Generational talent. Laurel and Hardy: The Silent Years (1927), Eureka Masters of Cinema Blu-ray, out now

“Watch these lad, they’re dead funny!”

Jim Joyce, Retired Railway Carpenter, circa 1970

 

Of course, it’s sobering to me now to realise I am far more distanced in time from the young boy about to take his grandad’s advice, than the films that inspired his enthusiasm but all the same, our Jim started me off on this silent film caper with his plea, just as I was thinking of going to kick a ball in the garden. It’s possible that in so doing he prevented me developing the skills to play for Liverpool Football Club but, realistically, I lacked key attributes in that respect plus he was right, and I treasure the memory of laughing along with Jim as the laughter unfolded on screen.

 

Jim was a decade younger than the duo, having been born in 1901 but he grew up during the silent era, so he would have been entranced by Chaplin, Roscoe Arbuckle, Mabel Normand and then Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. Like Buster, his favourite was fellow Lancastrian Stan Laurel and his partner Oliver Hardy and, whilst most of these films feature them detached or developing as a pair, he would have recognised them from their earlier work with Hal Roach and others. By the time Jim was courting my Nan, Jessie, their partnership and personas were established, and whilst I can’t remember her opinion of the boys, I can imagine her disapproving slightly or their foolishness and the way that strong women – like her – were portrayed in their films. That’s not to say our Jessie didn’t like a laugh, just on her own terms – as Stan and Ollie noted, women were getting their way and their say.

 

I think of these two when I watch many films of this era and especially Jim when watching Stan and Ollie – a skilled working man, he loved their comedy and, like most, knew there was a lot of guile and hard work involved for them too. A similar amount of effort has gone into this absolute labour of love, the restoration of the early works in which Laurel and Hardy featured in the same films in the years leading up to their becoming an official double act with Putting Pants on Philip (1927) all restored with 2k scans from the best available materials held by collectors and archives around the globe – in a special two-disc Blu-ray edition for the first time in the UK – previously available in the USA from Flicker Alley.

 

Put ‘em both insect, before I part your hair with lead!

 

Oliver, Stan and the Lucky Dog

From the start, here with Lucky Dog (1921), Stan Laurel is on his game and as polished a performer as you’d expect from a man who first travelled over to the USA with Charles Chaplin when both were part of Fred Karno’s Army. He took over the role in Karno’s stage hit Mumming Birds which had made Charlie a stage star and started making films in 1917 (Nuts in May) without the great man’s impact or unique persona. Success was to take time and even though in Lucky Dog we can recognise a lot of Stan’s core qualities – his timing, brilliance with mime and slapstick as well as those heart-breaking and very Normand-esque, looks to camera – he was not quite there even though producer Broncho Billy Anderson was convinced of his talent.

 

Oliver Hardy appears as a good-for-nothing petty thief in this rather rambling tale who ends up palling up with the villain of the piece, played by Jack Lloyd, whose girlfriend (Florence Gilbert) has been won away by Stan’s charms and his, sadly un-named, found hound. Hardy had been making films since 1914 with Outwitting Dad (1914) and, as with Stan, has the moves but not the persona: both would be refined as they worked together and as their chemistry naturally evolved. It is indeed bad history to view the pair from the point of view of what we now know and just forcing to yourself to imagine the space then between them allows the viewer to enjoy these films on their own merits rather than a prelude to the main event.

 

Common themes begin to develop and it’s fascinating to just binge and play Slapstick Bingo:

 

·         Guns not working - check

·         Despite this, people then being shot in the bottom and jumping around - check

·         Stan screaming – check

·         Ollie at boiling point! - check

·         Stan looking, Mabel Normand style, direct to camera appealing to us all with the cheekiest eyes in all film – check!

·         Food fights, bottoms being kicked, GBH, ABH, a blow to the head… check, check, check!

 

This is forceful comedy and fast-moving, no one is drifting off in this movie theatre. Been working six days flat at Liverpool Lime Street Station, had a few beers on pay day, and fancy a lift, these men know how you feel and the comedy you need!

 

The films are split three ways:

 

A.      Guest Stars and Solo

 

Stan and Ollie appearing as supporting characters in other’s stars films: Priscilla Dean in Slipping Wives (1927), Glenn Tryon in 45 Minutes from Hollywood (1926) and Mae Busch in Love ‘em and Weep (1927). Bush is outstanding, especially when she has to plank and fall face down, sure in the knowledge that Stan, trying to do two things at once, will catch her in time. He does this repeatedly and you wonder how hard her face had to be in the numerous rehearsals - true Aussie grit!

Dean is also a revelation away from her lady crook roles and matching the lads, gag for gag. Meanwhile, Tryon is more of a taste which I have failed to acquire but the film does feature some precious views of Hollywood including Our Gang and a brief glimpse of Theda Bara! Then there’s Max Davidson, in Call of the Cuckoo (1927) which features cameos from other Roach stars at the time including Charley Chase, James Finlayson, Stan and Ollie who play inmates from an asylum forcing Max and his family to move to a new house, any new house, things can’t get any worse can they?

Stan is more in evidence in these films and Oliver more of a standard straight man/heavy, but his face… it’s always a picture!

Mae Busch falls face flat with only Stan to save her...

B.      Prototype pairings: Laurel with Hardy  

These films include the boys in almost as a trio with the great Scot, James Finlayson and there are four films here with them accompanied by Viola Richard, who would go on to co-star with Charley Chase in his brilliant Limousine Love (1928), not to mention Anita Garvin who would feature in many a subsequent short as a woman offended by our bumbling pals.

 

Stans’ the lead in Why Girls Love Sailors (1927) with Ollie as a rough and tough first mate on a smugglers’ ship. As so often in these films Stan cross-dresses, dragging up in golden curls to save his girl (Viola Richard) from kidnapping and worse.  The boys are in the army now for With Love and Hisses (1927) with Stan playing clueless new recruit Cuthbert and Oliver as Sergeant Banner – “bouncer in a café where the ambulance service was free…” Again, the boys are at odds, Ollie a figure of bumbling authority and Stan anarchic and carefree. They compete for the hand of Viola Richard in the historically-confused stone-age romance Flying Elephants (1927) which is an absolute riot – exhibiting some of the contemporary mores we wince about now etc – yet still involving the physical brutality we love. The Elephants are indeed flying south for the winter and Stan is again the master of unmanly behaviour gently lampooning those more masculine signallers all around him.

 

In Sailors, Beware! (1927) Stan is Chester Chaste, a taxi driver following some un-paying passengers on board an ocean liner on which Ollie is the Pursar Cryder, who looks after all his passengers, especially the blondes and brunettes… My wife asked about the redheads but what can I say, it’s of its time and intertitles had to be snappy as well as sexist. Interestingly Stan gets to stand up for himself a bit more in this film, pushing a bathing beauty into a pool and upsetting everyone in taking offence… that’s brazen irritation we would see far less of in future.

 

In Do Detectives Think? (1927), the boys are finally on the same side as two detectives assigned to protect James Finlayson’s Judge Foozle and his wife (Viola Richard) from violent retribution from escaped criminal The Tipton Slasher (Noah Young). They succeed as only they can.

 

 

C.      Laurel and Hardy

 

The joy of this set is watching the chemistry develop and their roles finally settling over a relatively short period of time and yet one in which they were making films at pace.

 

Duck Soup (1927) is an outlier and features the boys as down and outs on the run from local authorities who want to forcibly recruit them to fight forest fires. There’s something of Oliver’s airs and graces and Stanley’s morbid fear of femininity – Neil Brand is not alone in spotting a certain reading of his un-masculinity but this was the comedy currency of the day. The two end up trying to sell a house they don’t own to a gullible couple – one of whom wants to play billiards, the other who wants to take a bath and becomes attached to Stan’s cross-dressed maid.

 

The films come with a rich variety of commentaries from film historian and writer David Kalat, film writers Chris Seguin and Kyp Harness, Patrick Vasey, editor of The Laurel & Hardy Magazine and host of The Laurel & Hardy Podcast, Glenn Mitchell as well as accompanist and L&H specialist Neil Brand. All bring so much love and expertise and its especially interesting to hear Brands’ take as someone who experiences live performances alongside these films on a regular basis: Neil knows where the laughs are and he also understands how the boys still connect with our funny bones a century onward.

 

Putting Pants on Philip and not a moment too soon.

 

“It was certainly the first film in which Stan felt them to be a team… the first at which both men felt to the fullest the chemistry between them…” Professor John McCabe who knew Stan well.

 

For Brand too, Pants is the one “… when they really come together as equals on screen… neither has control over the other… they have the beginnings of an understanding of how their comedy is going to work…” the two understand each other. The laughs arrive unbidden, even when we can see it coming, even when Ollie can see what’s happening and the candle flame burns Stan’s trousers… the helpless look to camera is there, something we can all relate to, an accident taking place in real time, unavoidably slowly. The relentless physicality they display also goes back to the old music hall characters… this is a comedic species’ memory. Not so much a learned behaviour as an adaptation that defines humanity.

 

Neil it is who provides commentary on The Battle of the Century (1927), the almost completely reconstructed film which moves from Ollie managing Stan as an unconvincing boxer to the greatest cream pie fight in history. He highlights the roots of the jokes in the boxing section which reflect the contemporary rematch between the great Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney which became known as The Long Count Fight after Dempsey ruined his chances by not retreating to his corner after knocking his rival down. Tunney got up after 14 seconds and went on to beat Dempsey again, ending his career. Stand faces a similar situation when he accidentally knocks out his fearsome rival… he does a Dempsey and gets flattened soon after.

 

Such snippets are vital in understanding the direction of the humour but when it comes to the choreography of the pie fight, that’s a work of pure art directed by Clyde Bruckman and featuring a cast of dozens all led by the whimsy and chaos of Laurel and Hardy. Here they are pretty much the finished article and, even though Ollie has insured Stan and is trying to collect by arranging accidents, we never lose sympathy for either in their fight for dignity and happiness.

 

And, as my son was having a difficult day, I sat him down in front of the TV and told him to watch these lads, and I guarantee they’ll make you laugh. The cycle continues and, we laughed!

 

The Battle of the Century

SPECIAL FEATURES

·         Limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Scott Saslow

·         1080p HD presentations on Blu-ray from new 2K restorations

·         Scores by a variety of silent film composers including Neil Brand, Antonio Coppola, Eric le Guen and Donald Sosin

·         Brand new audio commentaries on Lucky Dog, 45 Minutes from Hollywood, Duck Soup, Slipping Wives and Love ‘em and Weep by film historian and writer David Kalat

·         Brand new audio commentaries on Why Girls Love Sailors, With Love and Hisses, Sailors Beware and The Second 100 Years by Patrick Vasey, editor of The Laurel & Hardy Magazine and host of The Laurel & Hardy Podcast

·         Brand new audio commentaries on Do Detectives Think? and The Battle of the Century by film writer Chris Seguin and Kyp Harness (The Art of Laurel & Hardy: Graceful Calamity in the films)

·         Brand new audio commentaries on Flying Elephants, Sugar Daddies, Call of the Cuckoo and Putting Pants on Philip by Glenn Mitchell (The Laurel & Hardy Encyclopedia)

·         Brand new audio commentaries on The Second 100 Years and The Battle of the Century by silent film accompanist Neil Brand

·         Alternate Robert Youngson score on Putting Pants on Philip, newly restored by Stephen C. Horne

·         Brand new interview with Neil Brand

·         Laurel & Hardy in the UK – 1932 recording by Laurel and Hardy to promote their UK tour, featuring footage of the duo visiting Tynemouth

·         Turning Point: Stan Laurel – Extensive interview with Stan Laurel from 1957

·         Stan Laurel talks to Tony Thomas – 1959 interview, featuring footage of Laurel & Hardy visiting Edinburgh as part of their 1932 UK tour

·         Sailors Beware – Super 8 version with audio commentary by Chris Seguin and Glenn Mitchell

·         The Bulldog Breed – Super 8 version of Do Detectives Think? with audio commentary by Chris Seguin and Glenn Mitchell

·         The Mad Butler – Super 8 version of Do Detectives Think? with audio commentary by Chris Seguin and Glenn Mitchell

·         The Battle of the Century Pie Fight – Super 8 version with audio commentary by Chris Seguin

·         Stills Galleries for each short

·         A collector’s booklet featuring newly written notes on each film by writer and comedian Paul Merton, and a new essay by silent cinema expert Imogen Sara Smith

 

So, in summary, an essential acquisition for all fans of the boys, silent comedy and laughing in general. Our Jim was not wrong!

 

You can order direct from Eureka themselves and all good stockists.

My kind of pun...

The Brit! Girl... Carnival (1931), Projecting the Archive, BFI

 

There are some screenings you just have to turn up for, this was the first public projection of a 35mm restoration print completed using two nitrate elements in 1997, a genuine photochemical restoration long before the new digital techniques, and the craft in evidence added to the feeling of being really treated. The BFI National Archive’s Curator, Jo Botting, was on hand to provide us with details of the work undertaken as well as the film’s star, Britain’s Clara Bow, the sensational Dorothy ‘Chili’ Bouchier who certainly had ‘It!’ – so much so she was named after the popular song, I Love My Chili Bom Bom whilst working as a sales girl at Harrods. I had only previously seen her as a bit part player in Shooting Stars (1927) in which she was cast after being spotted by director Anthony Asquith modelling at Harrods, and then in Maurice Elvey’s silent Palais de danse (1928).

 

It’s the age-old story of an older man, Silvio Steno (Canadian Matheson Lang, 42 and about a foot taller than our Chili) and his attractive (much) younger wife Simonetta (Chili B) whose attractiveness to every scoundrel in Venice and beyond will inevitably give him pause for jealous thoughts. To add that extra spice, the two are actors and in one of those parallels that seems initially too convenient, are playing Othello – Shakespeare’s Patron Saint of Green Eyes – and his poor wife Desdemona. They are introduced as he is rather convincingly throttling her only for a fellow cast member, Nella (Kay Hammond) to burst the bubble as she casually lights a cigarette immediately defusing our expectations whilst also storing them up for later on.

 

Carnival was originally filmed in 1921 as a silent directed by Harley Knoles and also starring Matheson Lang – it was based on his play after all - as Silvio/Othello along with Hilda Bayley as Simonetta and Ivor Norvello as her paramour Count Andrea Scipione of which more later. According to the BFI notes this film featured more of the play and its allusions to the unfolding action as well as more location shooting. It’s still extant so I’d love to see how it compares. Chili had been very impressed with the film and she had dreamed of playing the role and so, as Jo Botting pointed out in her excellently informed introduction, she wrote to Wilcox when the film production was announced to her him to cast her for the part.

Chili Bouchier and Matheson Lang

I can see that Novello would make for a better Scipione and Chili was disappointed in the one provided her by German actor Joseph Schildkraut, bought over from Hollywood. According to Jo Botting, quoting Chili, he would arrive at the studio every day, “short, sallow and balding and would re-appear on set two hours later, resplendent in his military uniform, heightened by shoe lifts, corseted and sporting a hair piece.”

 

Here Chili is every inch a star even at the age of just 21 during filming, especially in the stunning costumes of Scottish designer Doris Zinkeisen who also provided the stage designs too in this very effective recreation of Venice which mixes stock footage with stunning interiors, shadowy on set canals and watery alleys as our characters move about in hopeful secrecy. What happens on the rio di San Salvador stays on the rio di San Salvador unless you forget to draw the curtains on your gondola windows…

 

Doris had, according to one press piece quoted by Jo “… the knack of making actors and actresses look perfect in both face and form… the elixir of a film star’s life.” She and her sister Anna were both talented artists and whilst the latter became a sculptor, Doris pursued a career as a theatrical costume and set designer and also worked in film, providing Dorothy Gish, with her risqué gowns for Nell Gwyn (1926) directed, of course, by Mr Herbert Wilcox. There’s an interesting piece here about the two sisters and their extraordinary lives.

Every word demonostrably true... 

Here she had the perfect model in Bouchier and she slicked back her Bow-esque unruly curls and dressed her in tight-fitting silver culottes topped off with silver elaborate head gear, with feathers on top. The bodice gave the impression that the actress was wearing nothing underneath and, if the Brits had ever had a code, this would definitely be “pre…”. Schildkraut was also similarly well-adorned in a dark bodysuit accentuating his feline grace… perhaps that was the issue for Chili, she’d spent too much time with male dancers at ballet school, all with their own hair and height! We certainly see plenty of her dance skills at the carnival as Alfred Rode and His Royal Tzigane Band play but will those feet become guilty in ways later described by George Michael?

 

Earlier on as the troupe rehearse Othello, and Silvio bemoans the lack of passion thinking his own character flawed in conception as surely a little infidelity should not prevent such a marriage as Othello and Desdemona’s from being pulled apart. It seems to reinforce the foreshadowing of the earlier strangulation scene especially as Simonetta does indeed attract many men and has been flirting with Scipione. Still, she seems fully committed to her Silvio and their young son and promises him a special costume for the impending Carnival.

 

Earlier she had been compromised by Scipione in a clinch on a gondola trip which was unfortunately spotted – before she pushes him away, by her good for nothing brother Lelio (Brian Buchel) who naturally uses this knowledge to blackmail her so that he can take Nella to the ball. This raises Silvio’s suspicions and playing the part of the jealous Othello, perhaps this is only natural. His sister Italia (Lilian Braithwaite) also has no time for Simonetta and has been playing Iago for some time it seems, pouring poison into her brother’s ear at every opportunity.

 

Shine on Dorothy Chili Bouchier!

Silvio is called away to see a dying friend though and Simonetta responds with childish petulance – she cannot bear to miss her Carnival and to wear her costume. Her husband has to travel overnight and so she decides to go to the Carnival anyway, to enjoy the dance and the freedom with Scipione even though she must suspect the younger man will see this as his big chance for conquest.

 

Unfortunately for everyone, Silvio has missed the last train and, as he returns to the apartment he soon stops enjoying the spectacular-coloured fireworks and wonders where his wife has got to… Are our players doomed to re-enact Othello off stage as well as on? Or will there be a deeper lesson to be learned? I hope you all get the chance to see for yourself as this film deserves more exposure.

 

The film has some issues with tone and pacing and being an early British talkie, sometimes moves slowly but all of this is mitigated by the brilliance of Zinkeisen’s design as well as Bouchier’s genuine star quality. Carnival was intended to propel her to home-made stardom but it didn’t work in the end, especially as other, less interesting choices, were forced on her. She spent more time on theatre work as the thirties progressed and was still working into the 1980s before being “rediscovered” as one of the last surviving stars in Britain, especially after the publication of her memoirs Shooting Star: The Last of the Silent Film Stars was published – copies still available on eBay and Abe Books at reasonable prices!

 

She died just shy of her 90^th birthday in 1999 almost exactly 25 years ago as Jo pointed out. None of those present at this screening will forget Chili any time soon, her star still twinkles - indeed, in the BFI's NFT 1 last night, it shone!