My granddad Jim (born James Joyce, one-time amateur boxer, full-time carpenter and British Rail worker who fooled the five-year old me by claiming to have built Lime Street Station… on his own) loved Laurel and Hardy. One of my earliest silent film memories is of him sitting me down to watch the boys - “these are great…” - and our laughing together as they got to work. Silent film community – a shared experience and you always laugh more when there are others around to get the joke.
This was Jim’s little present to me and as I helped give
him a live audience for his memories he helped me by opening up a new world of funny. He was right, of course, they are good, really good and, as Buster Keaton who
would have it, one of them was actually the
best. But, for me, you can’t split them – they are a pair, a right pair!
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| The boys consider the consequences |
The Battle of the
Century has lived a half-life for much of the time since its release with
one reel mostly (a few minutes survived in a fifties documentary)having gone
missing until now and tonight, at the London Film Festival, we witnessed the
full monty – every projected pie and every human target re-connected for the
first time since who knows when.
On the undercard, there was a trio of silent shorts
including Double Whoopee (1929) aka The One with Jean Harlow’s Legs – all of
them! - You’re Darn Tootin’ (1928) and
Big Business (1929) – all end up in
perfectly choreographed mayhem with our two heroes the cause and the victims.
But, whatever the slings and arrows of outrageous Christmas tree abuse, manhole
mantraps and taxi driver vengeance, Ollie and Stan usually emerge smiling. As
carpenters and publishers all know, there’s worse things can happen at sea…
The Battle of the
Century shows the duo in the early stages of their personas with Stanley a
boxer called Canvasback Clump – the clue’s in the name – and Oliver as his
manager. As with so many of their films it’s not the desperation that’s funny,
it’s the hope and here the extremely
optimistic team almost succeed in securing an unlikely victory over the mean
machine that was Noah Young – here playing a boxer name of Thunderclap Callahan
– the clue’s in the… oh, done that.
But the chance is lost as Clump takes a nap on the canvas
one more time. A change of tack is required and in a brief lost segment the
boys meet insurance salesman Eugene Pallette who convinces Ollie that with a
talent like Clump’s what they really need is insurance.
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| Every journey begins with a single miss-step |
The new agenda is to get Stan injured but, unaware, he
suddenly develops a charmed life refusing to slip on a strategically-placed
banana peel in spite of his mate’s bets efforts. One thing leads to another and
a man carrying a tray of pies slips up… outside of a pie shop… next to a van
packed with pies…
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| And the first pie is placed on Ollie's face |
Now, this can only mean one thing and what that is is the
Citizen Kane of custard pie fights, a
Sistine Chapel of crusted chaos - the pinnacle of pastried pugilism… as one pie
leads to another and the whole street erupts in a flurry of flying food.
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| Injury is added to insult for Dorothy Coburn |
This is The Great Silent Bake Off with some 3,000 cream
pies used by hundreds of extras and dozens of skilful cameos each allowing a
flicker of character as the human cost mounts… a Flapper (Dorothy Coburn) is
splatted first and exacts swift revenge, followed by a man opening just a bit too
wide in a dentists (Dick Sutherland), a man getting his shoes shined (Jack
O'Brien) and a sewer worker (Dick Gilbert) poking his head up into the line of
fire.
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| Anita Garvin assess the possibilities for retaining dignity... |
Anita Garvin slips on a pie but recovers her dignity and walks gingerly off
shaking her leg just enough to indicate discomfort… and the rest is chaos.
Of all the tonight’s comic crescendos the pie battle got
the biggest laughs. Maybe that’s because we’re less familiar than with the
others or maybe it’s just a collective celebration that we can see all of this
once again?
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| In the heat of battle |
Live music accompaniment was provided by Costas
Fotopoulos who seemed to have emerged unscathed but he’s riding his luck, it’s
only a matter of time before the piano player cops the custard!
Our Jim would have loved it but then he undoubtedly did,
in the cinema, somewhere in Liverpool in the 1920s… Thanks Grandad.
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| Pie fight? What pie fight?? |
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