do was simply to scissor Buster. </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">MGM never gave Buster a second chance after that — not when he needed it, anyway. (You could argue they did with “In The Good Old Summertime”, but it was too little too late. And by that time his later career renaissance was on the rise. Buster did fine without MGM after that, thank you.) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-align: center;">#7. A dramatic actor.</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-align: center;"> Buster’s onscreen stoicism automatically suggests a certain gravitas to his comedy, and we know him to be a man who took his comedy very, very seriously. His best films all had a sober undercurrent, and anyone who’s seen “The General” or the finale of “Battling Butler” knows just how fine a dramatic actor Buster could be. (At his best he’s more authentic than Chaplin, and more interesting than Lloyd.)</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Various rumors and publicity blurbs had Buster making his “formal” dramatic debut in MGM’s “Grand Hotel” (supposedly in the role played by Lionel Barrymore). I can only assume that would have been magnificent, and could have carved out a very different career for Buster at MGM beyond the endless iterations of “Elmer”. But it never happened. </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ultimately, it took television to give Buster some all-too-rare dramatic opportunities. One of his finest performances is “The Awakening”, an adaptation of Gogol’s story “The Overcoat” presented by Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as part of the Rheingold Theatre anthology series. Buster portrays a bureaucrat content in his role within the system until he, himself, becomes a victim of it. His impassioned speech at the film’s climax is a Keaton we’d never seen before and, unfortunately, one we wouldn’t really see again.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A later TV drama, “The Silent Partner” is a solid piece of mid-‘50s hokum completely saved by Buster playing, essentially, an alternate reality version of himself. “Kelsey Dutton” is a washed up silent comedy star, hiding from his past behind a glass of beer. It had to have cut pretty close to the bone for Buster, but his superb underplaying makes Kelsey neither pitiful or a caricature. In fact, it’s the re-creations of silent slapstick that torpedo the show; if Buster’d been left to his dramatic devices while the “flashbacks” were represented by actual clips from Keaton’s silent classics, “The Silent Partner” might have been a classic of its own kind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">#8. Karl Dane.</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The silent comedy graveyard is littered with those who succumbed to drink and/or despair. Larry Semon, Lloyd Hamilton, Charley Chase all died young and haunted. Harry Langdon clung on as long as he could before finally slipping away. Perhaps most tragic of all was Buster’s best friend, Roscoe Arbuckle, who scandal hoped to destroy but couldn't, but whose mighty heart gave out on the dawn of what could have been a glorious comeback. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Then there’s Buster’s MGM stablemate, Karl Dane. Unlike Buster, it wasn’t loss of creative control and alcoholism that ended his career at MGM. It was his voice; a thick Danish accent mangled his attempts at comedy in the talkie era. Ultimately, MGM let him go… within a few years, Karl Dane ended it all with a revolver.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #232323; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">It’s not hard to imagine Buster at the end of his MGM tether — drunk, frustrated, angry, at a loss for how far and fast he fell — staring into the barrel of a gun. Once again, Buster’s work ethic saved his life. As he’d done in his family vaudeville act so many times when his father threw him into a backdrop, he picked himself up, dusted himself off, and started all over again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="color: #232323; text-align: center;">#9. A wax works.</b><span style="color: #232323; text-align: center;"> By 1950, the silent stars of a generation ago had a permanent address in has-been-land. Buster could have just as easily taken up residence alongside H.B. Warner and Anna Q. Nillson on Sunset Boulevard. But nope. Buster had already embraced television with his own local (later syndicated TV show) and was busily engineering a comeback. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Yes, TV too often portrayed him as an old-timey pie throwing Kop (something that started with Hollywood Cavalcade in 1939, and a persona Buster was quite willing to adopt if it meant a paycheck) — but beyond that, Buster refused to live in the past, quite vocally expressing dismay when, at a reunion of silent Hollywood icons, “Some of them had never heard a Beatles record. They haven’t kept up with the times.” If keeping up with the times meant doing the twist with Bobbi Shaw over the end credits of “Beach Blanket Bingo”, then let’s twist! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">#10. A very old man.</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> He could've been on Laugh-In. He could've taken all of Burt Mustin's kindly codger roles. He could've been a mainstay on Carson, regaling audiences with stories of his triumphs and tragedies over the course of showbiz history. All I know is 70 is </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">waaaay</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> too young to have left us.</span></span></div>
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The Scribe Fileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13107548080136525630noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4769896756359417688.post-79817640316034224422016-09-18T06:22:00.002-07:002016-09-19T08:40:49.539-07:00Langdon & Laurel & Hardy & Hal (Part 5)<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-e5LKacS_Odg/V9wyG5aGVsI/AAAAAAAAAgU/htr2iqoYC_c8yZPuZDDrTng3jvk7K4IeACLcB/s1600/langdon%2Ball%2Bamerican.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-e5LKacS_Odg/V9wyG5aGVsI/AAAAAAAAAgU/htr2iqoYC_c8yZPuZDDrTng3jvk7K4IeACLcB/s640/langdon%2Ball%2Bamerican.jpg" width="476" /></a></div>
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<b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">Gone, but not forgotten</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">While Harry’s performing career took a serious blow (you might
even say “fatal” – there would be no big comeback hopes after <i>Zenobia</i>), he was
back on the script-writing team for Stan & Babe’s “reunion” film at Roach, <i>A
Chump At Oxford</i>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">For some reason, 1939 seemed a particularly uninspired year for
Laurel & Hardy… too few moments of brilliance cushioned in all-too-familiar
material. Maybe they were too battered and bruised by the bickering with Roach to come back stronger. Roach was likely too disengaged to care, preferring to focus on potential blockbusters such as <i>One Million B.C.</i> instead of the slapsticky clown he'd built his reputation – and studio – on. Whatever the reason, rather than returning feeling refreshed and risky, the duo
retreated to rehashes of past successes and proven ideas. Just as <i>Block-Heads</i> remade <i>Unaccustomed
As We Are</i>, <i>A Chump At Oxford </i>resurrected chunks of <i>From
Soup To Nuts</i>. <i>The Flying Deuces</i> drew inspiration from <i>Beau
Hunks</i> (and, reportedly, an unfilmed scene originally written for <i>The
Live Ghost</i>). <i>Saps At Sea</i> is an unlikely amalgam of
Chaplin’s <i>Modern Times</i> and the Three Stooges’ <i>Punch
Drunks</i>, with a dash of <i>County Hospital</i> thrown in for good
measure. Originality didn’t seem high on anybody’s agenda. This
goes for Harry too.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WR02lw9TiEI/V9wql5b2A1I/AAAAAAAAAf8/0U3WUCwxKogGZ62N8jIh_8BJOA2MPzKVgCLcB/s1600/Annex%2B-%2BLaurel%2B%2526%2BHardy%2B%2528A%2BChump%2Bat%2BOxford%2529_07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="295" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WR02lw9TiEI/V9wql5b2A1I/AAAAAAAAAf8/0U3WUCwxKogGZ62N8jIh_8BJOA2MPzKVgCLcB/s400/Annex%2B-%2BLaurel%2B%2526%2BHardy%2B%2528A%2BChump%2Bat%2BOxford%2529_07.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Charley Rodgers, Harry, Hardy, Laurel and director Alf Goulding <br />on the set of A CHUMP AT OXFORD.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">As a screenwriter, Harry doesn’t seem to have a discernible style at this point. The non-Laurel & Hardy films where he receives writing credit – a smattering of his post-Roach two-reelers, his later feature </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">House Of Errors</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;"> – demonstrate nothing that’s distinctly Langdonesque. (The forays into darkness found in his later silents such as <i>Long Pants</i> and <i>Three's A Crowd </i>are nowhere to be seen.) So in assessing his contributions to Laurel & Hardy’s final three features of their “classic” era, all you can do is look at the similarities to earlier Langdon films. For example, the disguising-the-girl-as-furniture routine from </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">Block-Heads</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">, first used by Harry in </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">Ella Cinders</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">. Or the knuckle-cracking bit in </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">Saps At Sea</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">, where Stan tugs at each finger, with a delayed “pop” on the final tug… a favourite Harry gag that shows up in a couple of his Educationals.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">Or this one, also from </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">Saps At Sea</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ollie suffers a hornophobia-induced nervous breakdown, and is sent home from his job at Sharp & Pierce horn factory to recuperate. Another car has the boys’ Model T hemmed in and Stan (being Stan) honks loudly at the barricading driver. The horn gets stuck, rattling Ollie further, until Stan takes a hammer to it… causing the entire engine to plummet to the asphalt.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZeXzoB6_Tnw/V9wvhpu82TI/AAAAAAAAAgY/QO2fBJQfz1kC4fSMVR1ySth3zIyTOiwKgCEw/s1600/Nobody%2527s%2BBaby%2B01%2Bcopy%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZeXzoB6_Tnw/V9wvhpu82TI/AAAAAAAAAgY/QO2fBJQfz1kC4fSMVR1ySth3zIyTOiwKgCEw/s400/Nobody%2527s%2BBaby%2B01%2Bcopy%2B2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Some same old same old...from </i>Saps At Sea...</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">Harry would open his 1942 feature <i>House Of Errors</i> with this exact gag: Harry trying to quiet a blaring horn while Charley Rogers naps a few feet away. It’s an ideal scene for Harry, and he gets more mileage from it than Stan does. He squats. He squints. He sticks his fingers in his ears, hoping for the best. He rassles the horn out from under the bonnet. He shushes it loudly – and successfully (if only momentarily). He hides it in an echoey garbage can and smothers it under his apron. He finally beats it into submission with a hammer, clobbering it a dozen times before finally waking up Charley. Harry performs the sequence flawlessly, in a single, uninterrupted take.</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This gag’s genesis can actually be found in Langdon’s fifth Roach talkie <i>The Big Kick</i>. Gas station attendant Harry spends several minutes trying to quiet a noisy, rattling engine – allowing Harry to perform in pantomime while having the soundtrack serve a purpose (beyond delivering clumsy dialogue). The perfect silent comedy gag for the sound era.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">Scouring these films for signs of Harry will bring a few obvious Langdon sightings (the hobo Stan at the end of </span><i style="line-height: 15pt;">The Flying Deuces</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">, eerily akin to the wandering Harry of </span><i style="line-height: 15pt;">Remember When?</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">). Overall, the only real impact seems to be the fact that Stan’s a bit dumber than usual… his mental soundtrack about a second out-of-synch with what’s going on around him. This starts to take his character into a slightly surreal realm, more cartoony, more disconnected. (Stan unpeeling the multi-layered banana in </span><i style="line-height: 15pt;">Saps At Sea</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">.) Also, there’s an odd obsession in three out of four of these films with “splitting up” Stan and Ollie (their 20 year separation in </span><i style="line-height: 15pt;">Block-Heads</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">; the suicide pact and “death” of Ollie in </span><i style="line-height: 15pt;">The Flying Deuces</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">; Ollie denouncing Lord Paddington in </span><i style="line-height: 15pt;">A Chump At Oxford</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">) – coincidence, wishful thinking on Harry’s part (was there still a possibility of </span><i style="line-height: 15pt;">Zenobia 2</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">?), or simply art imitating life (acknowledging the rocky realities of L&H's current Hollywood status)? Again, it’s difficult to say how much of this is Harry’s doing. Maybe his dark side was shining through after all.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1MN-_vSOPc8/V9wv3hwcHRI/AAAAAAAAAgQ/Bmi54xEGSdQn8ni-x-G6SMlIhhLXNF6qgCLcB/s1600/Nobody%2527s%2BBaby%2B01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="162" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1MN-_vSOPc8/V9wv3hwcHRI/AAAAAAAAAgQ/Bmi54xEGSdQn8ni-x-G6SMlIhhLXNF6qgCLcB/s400/Nobody%2527s%2BBaby%2B01.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> ...and </i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The Flying Deuces</span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">...</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fIxxoKpxVQU/V9wvdpR14vI/AAAAAAAAAgI/GkgkHaQo7xszKmw0dfxyzSc7gO_kJKxygCEw/s1600/Nobody%2527s%2BBaby%2B01%2Bcopy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="165" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fIxxoKpxVQU/V9wvdpR14vI/AAAAAAAAAgI/GkgkHaQo7xszKmw0dfxyzSc7gO_kJKxygCEw/s400/Nobody%2527s%2BBaby%2B01%2Bcopy.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> ...and </i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">A Chump At Oxford. </span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But if Harry didn’t provide truly innovative
scriptwriting support at this point, perhaps he provided something else.
Stan, like Harry in 1928, saw himself on the cusp of potential greatness
– he would soon be free from Roach, and able to produce his own films exactly
as he saw fit. Certainly, Harry had been through this before. He
knew the downside, even if Stan only saw the up. Did Harry serve as
support, or as a symbol – a living example of “don’t let this happen to you”?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">But as 1940 loomed ahead, in Stan's eyes, anything seemed possible. And
with the strains of “There’s No Place Like Home” underscoring Ollie’s final
Roach-era “Here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into”, and Laurel &
Hardy heading off to what they hoped would be greener pastures, Harry had to
wonder if he indeed had a home anymore.</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><b>Alf and Bert, together again</b></span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">With Laurel & Hardy out of the picture, Harry wasn’t
completely out of work. Roach kept him around for two more outings
released in 1941: a scriptwriting credit for <i>Road Show</i>, and a
supporting role in the streamliner <i>All-American Co-ed</i>.</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">Variety had actually announced <i>Road Show</i> as the
second Langdon & Hardy outing back in October, 1938; the zany farce doesn’t
suit either one of them. (Although Babe could have had a great deal of
fun as eccentric Colonel Caraway, played here by Adolph Menjou.) There
isn’t really much to suggest Harry’s participation in this screwball comedy
that isn’t quite as screwy as it should be; the closest it comes is Charles
Butterworth’s hypnotic fascination with a taffy-pulling device.</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">Harry’s appearance in <i>All-American Co-ed</i> received
none of the buildup that accompanied <i>Zenobia</i> (he’s billed
sixth between Esther Dale and The Tanner Sisters).</span><span style="border: 1pt none; color: #404040; padding: 0cm;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">He plays Hap Holden, wisecracking publicity flack out to recruit
new co-eds for stodgy Mar Brynn Horticultural School For Girls. It’s the
kind of supporting role Harry would specialize in for the rest of his career.
He does get a few choice moments and a ton of double-takes, tearing
strips out of his shirt with an electric razor while being serenaded by
lingerie-clad cuties, and feeding a sandwich to a meat-eating plant.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-59ReqPASDcM/V96UwG2m_uI/AAAAAAAAAhE/lOXaSHgEnVQy_z-JhOnkJ8aVx2fReS6NACLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-09-18%2Bat%2B8.50.12%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-59ReqPASDcM/V96UwG2m_uI/AAAAAAAAAhE/lOXaSHgEnVQy_z-JhOnkJ8aVx2fReS6NACLcB/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-09-18%2Bat%2B8.50.12%2BAM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A more interesting turn in Harry’s post-Roach career is a pair of
team efforts he made with Charley Rogers, Laurel & Hardy’s longtime
gagman, sometime director, and a fellow scribe on Harry’s four Laurel &
Hardy collaborations. Charley was never much of an on-screen performer
(he’s the detective in </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Habeas Corpus</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, Finlayson’s butler in </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Our
Wife</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Pack Up Your Troubles</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, and Simple Simon in </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Babes
In Toyland</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">), and his brittle, stuffy Englishman characterization is hard to
warm up to. But he’s a surprising partner for Harry. They have a
tremendous chemistry together (more than, say, Harry with El Brendel), their mutual timing is razor sharp, and Charley
provides one thing that Harry thrives under: an authority figure that Harry
strives eagerly to please. Their two films together, </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Double
Trouble </i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(Monogram, 1941)[7] and </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">House Of Errors</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> (PRC, 1942)
are delightfully playful second features that effortlessly overcome their
non-existent budgets.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FspL0uQm-QI/V9xAWyXNxNI/AAAAAAAAAgs/d6A3QwJ8eLAnocMQjCuhIKWeeRXkf7_aACLcB/s1600/Langdon%2BHouse%2Bof%2BErrors.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="315" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FspL0uQm-QI/V9xAWyXNxNI/AAAAAAAAAgs/d6A3QwJ8eLAnocMQjCuhIKWeeRXkf7_aACLcB/s400/Langdon%2BHouse%2Bof%2BErrors.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">House of Errors. <i>That's Vernon Dent fourth from left; Monty Collins far right.<br />Harry and Charley Rogers are smack in the middle.</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><span style="line-height: 15pt;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><span style="line-height: 15pt;">In both films their names are Alf and Bert (shades of </span><i style="line-height: 15pt;">Our
Relations</i><span style="line-height: 15pt;">), and Harry is once again in his familiar costume, in a somewhat
geriatric version of his silent character. </span><i style="line-height: 15pt;">Double Trouble</i><span style="line-height: 15pt;"> has
Charley and Harry as Alf and Bert Prattle, British refugees who arrive at the
home of a wealthy American sponsor (who’s expecting children, not two very
mature twits). Describing their disastrous journey across the Atlantic,
they share a terrifically timed dialogue exchange, with Harry’s hiccups constantly
interrupting Charley. With each hiccup, Charley says “Boo!” and
frightened Harry responds, “All gone!” (Offered a glass of water, Harry
declines: “I prefer his boos.”) The two engage in a non sequitur laced
discussion of their travails (see Stan and Ollie’s “shiphiking” story in </span><i style="line-height: 15pt;">Sons
Of The Desert</i><span style="line-height: 15pt;">), and Harry is once again distracted by sandwiches and
apples. Some things never change. Later, Harry’s given a few
minutes to himself to silently flirt with an assembly-line worker at the bean
cannery where he and Charley are working – doing magic tricks, juggling cans,
getting his finger caught in a mousetrap. She’s charmed, and so are we.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">The plot of the next Langdon/Rogers union, <i>House Of Errors</i>,
plays like a mash-up of Laurel & Hardy’s Fox features, <i>Dancing
Masters</i> and <i>The Big Noise</i> – odd, since those two
films had yet to be produced (Charley Rogers plays a brief bit in <i>Dancing
Masters</i>).</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">Harry and Charley (or Bert and Alf) are wanna-be reporters who
pose as houseboy and butler for the inventor of a new superweapon. An
oily, pencil-mustached smoothie woos the inventor’s daughter while attempting
to steal the invention for himself. Sound familiar? Story credit
for <i>House Of Errors</i> went to Langdon, with scriptwriting
support from Ewart Adamson (from the Columbia shorts department’s stable of
comedy writers; other Columbia stalwarts in the picture include Harry’s old
Sennett sidekick Vernon Dent and Monty Collins, who would later provide gags
for Laurel & Hardy’s final film, <i>Atoll K</i>).</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">Charged with guarding the super-secret weapon, Charley and Harry
engage in some spooky, darkened house antics reminiscent of the haunted maze in <i>A
Chump At Oxford</i> (complete with exploding cigars). After some
conversation over who’ll sleep first (as in <i>The Big Noise</i>), Charley
busies himself with knitting, as the bad guys try to nab a set of keys from
Harry’s side using a fish hook and a slingshot. Of course things start
moving about mysteriously, including Harry’s hat, hanky and his suddenly out of
control legs. Blame goes to the pickles and pie Harry had for dinner,
much like Stan’s “dizzy spells” in Chump. And like <i>The Big Noise</i>,
and <i>The Flying Deuces</i> before it, the whole thing culminates in
a wild aerial chase. Harry gets the girl (actually, she’s accidentally
swooned into his lap) and plants a few fluttery fingertip kisses on her mouth.
A lovely little fadeout for Harry’s final starring feature.</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">Harry still had a few films ahead of him, but his career had
finally run out of steam. He would continue to play bit parts in poverty
row B-pictures and share screen time with the likes of El Brendel and Elsie
Ames in a rather sad series of what he derisively coined “Oh – Ouch – Oh”
two-reelers back at Columbia, where the director would holler “go faster” until
Harry looked just plain tired, all momentum and hope exhausted. He died
on December 22, 1944, at the age of 60.</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">Harry Langdon may have been forgotten by Hollywood, but there was
at least one man who never forgot him. Stan Laurel kept a photo of Harry
on his wall well into the 1940s, and probably until his dying day. Of
Harry he said, “A great comedian who had it in him to be a great actor, like
Chaplin.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OmFS5nCidj4/V9wzVoldBiI/AAAAAAAAAgc/62CHMu0ryeQiCEZWhNoeMKyHG1LmbgpogCLcB/s1600/laurel%2Bspy%2Bsmasher.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="303" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OmFS5nCidj4/V9wzVoldBiI/AAAAAAAAAgc/62CHMu0ryeQiCEZWhNoeMKyHG1LmbgpogCLcB/s400/laurel%2Bspy%2Bsmasher.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Harry's portrait hangs on Stan's wall in the mid '40s. What I'd give to read that inscription.</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">That Harry Langdon achieved greatness – and that his greatness remains apparent today, a</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">s seen in the remarkable </span><a href="http://www.alldayentertainment.com/" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;" target="_blank">Harry Langdon: ‘Lost and Found’ DVD collection[8]</a><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;"> – is undeniable. His legacy may be clouded in myth, banged and bruised by time, his tale told by those who outlived and overshadowed him, but the proof is in the work… and in the impact he had on two of our most beloved comic figures.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">So the next time you laugh at Stan Laurel gnawing on a wax apple,
or one of those lingering close-ups of Mr. Laurel standing helplessly by as Mr.
Hardy suffers through another nice mess, give a little thanks skyward to Mr. Langdon.
It couldn’t have happened without him.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 18.0pt; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #404040;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">—————————————————————–</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">NOTES – Nobody’s Baby</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">[7] <i>Double Trouble</i> was directed by William West –
better known as Billy West, the silent comedian notorious for his Charlie
Chaplin imitation. The Laurel & Hardy connection: Babe Hardy played
the heavy in more than two dozen Billy West comedies, and was later teamed with
Bobby Ray in a pre-Laurel & Hardy partnership for West’s Cumberland
Productions.</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">[8] <a href="http://www.alldayentertainment.com/" target="_blank">All Day Entertainment's Harry Langdon: Lost and Found</a> is unfortunately out of print. Do yourself a favour and check amazon and ebay to nab a copy while you can! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Special thanks to: Nicole Arciola, Richard Bann, Ian Elliot, Paul Gierucki, David Kalat, Del Kempster, Glenn Mitchell, Ted Okuda, Patrick Picking, Richard Roberts, Roger Robinson, Ulrich Ruedel and Dave Stevenson.</span></div>
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The Scribe Fileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13107548080136525630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4769896756359417688.post-77878118959448180392016-09-14T11:01:00.000-07:002016-09-16T12:06:10.171-07:00Langdon & Laurel & Hardy & Hal (Part 4)<div class="MsoNormal">
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-N77yMwfG9fM/V9LM6szwkyI/AAAAAAAAAe8/o4h__ARjT-kqil0005Lzf-252umISI21QCLcB/s1600/LANGDON_ZENOBIA_03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="330" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-N77yMwfG9fM/V9LM6szwkyI/AAAAAAAAAe8/o4h__ARjT-kqil0005Lzf-252umISI21QCLcB/s400/LANGDON_ZENOBIA_03.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Exit
Laurel. Enter Langdon.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hollywood, Aug. 17, 1938 (U.P.) – “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Stan Laurel, pickle-faced little screen
comic, Wednesday was given his walking papers at Hal Roach studio which
immediately signed Harry Langdon to form a new team with rotund Oliver
Hardy…The new team of Hardy and Langdon, according to Roach, will do only
full-length features</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">By the summer of 1938, Hal Roach was a man of</span><span lang="EN-US"> </span><span lang="EN-US">huge artistic
aspirations and very little patience for the pickle-faced” comic who thought he
knew more about filmmaking than Roach did. He had already abandoned the
two-reel format and jettisoned short subject stalwarts Charley Chase and the
Our Gang troupe. Laurel & Hardy (and good old reliable Patsy Kelly) were
the only reminders of his slapstick past. And Roach considered them expendable.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Roach had ended his partnership with MGM, who seemed
to merely tolerate his non-Laurel & Hardy feature sin order to ensure a
steady stream of bankable product from the popular duo. Roach’s new
distribution deal with United Artists would free him to establish himself as a
serious filmmaker. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To United Artists, however, Laurel & Hardy were part
of the deal. Unknown to UA, Roach was now without his most marketable
commodity. United Artists couldn’t have been happy. Their arrangement was to include
a certain number of Laurel & Hardy comedies and suddenly – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">poof! –</i> no Laurel. The Roach/UA publicity
machine would have to go into high gear to convince exhibitors, audiences (and
themselves) that Langdon & Hardy was somehow preferable to Laurel & Hardy.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3GcwDgydbIA/V9mOKg1NayI/AAAAAAAAAfc/N_rmYXYwU9kQ_yI8Et22LlwL5zS05X4bQCLcB/s1600/Blotto_Langdon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3GcwDgydbIA/V9mOKg1NayI/AAAAAAAAAfc/N_rmYXYwU9kQ_yI8Et22LlwL5zS05X4bQCLcB/s400/Blotto_Langdon.jpg" width="308" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The teaming of Harry Langdon and Oliver Hardy received
a lot —</span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a lot</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">— of press. The permanent
split of Laurel & Hardy seemed like a done deal, with Harry stepping in to
bring his own childlike innocence to the role of Ollie’s sidekick. Laurel was
out, Langdon was in – for good.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Hopeful, hard-luck Harry's dilemma</b></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here was another opportunity for the newspapers to
print more stories about hopeful, hard-luck Harry. He was in the ultimate
catch-22… cautiously optimistic about what a pairing with Oliver Hardy could
mean to his career, and very aware that, ultimately, he was no replacement for
Stan Laurel. “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Stan got me my writing job
here at Roach’s. I never dreamed that his partnership with Oliver Hardy would
be broken… I honestly hope they’ll patch things up, even if it means Hardy and
I won’t play in a picture together.</i>” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But Roach wasn’t interested in creating another Laurel
& Hardy. Roach was more interested in creating “important” pictures based
on “important” stories by “important” authors. The story chosen was ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Zenobia’s Infidelity’</i>, the tale of a
sideshow elephant who falls in love with a country doctor. (Roach seemed to
have a fondness for genteel tales of the Old South – or maybe he just wanted to
recycle sets and costumes from 1936’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">General
Spanky</i>.) <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">So in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Zenobia</i>
Harry isn’t emulating Stan, he isn’t even the vacuous Harry of old; as sideshow
medicine man J. Thorndyke McCrackle he’s putting his own slightly dim spin on
W.C. Fields (aka Eustace P. McGargle). He even performs a patented Fields’ gag
lifted from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Old-Fashioned Way</i>:
hawking his curative</span><span lang="EN-US"> </span><span lang="EN-US">elixir, McCrackle’s voice devolves
into a raspy whisper until, swigging from a bottle of the snake oil, he’s able to
bellow out his sales pitch at full force. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Langdon and Hardy share very little screen time
together. Rob Stone, in his excellent book on the boys’ solo films, ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Laurel Or Hardy</i>’, makes the interesting
observation that Hardy was saddled not with one Laurel replacement, but with
three: Langdon, Stepin Fetchit and Billie Burke. (On viewing, Billie Burke’s
performance as Dr. Tibbett’s flibberty-gibbet wife is scarily similar to Stan’s
portrayal of Mrs. Hardy in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Twice Two</i>.)
So the film belongs to Babe Hardy, delivering an amiable variation on his own
personality, as a courtly Mississippi medico more concerned with following the
tenets of the Declaration of Independence than feeding sugar pills to
hypochondriacal matrons. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YB3ucoe7n6I/V9mNSmAbmLI/AAAAAAAAAfY/2yLNrvfjuCwY7jOwyHU1cZl0sVTSm7ThwCLcB/s1600/Chris-Seguin-Zenobia-still-7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YB3ucoe7n6I/V9mNSmAbmLI/AAAAAAAAAfY/2yLNrvfjuCwY7jOwyHU1cZl0sVTSm7ThwCLcB/s400/Chris-Seguin-Zenobia-still-7.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Much hat and Hardy crushing about to ensue.</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The big slapstick scene involving the new team revolves
around Dr. Tibbett’s examination of the ailing Zenobia. The expected mayhem
ensues. Zenobia crushes the doctor’s top hat, later she crushes the doctor himself;
she trumpets the hat off Tibbett’s head, wallops him with her trunk, and lifts
him high over her head. There’s even time for Tibbett and McCrackle to reenact
a gag from </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Block-Heads</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Tibbett</i>: “Maybe she’s deaf.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>McCrackle</i>: “Say, that’s possible.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Tibbett</i>: (shouting into Zenobia’s ear) “Hello!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>McCrackle</i>: “Hello, how are you?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Tibbett</i>: “I’m fine…” (big take and lingering glare)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">With the examination over, McCrackle expresses his thanks
to the good doctor with an unnecessary comment on Tibbett’s heft. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>McCrackle</i>: “She’ll always remember. Remember, an
elephant never forgets!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Tibbett</i>: “Yes, but I’m not an elephant!” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>McCrackle</i>: “No…well…not exactly…” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Stan
and Ollie they’re not. <o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So the grateful goliath follows Tibbett everywhere for
three reels, embarrassing his family, discomfiting the oh-so-import Carter
family, and driving McCrackle to sue Tibbett for alienating the affections of
an elephant. Harry has some good scenes in the courtroom, leaping to his feet
to recite his overly rehearsed speech (“<i>In the first place, Zenobia and I</i>…”)
and breaking into his sideshow spiel at the slightest provocation. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">All’s well that ends well, of
course, and as with</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">There Goes My Heart</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">,
the fadeout belongs to Harry, strolling off into the horizon and waving to the
audience as the end music swells.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--93OUojxlnc/V9xCAnmW-eI/AAAAAAAAAgw/EjxLC2Dknjw0XaWw_UNp4uXIthwd3O-XwCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-09-16%2Bat%2B11.26.18%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--93OUojxlnc/V9xCAnmW-eI/AAAAAAAAAgw/EjxLC2Dknjw0XaWw_UNp4uXIthwd3O-XwCLcB/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-09-16%2Bat%2B11.26.18%2BAM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">The critics were genuinely
pleased to see Harry back, and the reviews were optimistic if not overly
enthusiastic. The New York Times embraced Harry’s comeback: “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Harry Langdon’s pale
and beautifully blank countenance (as the elephant’s owner who sues Dr. Hardy
for alienation) has probably already excited the artistic jealousy of Mr.
Laurel.</i>” Meanwhile, Variety cautiously anticipated the pair’s next film: “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Langdon has but a few
moments to work with Hardy, so an estimate of their work as a team must wait
for future pictures.</i>”</span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<!--StartFragment-->
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But future pictures never happened. What seemed
like a good idea on paper died a quick death onscreen. Langdon & Hardy have
next-to-zero chemistry in their scenes together; the only time Babe seems
uncomfortable in the film is when he's sharing the screen with Harry. He's too
busy "acting" — <i>trying<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><u>not</u><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>to be Ollie</i> — to
make the team work<!--EndFragment-->
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the end, <i>Zenobia</i> couldn’t live up to the hype,
and audiences quickly wised up to the ruse. It didn’t take long to sound the death
knell on the Langdon & Hardy team. On May 13, 1939, just a month after <i>Zenobia’s</i> release, Motion Picture Herald
announced that Laurel & Hardy were back together. Langdon was out, Laurel
was in — for good.</span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i style="font-family: calibri; font-size: 12.1px; line-height: 16.94px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">An early version of this blog post was originally published in <a href="http://www.blotto.nl/nieuwe-blotto-34/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Nieuwe Blotto Magazine. </a></span></i></span></span></div>
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The Scribe Fileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13107548080136525630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4769896756359417688.post-82936417475167493472016-09-07T13:38:00.001-07:002016-09-09T07:55:10.012-07:00Langdon & Laurel & Hardy & Hal (Part 3)<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yFH7cqyorrs/V9BgFwvr6xI/AAAAAAAAAec/aEQ3eq6O_lUsuX-3cZvh3ywzJ5jzHiMZwCLcB/s1600/langdon%2Bhallelujah.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yFH7cqyorrs/V9BgFwvr6xI/AAAAAAAAAec/aEQ3eq6O_lUsuX-3cZvh3ywzJ5jzHiMZwCLcB/s640/langdon%2Bhallelujah.jpg" width="555" /></a></div>
<span style="line-height: 15pt;"><span style="border: 1pt none; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; padding: 0cm;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="line-height: 15pt;"><span style="border: 1pt none; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; padding: 0cm;"><b>The
fine Italian hand of Harry Langdon</b></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 15pt;"><span style="border: 1pt none; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; padding: 0cm;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">So
by March 1930, Harry was out of the Hal Roach lot… but not out of work.
He played supporting roles to Slim Summerville and Ben Lyon in two
features, vanished into a vortex of bankruptcy and divorce lawyers, and
resurfaced two years later at Educational to regurgitate old successes from<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Strong Man</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Long
Pants<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>in a series of
low-budget two-reelers. He came close to a comeback with a juicy,
fourth-billed role in Al Jolson’s heavily promoted<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Hallelujah, I’m A Bum</i>, but the
oddball rhyming musical, while delightfully charming today, was a disaster with
audiences of 1933. In 1934 he joined Columbia’s newly created short
subject department, where he abandoned his familiar costume and character, grew
a moustache, and reinvented his comic persona as a slightly befuddled,
decidedly un-magical, middle-aged man… Leon Errol or Hugh Herbert, without the
bite.</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">In
1935 Harry abandoned the Hollywood who abandoned him to tour Australia,
performing in a stage revival of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Anything
Goes</i>. Heading home after a successful run, he stopped in England to
do a small part in<i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Mad About
Money</i>. Back in Hollywood he churned out two quick two-reelers for
Columbia before landing, of all places, back at the Hal Roach studios.</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">Who
knows exactly what caused Harry to return to Roach in 1937? Stan Laurel,
according to Harry in a later interview, was responsible for getting Langdon a
job as a writer. But an August 12, 1937 syndicated newspaper report may hold the real
answer: “<i>Reports persist that Stanley Laurel won’t return to the Hal Roach lot,
and that Harry Langdon will replace him as a comedy co-star with Oliver Hardy</i>.”</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">Here’s
where you can start to connect the dots. The year-long gap between the
filming of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Way Out West<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>and the scripting of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Swiss Miss<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>was the result of yet another contract
dispute between Stan Laurel and Hal Roach. Roach was getting
progressively more fed up with his studio’s biggest – and most
argumentative – breadwinner. Laurel was, to Roach in 1937, what Langdon
was in 1930: a “high handed”, temperamental, pain in the neck. A
much-humbler Harry might be just the solution Roach was looking for.</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">But
first, let’s go back a few months, to the summer and fall of 1936 and the
creation of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Way Out West</i>. It would seem Langdon was in the air at the Roach studios. Stan, Roach or somebody must have
screened Harry’s masterpiece<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The
Strong Man</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>recently, since<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Way Out West</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>mirrors many of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Strong Man</i>’s core comic
ideas: the melodramatic battle of good vs. evil in a western saloon; a stagecoach
sequence centred around comic annoyance; the search for a young innocent named
Mary (“Roberts” in <i>Way Out West</i>; “Brown” in<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Strong Man</i>); and a
masquerade by a duplicitous, platinum-haired seductress out to “de-flower” the
comic innocent (Stan/Harry). Even Stan’s pantomimed account of his
horrific seduction to Mary Roberts (behind the meat locker door) echoes
Harry’s retelling of the tale to Mary Brown in the earlier film. </span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_TlHGYEA3eA/V9BV1t4nHJI/AAAAAAAAAeA/VGIOKkR5fLQTYgWXPzNudRoSxHNjvr1nQCLcB/s1600/Nobobys%2BBaby%2B04%2Bcopy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_TlHGYEA3eA/V9BV1t4nHJI/AAAAAAAAAeA/VGIOKkR5fLQTYgWXPzNudRoSxHNjvr1nQCLcB/s400/Nobobys%2BBaby%2B04%2Bcopy.jpg" width="336" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Way Out West vs. The Strong Man: a tale of seduction and a stagecoach encounter.</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><i><br /></i></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><i>Way
Out West</i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"> </span></span><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">turned out to be enough of a box-office success for Roach to
tolerate another four-film pact with Stan Laurel Productions – scotching any immediate need for a Langdon & Hardy partnership.</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">Regardless,
here was Harry back at Roach (as an insurance policy against Laurel?). This “just in case” mentality may have resulted in Harry’s first
appearance in a Hollywood feature in three years, an unbilled cameo in Roach’s<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>There Goes My Heart</i>. As a
milquetoast minister cajoling bickering lovers Frederick March and Virginia
Bruce into matrimony, Langdon’s return to the screen receives particularly
loving treatment from director Norman Z. McLeod, one that must have inspired a
happy “welcome back” from moviegoers. Harry’s placid interpretation
suggests interesting opportunities as a character actor… a “what might have
been” scenario similar to Oliver Hardy’s uncredited bit in <i>Riding High</i>.
He even gets the final shot to himself, a true leave-‘em-laughing
homecoming.[6]</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span>
<b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Laurel & Langdon... together at last</b><br />
<b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">At
the same time Harry was making his minor come-back in Roach’s first United
Artist release, he was also hard at work on Roach’s final release for MGM:
Laurel & Hardy’s<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Block-Heads</i>.
Even before its release,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Block-Heads<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>was announced as the team’s final
film. For some critics it was “good riddance” to Mr. Laurel and Mr.
Hardy, and time for a belated appreciation of Mr. Langdon. “R.W.D.” in
the The New York Herald-Tribune began his<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Block-Heads<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>review thusly:</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><i>“The
fine Italian hand of Harry Langdon is discernible in the latest Laurel and
Hardy feature-length film at the Rialto. Langdon, who in his heyday was
undoubtedly a greater comedian than either the sad-faced man or the fat fellow
ever could be, helps to create a comic tour de force which lifts this offering
well above the entertainment level of the recent<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Swiss Miss. Block-Heads<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>is, pardonably enough, a film without
a point, unless it is to massage the spectator’s stomach muscles, so
the other four authors may breathe freely with Mr. Langdon.”</i></span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">Well,
somebody liked Harry.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ueSxg6hnDM8/V9FKDzNZ0aI/AAAAAAAAAes/zIePMrTxlLIhcUMhWrVn0A3zW5YuE0SmQCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-09-08%2Bat%2B7.20.21%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ueSxg6hnDM8/V9FKDzNZ0aI/AAAAAAAAAes/zIePMrTxlLIhcUMhWrVn0A3zW5YuE0SmQCLcB/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-09-08%2Bat%2B7.20.21%2BAM.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Three minds without a single thought.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">That<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Block-Heads</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>was superior to<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Swiss Miss<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>goes without saying. What is
hard to say is exactly what Harry contributed to the script. <i>Block-Heads<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>is a noisy remake of the boys’ first
talkie,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Unaccustomed As We Are</i>,
padded out with some uncharacteristically frantic comedy and a hefty dose of
“white magic”. But the first two reels are delightfully genteel – even
melancholy – with an obvious foundation in Langdon’s Sennett three-reeler<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Soldier Man</i>. Some have
even gone as far as calling<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Block-Heads<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>a remake of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Soldier Man</i>. (Calling<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Block–Heads</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>a remake of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Soldier Man<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>is like calling<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>A Chump At Oxford</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>a remake of Langdon’s<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Feet Of Mud</i>. Both have
street sweeping scenes, and both Stan and Harry play golf with a broom and a
manhole. Harry seems content with recycling old gags on his Laurel &
Hardy assignments.)</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">But
the similarities end at the initial comic set up: an innocent doughboy unaware
that World War I is over. Put Stan and Harry in exactly the same
situation, and their key differences become apparent.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">In<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Block-Heads</i>, Stan steadfastly
patrols the trenches he was left to defend twenty years earlier. Pivoting
in place for the umpteenth time during his umpteenth march back-and-forth,
blowing his umpteenth reveille, dining on his umpteenth can of beans, Stan is
the ultimate literalist – he could do this forever. (“When I’m told to do
something …”) Confronted with the reality of having wasted twenty years on his
pointless watch, his only reply is, “How time flies!”.</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">Harry,
on the other hand, wanders aimlessly and alone, encountering bundles of
dynamite, panicky faux-Euro peasants, and a rather mystifying set of cow’s
udders. The udder sequence is one of Langdon’s most celebrated routines;
hiding under a cow while taking aim at a foreign “enemy”, Harry is mesmerized
by the teats… he can’t keep his eyes, or his fingers, off them. (It’s
hard to concentrate on your target with these things dangling in your face!)
In a typically convoluted Sennett twist, Harry is led to believe the cow
has eaten some dynamite. As he dashes off to fetch a pail of water, the
cow runs away…just as the dynamite blows up a butcher’s discarded basket.
As chunks of meat rains down on Harry, he scolds the smoldering
carcass: “I told you to cough it up.” Just then the butcher’s basket, still
smoking, lands in front of Harry… a heaven-sent barbecue perfect for preparing
dinner.</span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QMbxKa6PX1w/V9BWOwxCJ_I/AAAAAAAAAeE/2LGiqq_BXfkWXDb15iB1JnTpIUmFagaNgCLcB/s1600/nobody%2527s%2Bbaby%2B06.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="306" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QMbxKa6PX1w/V9BWOwxCJ_I/AAAAAAAAAeE/2LGiqq_BXfkWXDb15iB1JnTpIUmFagaNgCLcB/s400/nobody%2527s%2Bbaby%2B06.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">It’s
interesting to think what Stan would have done with the same material. He
had recently taken to doing solo pantomime routines in their features (bottling
wine in<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Bohemian Girl</i>,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>finagling brandy from the St. Bernard
in <i>Swiss Miss</i>), so it’s very easy to imagine how Stan might react while
taking cover beneath a bovine. Think of the broken statue gag in<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Wrong Again</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>– it could have been wonderful.</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">But
the character of “Stan” simply doesn’t possess Langdon’s childlike curiosity. Beans, hard-boiled eggs, nuts, wax apples… it’s all the same to Stan. If Ollie wants to carry him to his car, who is Stan to question why?
He doesn’t stop to wonder about such things. Sure, Stan has his
childlike moments – packing his toy boat for Atlantic City in<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Be Big</i>, finding a spinning top
in<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Tit For Tat</i>, poking a
chalk drawing of Ollie in the eye in<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Towed
In A Hole</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>– but total
acceptance of what’s in front of him is generally Stan’s response to any
situation. An udder might distract him for a moment or two, but he’d be
more likely to get himself entangled with his gun.</span></span><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8pg-LVuCM94/V9BWROl0rZI/AAAAAAAAAeI/Wr4Fvc-vXhUCsenRjhQK_iNQ-p2AFL0LwCEw/s1600/nobody%2527s%2Bbaby%2B07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8pg-LVuCM94/V9BWROl0rZI/AAAAAAAAAeI/Wr4Fvc-vXhUCsenRjhQK_iNQ-p2AFL0LwCEw/s400/nobody%2527s%2Bbaby%2B07.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Stan channelling Langdon...and very nicely.</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">S</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">till, Langdon’s influence is felt in subtle ways through-out the film. As</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;"><span class="apple-converted-space" style="line-height: 15pt;"> </span><i style="line-height: 15pt;">Block-Heads</i><span class="apple-converted-space" style="line-height: 15pt;"> </span><span style="line-height: 15pt;">gallops to its climax, it revisits a typical Laurel & Hardy gag lifted from</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="line-height: 15pt;"> </span><i style="line-height: 15pt;">Unaccustomed As We Are</i><span style="line-height: 15pt;">. Ollie enters a gas-filled kitchen, lit match in hand, to ignite a stove. A pause, then the inevitable ka-boom! Here’s where Harry’s “fine Italian hand” comes in. Stan, startled, bolts from his chair and hurtles himself down thirteen flights of stairs to the safety of the street. Once outside, he comes to a flat-footed stop and examines the building. He approaches the high-rise warily, giving the building a tentative shove before dashing back into the street – just in case it crumbles from the force of his mighty hands. Approaching again, he pushes it, pushes a little harder, then leans against it with his shoulder. Satisfied that it’s not going to crumble into dust, he tips his hat to the doorman and returns to Ollie’s apartment. If anything is a scene from a potential “Langdon & Hardy” comedy, this would be it… Stan’s derby is even crumpled into an approximation of Langdon’s trademark dented fedora.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;"><span style="line-height: 15pt;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">So it was no surprise that, when Laurel refused to indulge in Roach’s demand for
retakes on<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Block-Heads</i>’<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>climactic scene (check out Stan’s
gangly double in the shotgun finale), Hal Roach would once and for all turn to
the man who could be Mr. Laurel’s comic cousin: Harry Langdon.</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; padding: 0cm;"><b>N<span style="font-size: xx-small;">OTES </span></b></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; padding: 0cm;">[6]
<i>In June 1938, just as</i><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Block-Heads</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>had
wrapped production, it was announced that Harry would star in</i><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Follies On
Horseback</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-style: italic;"> </span><i>for
producer Jed Buell. Stan Laurel had partnered with Buell that same year to produce a
series of westerns starring singing cowboy Fred Scott. Following Laurel’s
departure from the Roach lot, Buell was slated as associate producer on Stan’s
announced first feature for Mack Sennett: </i>Problem Child<i>. (Buell was well suited to this
story about a full-grown child of midget parents; he had earlier produced the
all-midget western </i>Terror Of Tiny Town<i>.) It’s very likely Stan was
doing Langdon a favor by putting Harry and Buell together; Langdon would
ultimately star in 1940’s </i><span style="font-family: "calibri"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Misbehaving Husbands</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-style: italic;"> </span><i>for producer Buell at PRC.</i></span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
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<i style="font-family: calibri; line-height: 16.94px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">An early version of this blog post was originally published in <a href="http://www.blotto.nl/nieuwe-blotto-34/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Nieuwe Blotto Magazine. </a></span></i></div>
The Scribe Fileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13107548080136525630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4769896756359417688.post-36856801802507021302016-03-26T10:43:00.000-07:002016-03-28T07:01:20.280-07:00Langdon & Laurel & Hardy & Hal (Part 2)<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
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<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EbulkAqSFuY/VvGokSqko3I/AAAAAAAAAdM/Ew0oEF4cNbAcyMWspVYH-0G6K7yWLgL_g/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-03-22%2Bat%2B4.17.56%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EbulkAqSFuY/VvGokSqko3I/AAAAAAAAAdM/Ew0oEF4cNbAcyMWspVYH-0G6K7yWLgL_g/s640/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-03-22%2Bat%2B4.17.56%2BPM.png" width="478" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: 15pt;"><i><span style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><b>“Well well well well well!”</b><span style="color: #404040;"> </span></span></i></span><b style="font-size: 12.8px; line-height: 15pt;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">The Talkies and the Lot of Fun</span></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><br /></b></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">With Harry’s First National
contract over and done with, Hal Roach was in a position to capitalize on the
opportunity: He would finally have Harry Langdon on his payroll.</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">It seemed like the perfect home
for Langdon at this critical point in his career. Harry’s quiet,
methodical technique was completely in synch with the situational approach of
the Roach studio, and with comedy strategists like Leo McCarey and Charley
Chase defining the Roach style, he’d have strong support on par with Capra,
Ripley and Edwards.</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">And Roach was nothing if not an
opportunist in such situations; he had built his “All Star” series by signing
former dramatic stars such as Lionel Barrymore and Theda Bara for two-reel
comedies. Hollywood cast-offs Priscilla Dean, Herbert Rawlinson and Mae
Busch were supported by Laurel & Hardy in some of the team’s first films
together.</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Reportedly, Harry was offered a
contract in 1928 to star in four silent 4-reel comedies with synchronized
scores. The featurette format had met with some success with another
faded star, ex-Sennett comedienne Mabel Normand, whose 1926-27 series with
Roach came to a premature end due to Mabel’s ill health. Harry would fill
that void nicely.</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">But in the early days of sound,
plans and press releases seemed to change daily. On November 4, 1928,
newspapers announced: “Harry Langdon has signed a contract to make full-length
talking pictures for Hal Roach… the coast producer and cinema comedian will
become pioneers in the field of the feature-length talking comedy.”</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">That honeymoon didn’t last
long. On December 29th it was reported: “Harry Langdon has cancelled his
contract with Hal Roach after refusing to accept a three-months’ layoff in
prospect at the studio.” It was during this time that Roach would shut
down the studio to wire it for sound. But not long after production
resumed, Harry would have a home. (Although not immediately – three
All-Star talkie comedies were produced before Langdon took over the series.)</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Rather than features, Harry
would make his comeback in a series of eight talkie 2-reelers. Roach’s
new star was ballyhooed in the trade press with four colour ads, and by a
singularly bizarre short film we’ll call, for lack of an official title, <i>Hal
Roach Presents Harry Langdon. </i>Harry first stood before MGM executives
(and the studio microphone) in an in-jokey, name-dropping, double entendrelaced
promotional reel that’s just the kind of thing to amuse a roomful of cigar-chomping,
back-slapping salesmen. It’d be impossible not to get laughs.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kHydXzeZTGU/VvGnD11_-KI/AAAAAAAAAdA/Q1barslMwmQCIM3mWxf2mSw1wBAygc30g/s1600/harry%2Bpresenting%2BHL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kHydXzeZTGU/VvGnD11_-KI/AAAAAAAAAdA/Q1barslMwmQCIM3mWxf2mSw1wBAygc30g/s320/harry%2Bpresenting%2BHL.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>"Have you got any little Quimbys?"</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">The film opens at the front
door of a modestly affluent home. A knock at the door is answered by
Thelma Todd, who opens it to reveal Harry. After some initial hesitation,
Harry’s first words are “Well well well well well” (ten “wells” in all).
He engages in some risqué dialogue with Thelma, who portrays “Mrs.
Quimby” – a reference to Fred Quimby, then the New York head of sales for MGM’s
short subject division but later the producer for MGM’s fabled animation unit,
home to Hanna-Barbera and Tex Avery.</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Harry: “<i>You’re Mrs. Quimby,
huh?</i>”</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Thelma: “<i>Yes</i>.”</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Harry: “<i>Not Mrs. Rogers…</i>”</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Thelma: “<i>No.</i>”</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Harry: “<i>No, no… you’re Mrs.
Quimby!</i>”</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Thelma: “<i>Yes!</i>”</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Harry: “<i>Have you… have you got
any little Quimbys?</i>”</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Thelma: “<i>No.</i>”</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Harry: “<i>Oh you haven’t got any
Quimbys</i>…”</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Thelma: “<i>No.</i>”</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Harry: “<i>Not one… not one little
Quimby?</i>”</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Thelma: “<i>Not one!</i>”</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Harry: “<i>Tsk tsk tsk. If
you were Mrs… if you were Mrs. Rogers would you have any Quimbys?</i>”</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Realizing that Mr. Quimby isn’t
home (with some remarks about Quimby making “boom boom” and doing some “gap
closing” with fellow MGM-exec Howard Dietz), Harry wonders how Thelma would
react to a drunken husband coming home.</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Harry: “<i>Supposing he did come
home intoxicated? Would you raise a rumpus?</i>”</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Thelma: “<i>I don’t think so!</i>”</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Harry: “<i>You wouldn’t raise one
little rump?</i>” (Thelma lets out an audible giggle.)</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Finally, Harry drags in a drunken Eddie
Dunn (as Mr. Quimby) for the black out joke, and as the film fades back Eddie steps out of
character to announce Harry’s arrival at Roach.</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Eddie: “<i>Mr. Roach has the
greatest confidence in the world in Mr. Langdon, and I know that Harry is with
Mr. Roach heart and soul.</i>”</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">The message is clear: Mr. Roach
wants to reassure MGM that the newly-chastened Harry will no longer indulge in
prima donna behaviour. You have Mr. Roach’s word.[2]</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">There lies the problem with the
entire series. Roach’s most successful series were always dependent on a
strong guiding hand (Stan Laurel, Charley Chase, and Robert McGowan on the “Our
Gang” series). But there was no way that Roach was going to allow Langdon
that level of control, particularly after the escalating fiascos of his three directorial
efforts at First National. Unfortunately, Roach was more a businessman
than a true comedy craftsman, and the directors assigned to the Langdon
series – Fred Guiol, Charley Rogers, Roach studio manager Warren Doane(!) –
were hardly the men to guide Harry through the treacherous waters of the new
talkie medium. So who is ultimately responsible for these strange,
strange films? Roach the hammer-fisted businessman? Or Langdon, the
high-handed artiste?</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>From Whimsical Pixie to Literal Halfwit</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Harry’s talkie “debut”
demonstrates a seriously wrongheaded approach to sound. While this type
of stuff <i>must have </i>been uproariously funny to Mr. Quimby, Mr.
Rogers and Mr. Dietz (you can just see them laughing their heads off at Harry’s
point-blank ad lib “<i>You got a bathroom in there</i>?”), it positioned Harry as a
yammering idiot.</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">But Harry’s way with words must
have — <i>must have</i> — worked for him. After all, Harry had
spent decades on the stage, and had just finished up a successful vaudeville
tour before signing with Roach. So he obviously knew how to use his voice
— and it must have earned him laughs. One has to believe that Harry
simply took what worked for him while performing live, and put it into action
on the Roach soundstages. And why not? After all, Harry-the-character
was a talker. If you watch Harry in his silent films, he’s a non-stop
chatterbox, constantly seeking approval or giving his foes a childish tongue
lashing. But silence wrapped this odd figure in the protective veil
of otherworldiness; the cold, cruel reality of the talkies transforms him from
whimsical pixie to literal halfwit.</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">So with a new and unfamiliar
creative team behind him, and nobody to guide him, Harry was back to square
one. The first two Roach/Langdon shorts are missing-in-action (a shame,
because <i>Sky Boy </i>– which features Harry marooned on an iceberg
with Thelma Todd – sounds utterly fascinating!), but the earliest survivor, <i>The
Head Guy</i>, demonstrates precisely where the series went wrong. Its
centrepiece – a bizarre stream of consciousness monologue featuring Harry, a
sandwich, and an apple, all performed in a single take – is literally like
watching a car wreck. You simply can’t look away. For three and
three-quarter indescribable minutes (which I will now attempt, in vain, to describe),
Harry contemplates the fact that his girlfriend running away with a traveling
vaudeville troupe. The only solution is suicide:</span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_VUgOSxdxaQ/VvGnGChp6LI/AAAAAAAAAdA/7ySuf6MiR-Ut3tdOPHEeHjki-mSU31D0A/s1600/harry%2Bthe%2Bhead%2Bguy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_VUgOSxdxaQ/VvGnGChp6LI/AAAAAAAAAdA/7ySuf6MiR-Ut3tdOPHEeHjki-mSU31D0A/s320/harry%2Bthe%2Bhead%2Bguy.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Contemplating suicide ...and the merits of eating an apple in a timely manner.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpVh5wLtKLM" target="_blank">WATCH THE SCENE.</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Harry sits himself down and
sobs uncontrollably… a squeaky, gasping blubber. “<i>If Nancy don’t want me
I wanna die</i>.” His eyes widen with the realization of what he’s just said.
He repeats his death wish, eyes widening again. He really means it.
More sobbing… until Harry becomes distracted by a pencil and
absentmindedly picks at his fingernails. “<i>I will die I will die</i>!”, he
proclaims, banging his fist on the table. Suddenly, Harry becomes
resolute… who needs Nancy? “<i>I’ll get myself another girl. Maybe a
pretty girl and maybe a bigger girl</i>!” But Nancy really is the only girl
for him, and the suicidal sobbing continues… while the lunchbox on his desk
grabs Harry’s attention. Stuffing a sandwich into his mouth between tears
(and coughing on the bread like a child who’s eating too fast), he snuffles his
way to dessert before deciding, “<i>I could jump in the lake I will I don’t want
no apple now I don’t want no apple now I’ll eat my apple after now</i>”.</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">See? I told you it was
indescribable.</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Langdon excels in silent, solo
set-pieces, and each film goes out of its way to provide him
opportunities. There’s two such turns in <i>Skirt Shy</i>: Harry,
disguised in grandmotherly garb, stumbles and catches the boxing gloves which
serve as his bosom on a tiny sapling. The sapling sways, pulling the gloves out
of his bodice and swinging them back into Harry’s face. Harry swats the
gloves; they swat him back. This goes on countless times, with infinite
variations, each funnier than the first… it’s Harry at his best. A few
minutes later Harry, standing under an apple tree, takes a bite of a fallen
apple. Finding it sour, he drops it to the ground… only to have another
apple fall from the tree (or, in Harry’s mind, from Heaven) straight into his
hand.</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">With the fifth film in the
series, <i>The Fighting Parson, </i>things start to click.
Harry gets a terrific introduction, playing the banjo aboard a stagecoach
before splaying out his hands to receive alms that will never come. (We
actually get to hear him play, unlike his earlier banjo strumming in the silent <i>Lucky
Stars.</i>) Later in the film, Harry takes the stage in a tough western
saloon, singing Frankie and Johnnie (again accompanying himself on the banjo)
and performing an eccentric soft-shoe. Like Charley Chase in his own
Roach series, Langdon uses the early talkie medium to deftly display his
vaudeville origins. The film reverts to silent sight gag comedy for its
climactic boxing scene: Harry, with two boxing gloves at the end of lengthy
poles shoved up the sleeves of his oversized sweater, looks like human praying
mantis… a hallucinatory variation on the boxing scene in <i>Three’s A
Crowd</i>, and certainly a child’s view of the type of creature he’d have to be
to overcome his nemesis (Leo Willis).</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">The</span></i><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"> <i>Big Kick </i>is probably the best of the group.
It’s virtually silent from fade in to fade out, and the first Langdon
short to benefit from a musical background (mostly cobbled together from
Vitaphone scores created for earlier Roach silents). Harry says next-to-nothing
throughout the entire film, instead performing a series of pantomime routines
against a non-existent plot involving rum-runners at Harry’s gas station.[3]
All the old Langdon standbys are here: dummies too easily confused with
real people, a menacing balloon, and a rather charming stretching-and-yawning,
rise-and-shine sequence that predates the opening of <i>Pee-Wee’s Big
Adventure </i>by more than half a century. Harry even introduces a
gag that he’d resurrect a decade later in Laurel & Hardy’s <i>Saps At
Sea</i>. But more on that later.</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Langdon’s two final outings, <i>The
Shrimp </i>and <i>The King</i>, are trifling slapsticks with a
distinctly oddball approach –<i>The King, </i>in particular, with its
roots in <i>Soldier Man</i> and <i>The Chaser</i>, and yet
more dialogue involving suicide and an apple – but neither recaptures his
silent magic. (Photoplay on <i>The King</i>: “The dialogue is deadly
dull, and the fear grows upon us that Harry’s enormous gift for pantomime is
lost in the talkies.”)[4] </span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">A critic had once described
Harry as a wind-up toy; in the Roach films he’s literally wound too tight,
sproinging wildly out of control for two reels. Frank Capra would
famously tell the story of watching Harry film a two-reeler at Columbia (1938’s <i>Sue
My Lawyer</i>), while the director hollered “go faster!”. This exact
scenario could have easily applied to Harry’s stay at Roach ten years earlier;
the hectic results are neither pure Roach nor pure Langdon – they’re a step
backwards into early Sennett territory. In the end it’s not surprising
that Harry’s contract wasn’t renewed, Roach very graciously “releasing” Langdon
to co-star in <i>Come Easy</i> (later re-christened <i>A
Soldier’s Plaything</i>) at First National.[5]</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">But what does all this have to
do with Laurel & Hardy? Well, a couple of things. Looking at
the Langdon and Laurel & Hardy series being produced at the same time, one
quickly sees how differently they approached sound. One method works, one
doesn’t. Harry tends to work in a vacuum, and feels the need to fill
silence with chatter… often talking to himself “just because” that’s what you
did in this strange new medium. Laurel & Hardy’s partnership, on the
other hand, allowed them to establish a “speak only when you’re spoken to”
technique. Laurel & Hardy naturally engage in dialogue; Harry
performs monologues.</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">There’s also a subtle shift in
Stan’s performing style during this period; one that becomes particularly
noticeable around the time of <i>Below Zero</i> and <i>Hog Wild</i> (released
as Harry’s final two Roach films were reaching theatres). Stan’s
performances seem more ethereal, like he doesn’t quite belong in this world any
more. Witness his doleful gaze in the opening scenes of <i>Below
Zero</i> – empty, but just a little sad. Or his utter uselessness in <i>Hog
Wild</i>, where even the simplest task seems beyond his blank comprehension.
It’s at this point that Stan really starts to transcend reality… from a
somewhat dim yet feisty sidekick to Mr. Hardy, to the vacant,
void-of-any-thought Mr. Laurel. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Langdon’s
proximity played a role in this – but Stan had now officially stepped into the
role of cinema’s master of comic inertia.</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Finally, and perhaps most
importantly, it was likely during this period that Laurel and Langdon
would forge their friendship, one that would last Langdon’s lifetime and have a
considerable impact on his career as Harry stumbled through the 1930s.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">NOTES </span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">[2] In a February article in
Photoplay Magazine entitled “Whatever Happened To Harry Langdon”, Katherine
Albert wrote: “Not so long ago he signed with Hal Roach to make two-reelers.
He’d never met Roach before. The first thing said was, “Now, see
here, Langdon, none of that high handed stuff you’d pulled at First National.”</span><span style="color: #404040;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><i>[3] Harry’s lack of dialogue in </i>The
Big Kick<i> may be due to the fact that it was his first multi-lingual
film. Like Laurel</i></span><span style="color: #404040; font-style: italic;"><br />
</span><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><i>& Hardy, Our Gang and Charley Chase, Langdon also performed
phonetic versions of his films for foreign markets. Among Harry’s titles
were </i>La Estacion de Gasolina </span><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><i>(The Big Kick, Spanish), </i>Pobre
Infeliz </span><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><i>(The Shrimp, Spanish) and </i>Der Konig </span><span style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 1pt none; font-style: italic; padding: 0cm;">(The
King, German).</span><span style="color: #404040; font-style: italic;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;"><i>[4] A week after the release of The
King, Roach released </i>A Tough Winter<i>, an Our Gang comedy
featuring African-American comic Lincoln Perry [aka Stepin Fetchit]. The film was apparently
a test for a starring series for Fetchit – Roach may have already been looking
for a replacement for Langdon. Harry’s series was ultimately supplanted
by The Boy Friends; Fetchit eventually appeared with Harry in Zenobia.</i></span><span style="color: #404040; font-style: italic;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">[5] In June 1932, syndicated
newspaper column “In Hollywood” reported that Langdon’s contract with Al
Christie would be “assumed by Hal Roach”. It seems Harry and Roach still
needed each other.</span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i style="font-family: calibri; line-height: 16.94px;">An early version of this blog post was originally published in <a href="http://www.blotto.nl/nieuwe-blotto-34/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Nieuwe Blotto Magazine. </a></i></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
The Scribe Fileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13107548080136525630noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4769896756359417688.post-12352882329981485082016-02-26T07:42:00.001-08:002016-02-26T09:01:15.928-08:00Langdon & Laurel & Hardy & Hal (Part 1)<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OVEcr_ULmEo/VtBuzLCunFI/AAAAAAAAAbU/sSeCy4Tc9d4/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-02-26%2Bat%2B10.26.47%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OVEcr_ULmEo/VtBuzLCunFI/AAAAAAAAAbU/sSeCy4Tc9d4/s640/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-02-26%2Bat%2B10.26.47%2BAM.png" width="526" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Baby. Elf. Strutting little jerk. Hugely influential. All of the above?</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;"><span style="line-height: 15pt;">Harry Langdon. He’s been called The Baby. The Little Elf. An alien. The critic James Agee likened him to a baby dope fiend. In his acclaimed book The Silent Clowns, Walter Kerr compared him to “a comma”. One title card simply christened his character “the Odd Fellow”. Of the man himself, Frank Capra branded him – perhaps permanently – as “</span></span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">an impossible, opinionated, conceited, strutting little jerk</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">” and “</span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">the only real honest-to-goodness human tragedy that I have personally seen from start to finish</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">”. Call him what you will, Harry Langdon remains one of the most enigmatic – both as a comic creation and as a man – performers in the history of cinema comedy. During his 20-year maelstrom of a film career, Langdon found himself in and out of the Hal Roach Studios more than once, and served as friend, collaborator, confidant and hugely influential inspiration to Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 15pt;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; line-height: 15pt; padding: 0cm;">But, before we go too far, let's take a brief look at Harry’s meteoric rise (and equally meteoric fall), and the radical change</span><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; line-height: 15pt; padding: 0cm;"> he brought to silent comedy in the mid-20's – so radical that it caused Stan Laurel to completely re-examine his decade-long approach to film comedy, slam on the brakes, and turn it 180 degrees.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><b>Harry in a Nutshell</b></span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<i><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; padding: 0cm;">In 1923 Hal Roach, on the advice of Harold Lloyd, tried to talk
long-time vaudevillian Harry Langdon into a screen career. At the time
Lloyd was departing Roach to pursue a distribution deal with Paramount, leaving
Roach with Snub Pollard and Paul Parrott as his big comedy stars.[1]
Apparently the money wasn’t there, and Langdon signed with producer Sol
Lesser (whose big star at the time was a post-"The Kid<i>"</i> Jackie
Coogan). Harry filmed a handful of shorts for Lesser – at least two,
maybe more. Lesser then turned around and sold the films and Langdon’s
contract to Mack Sennett.</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; padding: 0cm;">The slam-bam Sennett studios seemed like the worst place in the
world for a meticulous pantomimist like Langdon, and at first the Sennett style
seemed to get the best of Harry. Eventually Langdon, with the help of
writer-director team Frank Capra, Arthur Ripley and Harry Edwards, solidified
the character that set him apart from every other comedian on the planet: an
inexplicable man-child baffled and bewildered by virtually everything he
encounters; a helpless innocent whose only ally, according to Capra, was God.</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; padding: 0cm;">Soon, flushed with success, Harry Langdon Productions signed a contract with First
National Pictures for a series of features. The first two, "Tramp,
Tramp, Tramp" and "The Strong Man", were huge critical and
financial hits. But if God was Harry-on-celluloid’s only ally, he
wasn’t on Harry Langdon’s side in real life. Langdon’s artistic
aspirations led to darker journeys into his character’s psyche – and to the
departure of Capra and Edwards, along with a large share of his audience.
First National craved films like his earlier, funny comedies. Meanwhile,
Sennett saturated the market with Langdon releases he had held in reserve,
cashing in on First National’s publicity machine.</span><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: #404040; padding: 0cm;"> </span><span style="line-height: 15pt;">This rapid one-two-three punch decimated Harry’s career and helped
forge what became the legend of Harry Langdon: an overgrown egomaniac whose
ambition far outranked his talent and his understanding of his own character;
whose own blindness to his limitations and insatiable desire to out-Chaplin
Chaplin deservedly destroyed his career.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><b>The Langdon Influence</b></span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<i><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; padding: 0cm;">In the all-too-short span of Harry’s superstardom, his influence
was everywhere. Keaton, Larry Semon, even Chaplin. They all seemed to pick up a little bit of Langdon. So it was inevitable that it would touch Stan Laurel.
Stan had been struggling for years to define his comic persona, which
jumped from hyperactive dumbbell to low-key, dead-on (and frankly, much
funnier) parodies of Rudolph Valentino, Milton Sills and John Barrymore.</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; padding: 0cm;">Ultimately, Stan did learn from Harry. Here’s what he
learned: To take it slow. <i>Slooooooooow</i>. This seemed to be the trigger
Laurel required to reevaluate his comic style – and it would change everything.</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; padding: 0cm;">It didn’t happen right away. Laurel’s 1926 Joe Rock comedy "Half A Man" is usually cited as a turning point in his career; a prime
example of Stan in full Langdon-mode. But it’s not really there. It’s more like Stan Laurel imitating Lupino Lane imitating Harry Langdon.
Stan’s screen character by this time had developed into a prissy,
petulant, easily agitated fop (often with a pince-nez versus Lane’s trademark
monocle) that he would carry through his first co-starring films with Oliver
Hardy.</span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7vQFcciAZ9c/VtBxOqBQ7jI/AAAAAAAAAbc/8WMKcSPnkYQ/s1600/stanlaurel20s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7vQFcciAZ9c/VtBxOqBQ7jI/AAAAAAAAAbc/8WMKcSPnkYQ/s400/stanlaurel20s.jpg" width="308" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Stan Laurel, pre-Hardy. Half child / Half fop.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">Stan in </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">"Half A Man"</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;"> h</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;">as his moments of childlike
innocence, but he’s really nothing like Harry. There's a scene where
he’s walking along the beach and taken by surprise by the oncoming surf.
Stan chases the waves back into the sea, chastising them,
emphatically stomping on the ground to make his point. Just like Langdon would do. But the scene has
no subtlety or grace. It comes from nowhere and goes nowhere. He’s
just a silly child, spanking the ocean and licking his lollipop.</span></div>
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<span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; padding: 0cm;">A more persuasive link to the future Stan Laurel is "Saturday
Afternoon", a 1925 Sennett three-reeler teaming Harry with husky Vernon Dent
in an embryonic version of Laurel & Hardy, in a plot that anticipates "Their
Purple Moment", "Blotto" and "Sons Of The Desert".
Harry is a hapless husband lured into stepping out with a couple of
cuties by a burly, worldly friend. Of course big/little, smart/dumb
comedy teams were nothing new – Lloyd Hamilton and Bud Duncan were “Ham &
Bud”, and Babe Hardy himself had been paired with Billy Ruge as “Plump &
Runt” and with Bobby Ray in a trio of shorts in the mid-20s. But "Saturday
Afternoon" has all the hallmarks of a classic Laurel & Hardy film:
a domineering wife, a secretive plan to sneak out, and one friend all too
willing to lead the other astray.</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; padding: 0cm;">There’s a wonderf</span><span style="line-height: 15pt;">ul scene in "</span><span style="line-height: 15pt;">Saturday Afternoon"</span><span style="line-height: 15pt;"> where
Vernon and his girlfriend chat over a picket fence. They’re positioned to
the left- and right-hand sides of the frame, with Harry smack in the middle, watching
curiously. He momentarily looks away, and the lovebirds share a quick smooch…
startling and confusing Harry. This is very strange… He’s never
seen anything so perplexing in his life. He watches carefully as they
kiss again – <i>what exactly are they doing?</i> – and when they lean in for a long,
long kiss, Harry studies it with wide-eyed fascination: this is information he
can use on his own girlfriend. Putting his plan into action, he whistles for
his girl – and is chased away by an angry dog.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xkBV2O5dtso/VtBraGJRK-I/AAAAAAAAAbA/Ekc5LALFd9s/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-02-26%2Bat%2B10.11.55%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="273" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xkBV2O5dtso/VtBraGJRK-I/AAAAAAAAAbA/Ekc5LALFd9s/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-02-26%2Bat%2B10.11.55%2BAM.png" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Harry baffled by kisses.<br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IjK1UBZOQc" target="_blank"><span style="color: orange;">WATCH THE SCENE</span></a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 15pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; padding: 0cm;">Determined to put his newfound knowledge of the ways of romance to
good use, Harry confronts his wife. Fortunately, she’s not in the room
(or so he thinks) as Harry lays down the law: <i>“—after this you’re
gonna wind the clock, fix the cat and poison the ants –</i> <i>”</i>. Catching him in the act, his wife slyly yields and permits Harry his
afternoon out, even giving him a dime to buy his girlfriend a soda.</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; padding: 0cm;">Harry and Vernon arrive late, and their girls aren’t there.
Harry, ever helpful, fetches two other dates. Unfortunately, it’s a
pair of obvious streetwalkers. Vernon informs him<i>“They won’t do”</i> and
Harry passes on the message. The girls turn violent. What does
Harry do? What would Stan Laurel do? What else – he hurls a brick
at them. Because there’s chivalry… and there’s self preservation.
Harry’s no fool.</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><b>As Stan & Ollie Rise, Harry Falls</b></span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; padding: 0cm;">Over the course of 1927, Stan Laurel’s character and the team of
Laurel & Hardy were gelling. The evolution from something like "Slipping
Wives" to the fully formed Stan & Ollie of "Leave ‘Em
Laughing" and "From Soup To Nuts" was rapid and massive.</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; padding: 0cm;">The “Stan” of Stan & Ollie is often compared to Harry; the
similarities were strong enough that Hal Roach would one day consider Langdon
as a natural replacement for Laurel. But what’s interesting is, on
deeper examination, how very different Stan Laurel and Harry Langdon are.
Yes, both are childlike innocents unprepared for the big, scary world out
there. Both are easily frightened and confused, and can barely function
without the guidance and protection of others. Both get sleepy when
bonked on the head.</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; padding: 0cm;">But let’s begin with a simple example – food – and go from there.
In "County Hospital", Stan brings Ollie a bag of hard-boiled
eggs and nuts. He unpeels an egg and eats it. That’s all he does,
as Ollie watches. For a full minute-and-a-half. Then he reaches for
another one.</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; padding: 0cm;">In Harry’s 1925 Sennett comedy "Remember When?", Harry
is a wandering hobo who happens upon a picnic table loaded with sandwiches. Each looks more delicious than the first, and every time Harry reaches
for a sandwich he’s distracted by a potentially yummier one. Inevitably
he’s shooed away before he gets his pudgy fingers on a single sandwich.
But for Stan Laurel, one hard boiled egg after another is fine.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BudaehTtHIk/VtBp5wxKFsI/AAAAAAAAAaw/KW8ikct6bFA/s1600/Nobody%2527s%2BBaby%2BPt%2B1B.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BudaehTtHIk/VtBp5wxKFsI/AAAAAAAAAaw/KW8ikct6bFA/s400/Nobody%2527s%2BBaby%2BPt%2B1B.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Laurel stares blankly and snoozes blissfully. As does Harry.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KuiaujNJJtM/VtBp5nwf_PI/AAAAAAAAAas/54kf1uPFu24/s1600/Nobody%2527s%2BBaby%2BPt%2B1A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="165" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KuiaujNJJtM/VtBp5nwf_PI/AAAAAAAAAas/54kf1uPFu24/s400/Nobody%2527s%2BBaby%2BPt%2B1A.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="line-height: 15pt;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now let’s consider the Laurel stare. Blank and beautiful,
impenetrable, and perfect for timing out laughs. Langdon has a blank
stare too… but there’s more to it. Harry’s mind was always working. Behind his blinking eyes you could see curiosity, apprehension,
bewilderment, terror, mischief, anger, anxiety as he tries to process whatever
information he’s presented with.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; padding: 0cm;">The actual impact of Langdon’s influence on Laurel – our first
view of the full-fledged Stanley we would come to know – doesn’t arrive until
the opening of "The Battle Of The Century", when the camera catches
pugilist Canvasback Clump in the corner of the ring, awaiting slaughter… his brain
betraying nothing and a slight, vague smile on his face. This would set
the tone for every Laurel & Hardy film for the next 20-plus years, and
finally bring Stan Laurel (alongside his friend, Mr. Hardy) the unique
personality that would gain him fame, fortune, and universal comic immortality.</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">As Laurel & Hardy’s star was rising, Harry Langdon’s was
descending… <i>fast</i>. 1928 was a very good year for Stan & Ollie, a very
bad one for Harry. His films were failing, one by one. First National was
in dire straits, selling out to the Warner Brothers who were distracted – like
Harry with a plateful of sandwiches – by the talkies. Everything seemed
to gang up to ensure Langdon’s downfall. In the Exhibitors Herald-World,
M.A. Manning, operator of the Opera House in Baldwin, Wisconsin said of Harry’s
final silent feature, "Heart Trouble": <i>“The first Langdon
ever played here and the last.”</i> <u>The last</u>. Mr. Manning spoke for
all of Hollywood with that</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> </span><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;">one.</span></span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: "calibri"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0cm;"><b>TO BE CONTINUED.</b></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; padding: 0cm;"><b>NOTES</b></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; padding: 0cm;">[1] Stan Laurel’s return to the Roach lot in 1923 coincided
with this timing, so it’s quite possible that Stan was brought in to fill the
void that Harry ultimately didn’t fill.</span></span></i></div>
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<i style="background-color: white; font-family: calibri; line-height: 16.94px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">An early version of this blog post was originally published in <a href="http://www.blotto.nl/nieuwe-blotto-34/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #888888;">Nieuwe Blotto Magazine</span>. </a></span></i></div>
The Scribe Fileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13107548080136525630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4769896756359417688.post-11048608302082745982016-02-15T10:27:00.000-08:002016-09-15T13:51:41.801-07:00When did Laurel & Hardy 'jump the shark'?<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">jump the
shark:</span></i></b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt;">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">(verb) the moment an area of pop culture (TV or movie
series, music or performer) is considered to have passed its peak – referring
to a scene in the TV series Happy Days when its popular character,
Fonzie, is on water skis and literally jumps over a shark.</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">Ask anyone who loves Laurel & Hardy: What was the
turning point </span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;"> <b>in
Stan & Babe’s career? </b>The unanimous answer would be the moment
they signed with 20th Century Fox. And, of course, they’d be right – to a
point. Because, once that contract was signed, there was no turning back. But
the truth is Laurel & Hardy’s films, careers and on-screen personalities
were spiralling into decline before they left Roach, and one has to wonder if
the downward trend was irreversible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">Now don’t
get me wrong. There are things I love about every Roach-produced Laurel &
Hardy film, even the ones I’ll seemingly be criticizing shortly. And
I’ll be the first to admit the above theory isn’t exactly an original
observation. Charles Barr, in his 1967 book Laurel & Hardy, describes Stan
& Babe’s final Roach films as: ‘…<i>getting away from the real Laurel
and Hardy into a more nebulous ‘gag’ cinema, the kind of comedy which it was
their distinction a dozen years earlier to transform from within</i>.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">He’s right.
Starting in 1937 or so, Laurel & Hardy start to evolve from likable,
not-very-bright but very-real people into broad, slapstick clowns. The Mr.
Laurel & Mr. Hardy of, say, "We Faw Down" and the Stan &
Ollie of "Saps At Sea" are from two completely different
planets.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">So what is the
exact moment Laurel & Hardy ‘<i>jumped the shark</i>’?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 12.05pt;">Well,
technically, the act of jumping involves hitting a peak. And when you think of
all the great moments in Laurel & Hardy-dom, perhaps the greatest is the
song-and-dance to ‘At The Ball’ in "Way Out West". For two
magnificent minutes, Stan & Babe stop everything to perform a charming
musical number, with very obvious rear projection setting the stage.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HE0iGn_qSnY/VrtQXzdiQ-I/AAAAAAAAAYc/FxZqiSz5jqo/s1600/WOW%2BDANCE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" height="274" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HE0iGn_qSnY/VrtQXzdiQ-I/AAAAAAAAAYc/FxZqiSz5jqo/s400/WOW%2BDANCE.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Genius and magic collide in this scene from "Way Out West". </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But was </span><span style="line-height: 12.05pt;">this the beginning of the end for Laurel & Hardy?</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 12.05pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 12.05pt;">I think the
operative word here is </span><i style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 12.05pt;">perform</i><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 12.05pt;">. Up until this moment, Stan &
Ollie had always been somewhat eccentric innocents in a slightly off-kilter
world – not counting the occasional sidetrip to Toyland or neck-twisting,
belly-ballooning freak ending. But with "Way Out West" a
different tone starts to seep in. ‘White magic’ makes its debut, and the
slapstick becomes broader (body parts are stretched and snapped not once, but
twice: Stan’s big toe and Ollie’s neck). They are beginning to define
themselves as clowns. Yet "Way Out West" is undeniably a </span><i style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 12.05pt;">Laurel
& Hardy </i><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 12.05pt;">film, maybe even their best. Now, however, the jump begins
its inevitable descent…</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;">Next stop,
the Alps. And downhill from here.</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">What happened
here? Did Hal Roach commission 20th Century Fox to produce this film for him?
Because "Swiss Miss" has all the trademarks of a Fox film, with
a slightly larger budget – presenting Stan & Ollie as stupid dolts in
comedy unsuited to their characters (<i>when did they become so aggressive??</i>),
providing them with unfamiliar, unfunny co-stars and an irritating love
interest, and the pièce de résistance: dressing them up in funny costumes. All
that’s missing are the gangsters and/or Nazis.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">So with one
film Laurel & Hardy lose their grip on reality, tossed into a grand,
glorious, musical comedy where peasants burst into spontaneous song and
gorillas roam the mountains. The boys try to get into the spirit, even
sing-songing a few words in rhyme – the remnants of a longer, deleted musical
sequence. And while it’s intriguing to think of Stan & Ollie performing
(there’s that word again!) in a full-scale production number, that’s really
Wheeler & Woolsey’s domain. When Ollie is given the chance to sing in
"Swiss Miss", he sings badly. That’s a first.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-41xDrQTBb3Y/Vrti472l2TI/AAAAAAAAAYs/SxCAqDJrZbA/s1600/lh_swiss%2Bmiss%2Bposter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-41xDrQTBb3Y/Vrti472l2TI/AAAAAAAAAYs/SxCAqDJrZbA/s640/lh_swiss%2Bmiss%2Bposter.jpg" width="334" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Just what everyone wanted: A Big, Lavish, Musical Superfeature! </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 12.05pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 12.05pt;">Sure, you can
blame Roach – "Swiss Miss" was his idea. But the
comedy within is strangely…wrong. And you can't necessarily blame Hal for that.
Six years earlier in "The Music Box", Stan & Ollie carried a
piano up a long flight of stairs. Their obstacles included a disrespectful
nursemaid and a pompous professor. They carry a piano in "Swiss
Miss", too. To a treehouse. Across a rickety rope bridge. Over a mountain
chasm. With a drunken Stan. Where they meet the aforementioned gorilla. Oh,
one more thing, there’s supposed to be a bomb in the piano. (A bomb? Yep.
Stan shot the footage, Roach cut it out. I know whose side I'm on.) This kind
of </span><i style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 12.05pt;">hey-why-not</i><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 12.05pt;">? gagging is straight out of Sennett – or worse,
Larry Semon. Even the uninspired chase finale through the kitchen cupboards was
done in three previous Laurel solos. They’ll recover somewhat in their next
film, but the delicate balance of their personalities has been tipped.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">The Mad
Kuku: Block-Heads</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">"Block-Heads" is
generally regarded to be the last of the classic Laurel & Hardy films, and
in a lot of ways it is. The first 20 minutes set up Stan & Ollie as
inseparable, warm-hearted friends, reunited in one of the finest set pieces
ever conceived for them. Ollie mistakenly believes his long-lost pal has lost
his leg in the war… a situation that’s not entirely plausible, but definitely
possible. It’s perfect old-school Stan & Ollie. But after that? Out come
the wacky, ‘white magic’ gags (Stan yanks down a window shade’s shadow. Stan
pulls a glass of water – with ice! – from his pants pocket. Stan smokes his fist
like a pipe.) – followed by a breakneck remake of "Unaccustomed As We
Are". The music cue for this shift in reality is a new Marvin Hatley
composition, 'The Mad Kuku'. It’s loud and frenetic, everything that Laurel
& Hardy never were but were quickly becoming. Compare the last half of
"Block-Heads" to its earlier incarnation. Even though
"Unaccustomed As We Are" was the team’s first sound film, it’s
"Block-Heads" that’s full of shouting, funny noises, and hyperactive
music. Who ever thought Laurel & Hardy could be so loud?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">A break
from Roach: Flying Deuces</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">There’s a
shark. And jumping. ‘Nuff said. (See "Swiss Miss"
piano/bridge/gorilla/bomb.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mK1UvUMhFoo/Vr6PUxlBNlI/AAAAAAAAAZY/75lekHbcRzc/s1600/GASTON.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" height="326" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mK1UvUMhFoo/Vr6PUxlBNlI/AAAAAAAAAZY/75lekHbcRzc/s400/GASTON.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Oh Gaston, are you really necessary?<br /><span style="color: orange;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5Aw70q4hgg" target="_blank">WATCH THE SCENE</a></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">Streamlined, screamlined comedy.</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">Hal Roach’s
1938 switch from MGM to United Artists also marked a change in Laurel & Hardy’s
Hollywood status: from A-list stars to second-feature stalwarts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">Roach had long
been toying with the idea of four-reel streamliners to battle the
double-feature trend plaguing the big studios. The guinea pigs for his
experiment would be Laurel & Hardy. As early as 1935 Roach had announced a
four-reel Laurel & Hardy featurette, "The Honesty Racket". It
wasn’t until May 1939 that the boys willingly signed a contract calling for
four featurettes for 1939-40 release. Why they agreed to this is a mystery – certainly
appearing on the bottom half of the bill would lead to a loss of prestige
for Stan & Babe. Maybe the boys felt it would bring them closer to their
two-reel roots. Or perhaps Stan saw it as a way to escape the love interests
and clumsy stories Roach kept saddling them with. Either way, with "A
Chump At Oxford", Laurel & Hardy relegated themselves to Hollywood’s
B-list. Lavish, musical superfeatures would be replaced by streamlined, <i>screamlined</i> comedies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">But exhibitors,
audiences and foreign markets weren’t interested in Stan & Ollie in
four-reel form. So Roach had Laurel & Hardy flesh out "Chump" to
feature length with a prologue re-enacting "From Soup To
Nuts" (their third remake in a row – Laurel & Hardy started
cannibalizing their past long before the Fox writers did). Like their recent
do-over of "Unaccustomed As We Are", this lacks the charm, elegant
pace, and warm characterization of the original. Ollie, as butler at the Vander
Veer’s society soiree, upsets dignity through his ignorance. Not the naïve
ignorance we’ve come to expect… just plain stupidity. This isn’t the Ollie we
know, trying desperately to maintain decorum at all costs. Here Ollie creates
chaos through his own idiocy and belligerence. He tells the guests ‘you sit
over there and you sit over there’. He laughs in Finlayson’s face and calls him
‘Pops’ and ‘the old guy’. He says dopey things like ‘bring yer eats with ya’.
Who is this stupid man? To me, this is the least funny scene Laurel & Hardy
ever filmed – if only because it’s the first time I actually felt embarrassed
for Mr. Hardy. He should know better than this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">Ollie as
Curly Howard: Saps At Sea</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">There’s a
story about "Saps At Sea": Supposedly Stan walked onto the set on the
first day of shooting and tore up the script. Knowing how Stan worked, this
seems unlikely. Watching the film, to quote Stan in "Going Bye-Bye",
‘<i>It could happen</i>’. "Saps At Sea" is often said to
have been inspired by Chaplin’s "Modern Times". (Assembly line =
nervous breakdown.) But take a closer look, and "Saps At
Sea" may be the best Three Stooges movie that Laurel & Hardy
ever made. The inspiration here isn’t Chaplin but the Stooges’ "Punch
Drunks" (and "Horse’s Collars" and "Grips, Grunts
and Groans" AND "Tassels In The Air"), where external
stimuli (‘Pop Goes The Weasel’, mice, Wild Hyacinth perfume, tassels) makes
Curly ‘fighting mad’.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iZwWP0MnLuU/Vr6PXNSc17I/AAAAAAAAAZc/31nyd6DyeWo/s1600/HORNS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iZwWP0MnLuU/Vr6PXNSc17I/AAAAAAAAAZc/31nyd6DyeWo/s400/HORNS.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">But Oliver
Hardy isn’t Curly Howard. Hardy’s work should be subtle, genteel and sympathetic.
In "Saps At Sea" it’s none of that. His hornophobia-provoked
rages lack Curly’s energy and pure comic dementia. He just spends half the film
yelling. Everything about "Saps At Sea" is pure Larry, Moe &
Curly – right down to the boys chowing down on a synthetic meal, a gag
performed with feather pillows substituting for angel cake in the Stooges’
"Uncivil Warriors". The characters are broad, the noise level is
high, the plot is non-existent, and the two main sets (boarding house and
rickety boat) are unbelievably cheap. The one thing that isn’t Stooge-like:
their thick white makeup is as obvious and unrealistic as Groucho Marx’
greasepaint moustache. They are now officially <i>clowns</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">So if you ever
wanted to speculate on what would have happened if Laurel & Hardy had gone
to Jules White’s two-reel unit at Columbia Studios instead of Fox, look no
further than "Saps At Sea". I’m not saying "Saps At
Sea" isn’t a very funny film. There's little stuff Stan does in that
first half that really makes me laugh. But, for me, the big difference is this:
Anyone can eat a banana with three layers of peels. It takes someone special to
charm me by eating hard boiled eggs and nuts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri";">
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1x6NKHnJFro/VrpPIGUa_PI/AAAAAAAAAYI/DXCcREMxxuQ/s1600/LH%2BTheyre%2BBack%2BChump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" height="271" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1x6NKHnJFro/VrpPIGUa_PI/AAAAAAAAAYI/DXCcREMxxuQ/s400/LH%2BTheyre%2BBack%2BChump.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-q9x9wqfIS5c/VrpPIG0ASjI/AAAAAAAAAYM/LAU-7M3aZxY/s1600/LH%2BTheyre%2BBack%2BGreat%2BGuns.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-q9x9wqfIS5c/VrpPIG0ASjI/AAAAAAAAAYM/LAU-7M3aZxY/s400/LH%2BTheyre%2BBack%2BGreat%2BGuns.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qqLhKI-5vbY/VrpPIGOaGJI/AAAAAAAAAYE/LK7Hp3-U2z4/s1600/LH%2BTheyre%2BBack%2BAtoll.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qqLhKI-5vbY/VrpPIGOaGJI/AAAAAAAAAYE/LK7Hp3-U2z4/s400/LH%2BTheyre%2BBack%2BAtoll.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The trailers kept insisting "They're back!". But somehow they always <br />came back differently. And not necessarily for the better.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b style="line-height: 12.05pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">‘<i>They’re
back</i>’ – or are they?</span></b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">So it’s obvious that by 1940 Laurel &
Hardy were at a crossroads in their career. "Flying Deuces" was
a one-shot quickie troubled by unfamiliar production. "A Chump At
Oxford" is two films slapped together as one. And "Saps At
Sea" screams l<i>et’s-get-this-over-with-and-move-on</i>. Could Stan
& Babe have recalibrated themselves, returning to the humanity that
helped them redefine screen comedy in the late 20’s? In essence, return to
their roots? That certainly seemed to be the idea when they signed with 20th
Century Fox. A press release for "Great Guns" hailed the ‘new
Laurel & Hardy’ as ‘<i>a funny and oddly-assorted pair, but not completely
beyond what a person might find in real life</i>’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.05pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">We all know
the final outcome of that philosophy. But, in theory, it’s exactly the right
idea. After all, doesn’t that describe the two gentlemen we met in "The
Battle Of The Century", "Wrong Again", "Men O’War",
etc.?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Where did they
go?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
<!--EndFragment--></span><br />
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "calibri"; mso-bidi-font-family: ELGSKD+Caxton-Light;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "calibri"; mso-bidi-font-family: ELGSKD+Caxton-Light;"><i style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.1px; line-height: 16.94px;">An early version of this blog post was originally published in <a href="http://www.blotto.nl/nieuwe-blotto-2/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Nieuwe Blotto Magazine</a>. </i></span></span></div>
The Scribe Fileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13107548080136525630noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4769896756359417688.post-11366658052936320672016-02-09T10:03:00.000-08:002016-02-13T08:47:07.859-08:00 Buster, Italian Style (or "Due Marines e un Maestro")<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Having recently posted about
Laurel & Hardy’s much maligned (and highly underappreciated) cinematic swan
song, "Atoll K", it made sense to follow up with another musing on another
comedy great’s final* film – Buster Keaton’s "Due Marines e un Generale" (aka "War Italian Style").</span><span style="font-family: "arial";"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><br /></span></div>
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</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-axuDQ74oxu0/VroL7AsTp-I/AAAAAAAAAXU/rmZf4hK-k64/s1600/war%2Bitalian%2Bstyle%2Bposter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-axuDQ74oxu0/VroL7AsTp-I/AAAAAAAAAXU/rmZf4hK-k64/s400/war%2Bitalian%2Bstyle%2Bposter.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Buster gets his name above the title one last time.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Like “Atoll K”, this
Italian-American co-production sees an icon of classic comedy far, far away
from their familiar turf, shooting in a European location where all the other
actors deliver their lines in one language while the American “star(s)” speaks their mother
tongue – in Buster’s case, silence.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial";">Like “Atoll K”, it received
a delayed U.S. theatrical release with an atrociously dubbed English
soundtrack.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial";">Unlike “Atoll K”, people pretty much just pretend it never happened. Here it is, Buster’s final star billing
in a feature-length theatrical film (20 years since his last top-billed feature), and it’s
barely treated as a footnote in his filmography.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial";">In his book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fall-Buster-Keaton-Educational-Pictures/dp/0810876825/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8" target="_blank">The Fall of Buster Keaton</a></i>, author Jim Neibaur
dismisses the film with the phrase “After playing a German general, of all
things…”. Historian </span><span style="font-family: "arial";">Kevin Brownlow just barely
acknowledges it in his book, </span><i style="font-family: arial;">The Search
for Buster Keaton</i><span style="font-family: "arial";">.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial";">Why is this? Why? <i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Why</span>??</i> Two words: <u>Franco</u> and <u>Ciccio</u>.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial";">Damn you, Franco and Ciccio and your strident antics (fist shake)…you blinded everybody to the joys of Buster Keaton in
this film. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial";">Okay, so, Franco
& Ciccio. Let's put them in perspective. Yes, sure, they’re like two feces-flinging monkeys
on the loose throughout the film. But like herrings & cream or chicken
& waffles, the Sicilian comedy team of Franco Franchi & Ciccio Ingrassia
seem to appeal to certain geo-cultural tastes </span><span style="font-family: "arial";">– primarily </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial";">rural southern Italy. (<i>Think of Larry the
Cable Guy in the southern U.S.A. Does that help?</i>). Heck, they were popular
enough in their native Italy to make as many as 15 features a year in their
heyday. Ultimately, they would work with such masters of cinema as </span><span style="font-family: "arial";">Pasolini and Fellini. So, w</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial";">ho am I to argue with audience and auteur
appreciation on that level? Besides, they have their own cartoonish appeal. An example: </span><span style="font-family: "arial";">When a mortar explosion blows away
all of Franco’s hair in one scene, only to have it magically reappear in the
next, it’s pretty funny. And when viewed in the original Italian (vs. that really
awful English dubbing), it’s easier to go “yeah, I get it, that’s pretty funny”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial";">Now let’s focus on Buster. </span><span style="font-family: "arial";">If Franco & Ciccio are all
mania, Buster is nothing but subtle nuance. He’s the calm of this cinematic storm,
and his work stands in stark contrast to all the noise and nonsense surrounding
him. When Buster’s on screen he owns the film, and “War Italian Style” is
stuffed with the sort of memorable bits that defined his style in the
mid-1960s: throwaway sight gags that require little physical effort, but
succeed on Keaton’s pantomimic abilities and sublime facial reactions. Buster’s
General Von Kassler (“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">of all things</i>”)
is a masterpiece of stoicism, distinguished by the occasional raised eyebrow,
curious glance and shrug of acceptance. He’s compelling even in the scenes in
which he’s unconscious. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wBCJt99Z87o/VroUHkfs4BI/AAAAAAAAAXk/aFcPsjlN2-g/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-02-09%2Bat%2B11.29.42%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wBCJt99Z87o/VroUHkfs4BI/AAAAAAAAAXk/aFcPsjlN2-g/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-02-09%2Bat%2B11.29.42%2BAM.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Franco chews the scenery while Buster quietly dines.<br /><a href="https://youtu.be/Jt7c0tU432c" target="_blank"><span style="color: orange;">WATCH THE SCENE.</span></a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Witness
the formal dinner scene shared with the Italian comics. As bombs fall around
them and ceilings and walls collapse, Franco quakes, mugs, sweats, squeals,
bugs his eyes out and furiously chews on broken glass. What’s Buster doing?
Well, Buster being Buster, when a mortar shell blasts a hole in the floor next
to him, it becomes the perfect repository for a nonchalantly disposed-of
chicken bone. (Well, really, it’s the only sensible thing to do.) “War Italian
Style” is full of stuff like that… little pantomime pieces dotted throughout
the film, adding up to a good 40 minutes throughout the film’s 74 minute
running time. So that’s lots of Buster to enjoy (about 10x more Buster than
you’ll find in “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”, and 100x more
than "It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World”), all of it good enough to merit him having
his name above the title one last time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Still, when
it’s discussed at all, “War Italian Style” is generally bucketed with the rest
of Buster’s AIP efforts of the mid-60’s – just another pitiful, embarrassing
mistake cranked out by Buster to pad his bank account while chipping away at
his reputation. His beer commercials get more respect. But listen to what
director Luigi Scattini had to say of the situation: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">“</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="IT" style="font-family: "arial";">Franco and Ciccio had a great fear of
being run with Buster Keaton, and he praised them continuously for their skill
and their comic timing. <span style="display: none; mso-hide: all;">Lo osservava,
ne studiava ogni gesto e movimento.</span>They observed, we studied every
gesture and movement. <span style="display: none; mso-hide: all;">E Keaton era
molto lusingato di questo.</span>And Keaton was very flattered by this.” <span style="display: none; mso-hide: all;">Franco Franchi, in modo particolare, era
presissimo da Keaton.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OSWlCa3S1r4/VroKdlpktWI/AAAAAAAAAXI/uQ9hy1Eys38/s1600/BK_Due%2BMari%2Bnes_LuigiScatini_Autograph.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="353" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OSWlCa3S1r4/VroKdlpktWI/AAAAAAAAAXI/uQ9hy1Eys38/s400/BK_Due%2BMari%2Bnes_LuigiScatini_Autograph.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Luigi Scattini (centre) directs Ciccio <span style="text-align: start;">Ingrassia.</span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Buster gives the photographer the side eye. </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial";">So are
Franco & Ciccio any more annoying than, say, Jimmy Durante or Harvey
Lembeck when sharing the screen with Buster? Yeh, sure, maybe, of course…okay, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>lots</u></i>. But here’s the difference: Unlike
things like “How to Stuff a Wild Bikini” or even the MGM efforts of the ‘30s, “War
Italian Style” projects the sense that the Italians are genuinely honored to be
working with Buster. Director </span><span lang="IT" style="font-family: "arial";">Scattini even went out of his way to
pay homage to Keaton in the film’s final fade out – with </span><span style="font-family: "arial";">the two Italian comics bidding a
truly poignant farewell to Buster, as he trudges off into the future in his
traditional suit and porkpie hat after delivering his one word of dialogue in
the film: “<i>Grazie</i>”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><o:p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dAYHY66P4cQ/VrohbPzzDUI/AAAAAAAAAX0/eI98fMyhvu4/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-02-09%2Bat%2B12.13.09%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="169" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dAYHY66P4cQ/VrohbPzzDUI/AAAAAAAAAX0/eI98fMyhvu4/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-02-09%2Bat%2B12.13.09%2BPM.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Arrividerci, Buster. And grazie.<br />
<a href="https://youtu.be/quy14-sGotg" target="_blank"><span style="color: orange;">WATCH THE SCENE.</span></a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial";">None of
this is to say that “War Italian Style” is a neglected masterpiece. It’s just
neglected. And that's too bad. “War
Italian Style” is a fine showcase for elderly Buster in full mastery of his
pantomimic and comedy skills. Watch it, and watch it carefully – for Buster’s
scenes alone if you must – and you’ll see it for what it is: a highly
respectable and very funny effort, and definitely the most interesting feature
film appearance of Buster’s final decade.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial";">And it’s a heckuva lot
funnier than “Film”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial";">Grazie, Buster.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">* Final <i>released</i> film. “War
Italian Style” was released in the U.S. on January 18, 1967, a year and a half after
it was filmed. So technically, yep, Buster's last.</span></span></div>
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The Scribe Fileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13107548080136525630noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4769896756359417688.post-81435000185694557152016-02-01T04:06:00.001-08:002016-02-01T04:15:37.731-08:00One minute of silence for Buster Keaton<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">R.I.P. Stone Face, 50 years ago today. 02-01-1966</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QYZAPchlP-E/Vq7JQUWAAoI/AAAAAAAAAW0/r9djAbkB-kI/s1600/bkend1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QYZAPchlP-E/Vq7JQUWAAoI/AAAAAAAAAW0/r9djAbkB-kI/s1600/bkend1.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uc09csThcQ" target="_blank">VIEW VIDEO</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uc09csThcQ" target="_blank">Buster goes to Heaven.</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />The Scribe Fileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13107548080136525630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4769896756359417688.post-60660114023147365112016-01-23T04:41:00.000-08:002016-01-23T04:52:14.993-08:00No, Atoll K isn’t utopia. But it’s a nice place to visit two old friends.<div class="Section1">
<div class="Default">
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial";">‘Atoll K
deserves at least a polite round of applause for being something different.’ </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial";">— Scott MacGillivray, Laurel & Hardy From The Forties Forward</span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: italic;">‘…a
courageous effort to do something different, and in this respect at least it
was a far more</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial";"> </span><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial";">worthwhile
venture than most of th</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial";">eir later<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S.<span class="apple-converted-space"></span></st1:country-region></st1:place> </span>releases.’ </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">— William </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial";">K. Everson, The Films of Laurel & Hardy</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial";">‘Weep,
indeed, for the frightful vision of what was once the comic glory of the motion
picture.’ </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial";">— Simon Louvish, Stan and
Ollie, The Roots of Comedy</span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial";">‘Laurel
and Hardy’s last film, to put it pleasantly, is a mess. Occasionally a nice mess,
but mostly a messy mess.’ </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial";">— John
McCabe, Laurel & Hardy</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w75boeupPtg/VqJsyNAP06I/AAAAAAAAAVk/dYXI4CAJTiI/s1600/TOBIS01.BMP" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w75boeupPtg/VqJsyNAP06I/AAAAAAAAAVk/dYXI4CAJTiI/s400/TOBIS01.BMP" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">Anyone
who knows me knows I have a fondness for (aka<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>fascination
with</i>) Laurel & Hardy's last film, "Atoll K" (aka <i>Robinson
Crusoeland</i>, aka <i>Utopia</i>). </span><span style="color: black;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The
film, produced in France under ridiculously difficult circumstances and
designed to jumpstart both the post-war Europe movie industry and Laurel &
Hardy's languishing cinematic career, is the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>most
divisive title in the L&H canon. Admirers of Stan & Babe have very
strong opinions of the film – good, bad, but never, ever indifferent.
Some people can't get past the first few minutes. Others steadfastly refuse to
ever see it, period. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Then there's me. Read on.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
Now anybody even slightly familiar with the lives of Laurel & Hardy knows the story behind Atoll
K, so I won't get into the gory details behind the making. (But if you're
interested in said details, I have a great suggestion at the end of this post!) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-032zKsWSf8s/VqJvpYn7DPI/AAAAAAAAAWI/bSyHaJjw6zk/s1600/LH%2BEverson.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-032zKsWSf8s/VqJvpYn7DPI/AAAAAAAAAWI/bSyHaJjw6zk/s640/LH%2BEverson.JPG" width="420" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
Long before the invention of $1 DVDs, where 'Utopia' reigns ubiquitous, I was
fascinated by this once impossible-to-see film. I'd first read about it when I
was discovering Laurel & Hardy in William K. Everson’s ‘Films of Laurel
& Hardy’. Right away I fixated on<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Atoll K<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>– probably in the same way someone is
drawn to a car wreck. The ghoulish photo of Stan, the bizarre storyline, the
fact that it was so far removed from any of their earlier work… I had to see
it. It took a few years, but I finally caught a 16mm screening at the Dearborn Michigan public library. And I loved it. Why? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /><span style="color: black;">From the
classic<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>me-before-you-Stanley<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>entrance, they immediately felt like my friends Mr. Laurel
& Mr. Hardy. Forget that they’re old. Forget that they’re sick.
Forget that they’re in an unfamiliar land with unfamiliar people. After years of exile, Stan and
Ollie are back. They’re not, as Charles Barr called them in his book ‘Laurel
& Hardy’, ‘…like two old end-of-the-pier comedians doing a<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Laurel<span class="apple-converted-space"></span></st1:place></st1:city> </span>and Hardy
imitation’. They are Stan and Ollie, with us again after far too long. There is
more genuine Laurel & Hardy comedy in the first twelve minutes of this film
than in their entire Fox/MGM output.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /><span style="color: black;">Okay, so
you can’t forget they’re old and sick. Seriously, how can you? I mean, look at poor Mr.
Laurel. But, you know what? He puts more enthusiasm into this film than all of
the post-Roach films he sleepwalked through, put together. As for Mr. Hardy, any boyish
expressiveness that critics of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Atoll
K<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>claim Babe lacks by 1950 was
well lost by 1938 –<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Swiss Miss<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>seems to be the film where his cheeks
squished his eyes into a permanent squint. But he gets some marvellous camera
looks in (and welcome back to those!) and absolutely beams during his entrance.</span><span style="color: black;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: black;">So here
they are, getting tangled in each other’s clothes, Stan spreading jam on Ollie’s
hand, splashing in water, pratfalling onto watermelons, baffling themselves with
machinery. Older. Much, much older. But no wiser. Welcome back, Mr. Laurel
& Mr. Hardy.</span><span style="color: black;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BTInq2ZDkvU/VqJs1WR23FI/AAAAAAAAAVw/T2401PnrRow/s1600/TOBIS02.BMP" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BTInq2ZDkvU/VqJs1WR23FI/AAAAAAAAAVw/T2401PnrRow/s400/TOBIS02.BMP" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Yoo hoo!" <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqBmMKLwyjQ" target="_blank">Watch the scene by clicking here.</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The
teamwork is as sharp as ever. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqBmMKLwyjQ" target="_blank">Let’s examine one gag</a>, a gag that’s often
criticized as a ‘fat’ joke made at Babe’s expense. Onboard their newly inherited "yacht", Stan finds an inflatable raft, which Ollie explains will
hold four people. Stan ponders this for a second, then responds, ‘<i>What about
me</i>?’. If this had been Abbott & Costello, or the Three Stooges, or
Martin & Lewis, or even the Fox/MGM version of Laurel & Hardy, the remark
would have been handled with a quick, angry shove.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But look at the way it’s
treated here.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Stan insults
Ollie – Why? He’s not making a wisecrack. He’s voicing a valid (in his mind)
concern, but right away he regrets it – almost mid-sentence. And Ollie is hurt.
Deeply. This genuinely upsets Stan. Even his conciliatory ‘yoo hoo’ won’t get
his friend to look at him. Finally, he holds a hanky up to blot Ollie’s tears.
Bringing the tissue to his nose, Ollie instinctively blows… only to catch
himself.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Then<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>comes the angry shove.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That single minute of film is the perfect </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">précis</span><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">of the the relationship between Stan & Ollie </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> – </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> the most beautiful bromance in the history of cinema.</span><o:p style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> </o:p><br />
<o:p style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></o:p>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uunjK7V-9hE/VqJxmDpCK_I/AAAAAAAAAWo/qz-Y9c73H78/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-01-22%2Bat%2B1.12.20%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="282" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uunjK7V-9hE/VqJxmDpCK_I/AAAAAAAAAWo/qz-Y9c73H78/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-01-22%2Bat%2B1.12.20%2BPM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There’s
also an interesting dynamic in this film. Stan and Ollie actually have<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>friends</i>. Oh, they've had friends before: ‘Mr. Bernard’ in<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Any
Old Port, ‘Baldy’ in<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Be Big. Then
there’s the boy ingénues who are buddies only for the purpose of plot: whiny Alan
Douglas in<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Bonnie Scotland,
expendable Eddie Smith in<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Pack Up
Your Troubles. But generally it’s Stan and Ollie against the world. Now, when
it’s the world against Stan and Ollie, they have three confederates who
actually support and – surprise! – respect the boys. When Ollie takes
authority as President, it’s accepted. It gives them a humanity they hadn’t had in
years – the humanity that originally set them apart from the other silent
comics almost a quarter century earlier, and the humanity that 20th Century Fox bragged they were recapturing
(but bungled so badly) in 1941.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Atoll K<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>presents a mature version of the Stan
and Ollie we originally met in 1928. Not the broad, white-faced clowns of the
later Roach films. Not the stodgy dullards of the Fox/MGM years. Perhaps that’s
why I like<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Atoll K<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>so much: Not because of what the film
contains, but what it promises. It proves that the boys never lost their comic
touch, or their innate sense of who these two characters were. It shows that
Laurel & Hardy could have matured and, to me, makes the ten lost years
since they left Roach all the more tragic. This is the Laurel and Hardy that could
have been. <i>That<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>should<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>have been</i>.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span id="goog_878920381"></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">I
wouldn’t have missed this final visit for the world.</span><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "calibri"; mso-bidi-font-family: INIYLA+WarnockPro-Light;"><br /></span></span>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "calibri"; mso-bidi-font-family: INIYLA+WarnockPro-Light;"><i>An early version of this blog post was originally published in <a href="http://www.blotto.nl/nieuwe-blotto-1/" target="_blank">Nieuwe Blotto Magazine</a>. For a fascinatingly in-depth exploration of the making of Atoll K, I hugely recommend Norbert Aping's '<b>The Final Film of Laurel and Hardy: A Study of the Chaotic Making and Marketing of Atoll K</b>'. The author acknowledges the overuse of variations on the word '<a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/fascinating" target="_blank">fascinating</a>' in this post.</i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HqbOfSncvIY/Vp_XvGef2cI/AAAAAAAAATs/tYwO8OHb8S0/s1600/norbert%2Bbook%2BUSE%2BTHIS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HqbOfSncvIY/Vp_XvGef2cI/AAAAAAAAATs/tYwO8OHb8S0/s400/norbert%2Bbook%2BUSE%2BTHIS.jpg" width="280" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The English Language version.</span><br />
<a href="http://www.mcfarlandbooks.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-3302-5" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Buy it here from McFarland Press.</span></a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WwKd6PqQZw8/Vp_-shmpXAI/AAAAAAAAAVE/biWrJQnjCZU/s1600/Norbert_German%2BBook%2BUSE%2BTHIS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WwKd6PqQZw8/Vp_-shmpXAI/AAAAAAAAAVE/biWrJQnjCZU/s400/Norbert_German%2BBook%2BUSE%2BTHIS.jpg" width="270" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The German Language version. <br />Tons more pictures but, well, it's in German.<br /><a href="http://www.schueren-verlag.de/programm/titel/176-laurel-hardy-auf-dem-atoll.html" target="_blank">Buy it here from <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">Schüren Verlag.</span></a></span></td></tr>
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The Scribe Fileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13107548080136525630noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4769896756359417688.post-78188432433931622042016-01-19T18:51:00.000-08:002016-01-20T14:09:20.907-08:00Growing Up Scribe (or, The Face Launched a Life)<div style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’ve been
captivated so many times in my life. Oh so many times. So many times I can’t remember
them all. But I can specifically recall the very first time in my life I was <u>mesmerized</u>. I was 10 years old.
And it was by this face:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-shwOwvVqgI0/Vp6z8A8YlYI/AAAAAAAAAPM/dgzpB7oQ7Kc/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-01-13%2Bat%2B6.42.30%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="296" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-shwOwvVqgI0/Vp6z8A8YlYI/AAAAAAAAAPM/dgzpB7oQ7Kc/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-01-13%2Bat%2B6.42.30%2BPM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: center;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: center;">Let’s start at
the beginning. If you were a kid, like me, growing up in Canada in the 1970s,
you were fed a steady diet of National Film Board of Canada product in school.
These films were pure, undistilled Canadian propaganda, scratchy, splicey,
thick-as-maple-syrup reinforcements of your heritage like “The Log Jammer’s
Waltz” or the scratch animations of Norman McLaren. </span><span style="text-align: center;">Kinda boring for a 10-year old but, when that
16mm Bell & Howell projector was wheeled into the classroom, at least you
knew you didn’t have to learn anything for the next half hour or so…</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span><span lang="EN-US">Eventually, the
schoolday matinee was an NFB production called “The Railrodder” – by all expectations,
yet another cut and dried “hooray for Canada” epic showing us big pine trees,
wide open prairies, and majestic mountains, from Atlantic to Pacific. But who
was looking at the splendour of our Dominion when there was this…</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5L1kUqgkOXw/Vp6z7QtaReI/AAAAAAAAAPY/YnG1FOglP04/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-01-13%2Bat%2B6.40.44%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5L1kUqgkOXw/Vp6z7QtaReI/AAAAAAAAAPY/YnG1FOglP04/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-01-13%2Bat%2B6.40.44%2BPM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It didn’t take long for the aforementioned </span><em style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; font-style: normal;">mesmerization</span></em><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> (yep, it’s a word) to strike. My god, look at that man’s face. The huge, world weary eyes. The unsmiling, resigned-to-fate countenance. The underlying look of determined curiosity</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. I’d never seen anything like it before. It wasn’t funny, it was haunting. Baffling. Beautiful. I was all in.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Buster. Keaton. Suddenly, drawing
this odd man became a fixation. Art projects were watercolours of Buster jumping into the Thames River, or Buster in faux Group of Seven (remember, this
is Canada in the ‘70s) facsimiles. Art teachers were not impressed.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fast forward
one year. My homeroom teacher (for history’s sake, his name was Mr. Dearing) screened
another yet 16mm film. Not from the NFB, this time. This one was called “The
General”. And it wasn’t in colour. It was black & white. A few minutes in,
my keen, perceptive eye told me, “<i>Wait, a minute, it’s that same guy! But he’s
young!</i>” From there, of course, logic dictated that this “Buster Keaton” man was
someone who made movies on trains where you didn’t talk. Well, that was weird
thing for a guy to do. I became curiouser and curiouser.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now around this
same time, something else came along. Old two-reelers on Channel 9 in Windsor.
Suddenly, The Three Stooges, The Little Rascals and Laurel & Hardy were
frequent visitors to my brainpan. Oh, on occasion, that strange old man would
show up on TV – in 4 pm after-school airings of “War, Italian Style” or “How To
Stuff a Wild Bikini” – but for the most part I was enthralled by Larry, Moe and
Curly, Spanky and Alfalfa, and Stan & Ollie. Oh boy, Stan & Ollie. I
couldn’t get enough of them. (Still can’t, which you’ll probably find out in
future postings, but I digress.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That said, if Laurel & Hardy became my obsession, Buster Keaton was my archangel. Here's why:</span></div>
<div style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />”The Railrodder" made me what I am today. I have no idea what I’d be, where I’d be,
who I’d be, if I’d never seen that film. It triggered an all-encompassing
infatuation with comedy. W.C Fields, the Marx Brothers, Chaplin, Lloyd, Abbott
& Costello, Harry Langdon, Larry Semon, you name them. Easy Street,
Saturday Afternoon, Cops, Bumping Onto Broadway. From there, it fell like dominoes. When it
wasn’t slapstick films (Blackhawk 8mms, so many Blackhawk 8mms!), it was
old-time radio. When it wasn’t radio, it was cartoons… is there anything
greater than Fleischer Popeyes? That turned into a desire to be a cartoonist. I
went to college to learn advertising design and illustration. When I graduated
without the least ability to get a job in that field, the accumulated hours and
hours of radio comedy was my salvation. I dredged up everything I learned from
listening to Jack Benny, Fibber McGee & Molly and Burns & Allen and got
a job writing radio commercials.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /><span lang="EN-US">Then, one bored
weekend, I took a trip to Toronto and, it being the era of SCTV and SNL, took
in an improv comedy show. In that dank basement theatre, I was mesmerized a
second time – by a devastatingly funny woman. Y’know what I did? I quit my job,
moved to the big city and took improv classes at Second City. Long story short, blah blah blah, I got a new job writing ad copy, climbed the agency ladder and, arguably,
succeeded. In the years since I’ve traveled to Los Angeles, Washington, Italy,
Holland – even to Syracuse – where I’ve hobnobbed with people who were
similarly affected by Buster and his confederates. I even spent a few hours one
autumn day at the home of Gerald Potterton, the (amazing and generous) man who
directed “The Railrodder”. Oh, and I married that devastatingly funny woman. This year we celebrate </span> our 30th anniversary.</span></div>
<div style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /><span lang="EN-US">To which I can
only say, thanks funny strange old man who makes movies on trains where you don’t
talk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
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<!--StartFragment-->
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dpVuwnu9GOc/Vp60BIijAkI/AAAAAAAAAPU/1J_cdZAMslk/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-01-19%2Bat%2B4.25.54%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="238" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dpVuwnu9GOc/Vp60BIijAkI/AAAAAAAAAPU/1J_cdZAMslk/s320/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-01-19%2Bat%2B4.25.54%2BPM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The end.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.nfb.ca/film/railrodder/">Watch "The Railrodder" here.</a> Go. Now. I insist.</span></div>
The Scribe Fileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13107548080136525630noreply@blogger.com11