(roaring)
(orchestral music)
- [Narrator] Through a cardboard door out of the past
steps a beaming moon faced 23 year old comedian
named Oliver Norvell Hardy.
Oliver announces he's to be married
in this comedy called Fatty's Fatal Fun.
Made two world wars ago in 1915 when life and the movies
were both much simpler.
(thudding)
(piano music)
Babe Hardy, as he was then known,
made a striking figure in his striped pants
and cutaway coat.
And even plausible, though plump, lover.
But he was an obscure comedian in those days.
One of the unknown hundreds who dashed madly about
in the deluge of minor comedies
that flooded the silent screen.
Fame, stardom and an immortal partnership with Stan Laurel
lay some 12 long years and uncountable pratfalls,
pins in the pants and pies in the face ahead.
Young Stan Laurel looked like
this at the beginning of the decade,
which silent comedy at its height
was to make the laughing 20's.
Stan played a brash patent medicine salesman
in Kill or Cure, one of his early Hal Roach comedies.
Laurel, skilled at pantomime,
was polished at the best of schools,
Fred Karno's English Music Mall Company,
where he understudied the star Charlie Chaplin.
(goofy instrumental music)
Behind that bush mustache lurks Oliver Hardy.
By the mid 20's Hardy had joined the Hal Roach organization
where he continued to play supporting roles
despite a mad studio search
for badly needed new comedy stars.
Vivien Oakland begins to succumb to the musical charms
of her new border, Milton the Mad Maestro.
(slide whistle descending)
(boinging)
In this 1926 blend of slapstick and French bedroom farce
husband Glenn Tryon completes the triangle
as Oliver fiddles while Vivien burns.
(violin music)
(slide whistle descending)
(violin music)
Six months later Laurel and Hardy were both to appear
in a Hal Roach comedy called 45 minutes from Hollywood,
but never in the same scene together.
(boinging)
Stan is almost unrecognizable behind that big black mustache
as an innocent hotel guest harassed
by a pair of battling intruders.
(dramatic music)
Hardy clad in a sheet is the house detective
struggling to break up the fight by breaking down the door.
(dramatic music)
By the following year, 1927, Laurel and Hardy
had been cast together several times
and were beginning to pair up purely by accident.
In films like Sugar Daddies can be seen
the gradual evolution
of one of the greatest of comedy teams.
(thudding)
(lighthearted music)
But four years in the names Laurel
and Hardy blazed from the screen.
Costars at last in Putting Pants on Philip.
The first film billed to the talents of Stanley and Oliver.
The plot was supremely simple.
Uncle Ollie had just met nephew Stan at the boat.
Stan is visiting from Scotland
and the attention attracted by his kilts
mightily embarrasses natty Hardy,
one of the 10 best dressed men in upper Sandusky.
"Walk behind me," says Oliver, "far behind."
(bagpipe music)
Uncle Ollie pleads
with the rapidly growing crowd to disperse.
With Hardy in the role of a sport
and Laurel as of all unthinkable things a lady chaser,
Putting Pants on Philip differs
from the later Laurel and Hardy films
for Stan and Oliver had yet to invent
the fumbling derby hatted characters
that were to make them world famous.
Years later when his career had ended
Stan Laurel was to name this his favorite comedy.
(dog barking)
(whimsical music)
(bagpipe music)
(sneezing)
(whimsical music)
(gasping)
(whimsical music)
Laurel and Hardy were old pros
who in hundreds of pictures
had thoroughly learned the exacting job
of being silent screen comedians.
Laurel was in addition a comedy innovator
and many of Stan and Oliver's best gags
were to originate with him.
They worked without pretension and for the moment.
Little dreaming that their comedy would continue
to delight audiences more than 20 years after
the camera stopped grinding
and the glee lights flickered out.
(whimsical music)
(boinging)
(chattering)
Oliver dashed toward a building
which residents of the Los Angeles area
have doubtless already recognized as the Culver City Hotel.
Like so many Hal Roach comedies
Philip was shot with an eye to economy
just a block or two from the studio itself.
(whimsical music)
(chattering)
What's all the excitement about, wonders Hardy.
The director of this first Laurel and Hardy starring comedy
was Clyde Bruckman, a master of the sight gag
who was also to direct Harold Lloyd.
The cameraman was George Stevens,
famous today as the producer director of Shane, Giant
and The Greatest Story Ever Told.
(whimsical music)
(chattering)
(whimsical music)
(chattering)
(whimsical music)
"Hold it," says Uncle Oli, "let me show you how."
(whimsical music)
"Just an old Scottish custom," says Stanley.
(whimsical music)
"Just an old American custom," says Oliver.
(boinging)
(popping)
(whimsical music)
(chattering)
A swank dinner party is afoot at the J. Medberry Frumps',
a newly rich couple just learning
to dog paddle in the social swim.
At the door a new butler and waiter
fresh from their triumphs assistant deck swabs
at Dougan's Bean Wagon.
In the few months between Putting Pants on Philip
and this comedy, called From Soup to Nuts,
Laurel and Hardy had found their derbies
and the characters they were to play
for the rest of their movie lives.
(orchestral music)
(thudding)
(orchestral music)
(thudding)
(orchestral music)
"I have fallen down," admits Oliver.
(orchestral music)
The harassed hostess is Anita Garvin,
one of the Hal Roach studio's harem of girls
who could remain appealing
through every slapstick indignity.
(growling)
(thudding)
(growling)
(orchestral music)
(thudding)
(orchestral music)
"I have fallen down again," Oliver confesses.
This tribute to the cake bakers' art
was directed by E. Livingston Kennedy,
better known as comedian Edgar Kennedy,
master of the slow burn.
(orchestral music)
(thudding)
(orchestral music)
Host Frump, played by Tiny Sandford grabs for a towel,
only it's not a towel, it's Stanley's shirt.
(thumping)
(orchestral music)
(thudding)
In this moment of crises Stanley takes command.
(orchestral music)
(thudding)
(orchestral music)
"Over here, double quick," says Anita.
"Did you gong Madame?" asks the efficient Oliver.
(orchestral music)
Anita orders, "please have the salad served, undressed."
Fastidious Hardy dishes up the soup
while greens man Laurel's in the kitchen
preparing the salad.
Chip and Dale you made the chairs too high.
(orchestral music)
(fabric tearing)
(orchestral music)
(boinging)
Alert to every order Stan serves the salad undressed.
(orchestral music)
Says Stanley to the host, "they wanted it served undressed
"and that's the way they're gonna get it."
(orchestral music)
(whimsical music)
(gasping)
(thudding)
(whimsical music)
(gasping)
(thudding)
(orchestral music)
In 1927 Jimmy Finlayson, Laurel and Hardy,
and Charley Chase, Hal Roach's top stars
in their only appearance together
improvised comedy on the spot
as carefree inmates of the happy asylum.
In a mousetrap microphone Charlie finds lunch.
Stan and Oliver as William Tell and target.
(orchestral music)
The moral of this episode is that if you think
you're a wheelbarrow you're sure to get pushed around.
(orchestral music)
There's a home movie quality to these silent clowns
cavorting on a long departed sunny afternoon
on the Hal Roach lot.
Meeting an ocean liner impatient Charley Chase
spots his lady love Viola Richard on the upper deck.
Viola goes to the left.
Charlie follows and fate's fickle finger
flicks man hating Anita Garvin smack into his path.
(thudding)
(whimsical music)
Charley Chase was the silent films' undisputed master
of the comedy of embarrassment.
He was also Hal Roach's most popular player
until the skyrocketing success
of his old friends Laurel and Hardy
in the last years of the laughing 20's.
(whimsical music)
(thudding)
(sighing)
(whimsical music)
"One minute," says Charlie.
"I forgot something important.
"My hat."
(whimsical music)
(boinging)
The impulse that cannot be denied.
(thudding)
(water splashing)
(whimsical music)
They meet at last.
A veteran of the Roach lot Charlie directed comedies
under his real name Charles Parrott
and starred as Paul Parrott and Jimmy Jump
before becoming the dapper, impulsive Charley Chase,
a character perfectly suited for the jaunty jazz age.
(jazz music)
In his yard chicken king Schultz
posed with his prize rooster,
grand champion at the international poultry show.
On the other side of the fence
is Schultz's gardening neighbor
the beloved, beset Max Davidson
who like Charley Chase, Laurel and Hardy
starred in his own series of comedies
during the golden silent days at the Roach studios.
If any vegetables grow around here
they'll grow inside Schultz's seed gobbling chickens.
(jazz music)
(clucking)
Naturally of all the chickens Max grabs the champion
and naturally just at that moment
the terrible tempered Mr. Schultz
is looking through the fence.
(whimsical music)
(whistling)
(boinging)
Life, prosperity, flaming youth and bathtub gin,
screen comedy was a hallmark of the 1920's.
In the picture parade that caused peels of laughter
to ring out of every movie theater in the land
was Laurel and Hardy's Wrong Again,
written and directed by Leo McCarey
who later created such film classics as Going My Way.
(whimsical music)
Stable hand Stan and Oliver made the horses look smart.
(whimsical music)
(clanging)
Our masterminds overhear there's a big reward
for the stolen Blue Boy.
There in the stable he is.
Quiet now, mustn't give the game away.
They'll grab this reward all for themselves.
Meanwhile detectives Croveny and Greaves
apprehend the crooks and recover Blue Boy,
the painting Blue Boy that is.
Croveny phones the good news
to millionaire owner Augustus Paddle.
"Don't piddle paddle," orders Paddle.
"Bring that painting over at once."
(gun firing)
Stan and Oliver arrive with the equine Blue Boy.
Paddle, who in the way of the eccentric rich,
is taking his Saturday night bath on Monday afternoon
throws down the keys.
"You mean in the house?" asks Hardy.
Expecting his painting, Paddle says, "yes,"
never dreaming that this Blue Boy has four hooves and a tail
and may not be house broken. (horse neighing)
(whimsical music)
(thudding)
(whimsical music)
Paddle calls from the balcony,
"put Blue Boy on top of the piano, would you mind?"
Stan who has been told millionaires are peculiar
and think just the reverse from other people
wouldn't mind in the least.
The Hal Roach studio where this comedy was made
has been demolished joining in limbo the Max Senate Studio
torn down some years before
and so both of America's two greatest laugh factories
have disappeared from the scene.
(whimsical music)
(horse neighing)
(whimsical music)
(water slurping)
(whimsical music)
A car arrives at the Paddle estate.
In it are Paddle's dowager mother,
detectives Croveny and Greaves
and the Blue Boy that doesn't whinny.
"Shh," cautions Oliver.
"Someone's coming, we'll give them a big surprise."
(orchestral music)
"There's Blue Boy," thunders Paddle, "what did you bring?"
"We made a slight mistake," laughs Oliver.
(whimsical music)
"Don't stop me," cries Paddle,
"read about the murder in tomorrow's paper."
(whimsical music)
"No damage ma'am," reassures Croveny.
"Detective Greaves is only stunned."
Anders Randolph, a leading villain of silent days,
took time off from supporting such glamorous stars
as Greta Garbo to act as a foil for Charley Chase.
(sneezing)
Charley plays a type as common as bad dreams at tax time,
the pest with the sneezes.
(orchestral music)
(sneezing)
(orchestral music)
(sneezing)
(orchestral music)
Sight gag comedy, the great silent clowns
and fumeless smooth riding trolley cars
like the one shown here have all but disappeared.
Progress doesn't always mean that things get better.
(orchestral music)
(sneezing)
(orchestral music)
(sneezing)
(orchestral music)
(sneezing)
(orchestral music)
(sneezing)
(orchestral music)
Charley is determined to save Anders' life
if he as to kill him to do it.
(water splashing)
(orchestral music)
(water splashing)
(orchestral music)
Laurel and Hardy, contractors, arrive to finish a house.
A New York Times editorial years later
was to remember skinny Stan the bow
playing against fat Oliver the fiddle
and recalled the gay ingenious music they struck together.
In the finishing touch
the fiddle and the bow achieved a symphony of sight gags
within a total orchestra of just five people.
The owner approaches the master builders
and offers them a bonus if they finish on time.
"That we will," declares Oliver.
(plodding music)
(thudding)
(whimsical music)
(thudding)
Nurse Dorothy Coburn complains to cop Edgar Kennedy,
"you got the authority,
"make that track team over there cut out the noise."
(whimsical music)
"Listen," says Kennedy, "if you must make noise
"make it quietly, this is a hospital zone."
(shushing)
(orchestral music)
(thudding)
(shushing)
(orchestral music)
Boss Hardy orders, "get them nails out of the way."
(orchestral music)
(thudding)
(orchestral music)
"Who's in charge here," asks the nurse.
"Be quiet now or be quiet forever," threatens Dorothy.
(orchestral music)
(thumping)
(orchestral music)
(thumping)
(orchestral music)
(thudding)
(orchestral music)
(shushing)
(orchestral music)
(thumping)
(orchestral music)
(thudding)
(orchestral music)
(thudding)
(shushing)
(high pitched chattering)
"Oh shut up," says Kennedy.
The law can take no more but gets it anyway.
(boinging)
(thumping)
(whimsical music)
(thudding)
(whimsical music)
(boinging)
(whimsical music)
Through skill, sweat and sheer chance
the house is finished on schedule.
The proud and happy owner arrives to pay Stan
and Oliver their promised bonus.
The first bird of spring.
(rumbling)
(thudding) (whimsical music)
"Give me back my money," cries the owner.
Unfortunately the firm of Laurel and Hardy
has a policy of no refunds.
(orchestral music)
(thumping)
(whimsical music)
(thumping)
(whimsical music)
(thudding)
(whimsical music)
(clanging)
(whimsical music)
(splashing)
(thudding)
(whimsical music)
(thudding)
(whimsical music)
(thudding)
(whimsical music)
The finishing touch.
(rumbling)
(boinging)
(whimsical music)
Look who's moving into the house
that Laurel and Hardy built.
It's Max Davidson with his wife Lillian Elliott
and his son Spec O'Donnell.
The neighbors gossip about the new owners
of a home it took five days to build
and five years to sell.
(whimsical music)
Not only does this house have running water
it has leaping electricity.
(whimsical music)
(water pouring)
(whimsical music)
A special linoleum for people who change their minds.
If you don't like the design just mop it off.
(whimsical music)
(water flowing)
Mama calls to Max to help move the piano.
In 1927 this comedy Call of the Cuckoo
hit home to a lot of families
whose jerry-built dream castles had turned to nightmares.
It still hits home today.
An approaching invasion of relatives.
"Is the floor crooked?"
Max brings in his spirit level.
The only way to straighten that floor
is to tilt the world.
The house warmers, their goodwill is exceeded
only by their hearty appetites.
The arrival of relatives downstairs
gives Max the urge to go for a bath upstairs.
(orchestral music)
In bursts the horde shouting
for directions to the dining room.
(orchestral music)
"Does your coffee taste different lately?"
Says guest to wife,
"with this stuff and a razor I could shave."
(water pouring)
(whimsical music)
Youthful spirits liven a dull afternoon.
(slap thwacking) (whimsical music)
(thumping)
Says Sophie to Samantha,
"if I weren't a lady I'd belt you in the kisser."
(whimsical music)
(shattering)
"Not the telephone," cries Max.
"We'll be sued by AT&T."
(shattering)
(whimsical music)
(piano clanging)
The picture is called Liberty
and liberty is just what Stan and Oliver
have foremost on their minds.
Written and directed by Leo McCarey,
this comedy was released in 1929
when Laurel and Hardy had reached their peak.
Both the laughing 20's and the golden age of silent comedy
were drawing to a close.
(whimsical music)
(gun firing)
"We brought your clothes from the old apartment,"
says Getaway Gus.
(whimsical music)
(siren blaring) (whimsical music)
Stan has traveling trousers, and Oliver's in a pinch.
"We'd better switch pants," says Hardy.
(whimsical music)
(screaming)
(whimsical music)
(thudding)
"Something bit me," whimpers Stanley.
(whimsical music)
(thudding)
(whimsical music)
"Something bit him," explains Oliver.
(shattering) (whimsical music)
"Get to the ladder," directs Hardy,
who little realizes he's gotten back not only his own pants,
but also an extremely lively future seafood dinner.
(whimsical music)
"This is no time for pinching," cries crab nipped Oliver.
Producer Hal Roach was a past master
at that delicious blend of comedy and terror
to be derived from peril in high places.
(whimsical music)
The ladder, Hardy's idea of safety at last.
(whimsical music)
(thudding)
(whimsical music)
"Now why did you do that?" asks Oliver.
(whimsical music)
Says Oliver to Stanley, "hang onto this and relax."
(thudding)
(whimsical music)
In a classic comedy called Dumb Daddies
Max Davidson demonstrates the dangers
of carrying a show window mannequin across town.
The crowd wonders what murderous Max has in that sack
and deduces that it's got to be a body.
(orchestral music)
(gasping)
(orchestral music)
(whistling)
(dog barking)
(orchestral music)
(dog barking)
Officer Kennedy asks Max if he saw a seedy guy with a sack.
"Is it yes or no?" cries the exasperated Kennedy.
(whimsical music)
Into thin air.
(thudding)
"I'm ruined."
(thudding)
Along comes a gentleman who has been picking up
too many glasses that were full
and setting down too many glasses that are empty.
(woozy music)
"Your leg Madam."
(woozy music)
(thudding)
Now a finale of Laurel and Hardy highlights
believed by some critics
to be among the screens funniest moments.
In Double Whoopee the prince of Pillenstein
to whom Erich von Stroheim movies were mother's milk
brings old world glamour and bad credit to a New York hotel.
(orchestral music)
"Speech, speech."
(applauding)
(orchestral music)
(thudding)
(orchestral music)
(speaking in a foreign language) yells the prince.
In my country this would mean death.
(thudding)
(whimsical music)
In Leave 'Em Laughing those madcaps motorists
Stan and Oliver overdose with laughing gas at the dentist,
explode with mirth at their homemade traffic jam.
That arm of the law for every occasion,
Officer Kennedy, isn't amused.
(whimsical music)
"It's off to the station house," explains Kennedy.
(whimsical music)
(thudding)
(whimsical music)
Climaxing Two Tars Laurel and Hardy
drive into a railroad tunnel,
their worst possible avenue of escape
from a band of pursuing Sunday drivers.
(train whistle blowing)
(horns honking)
In Habeas Corpus Oliver the agile scales a wall.
(rumbling)
(whimsical music)
In the Second Hundred Years escaped convicts Stan and Ollie
prove they're painters by smearing everything in sight.
(gasping)
The film, You're Darn Tootin
demonstrates Laurel and Hardy's peculiar talent
for having their private life embroil the whole town.
(boinging) (whimsical music)
(thudding)
The battle of the century
transformed that old slapstick standby
the pie in the face into Armageddon.
(whimsical music)
(thudding)
(whimsical music)
(buzzer buzzing)
In We Faw Down the boys are bathrobed innocents
drying off after getting wet aiding two ladies in distress.
(whimsical music)
"Be bohemian," says Oliver.
(whimsical music)
At that moment of abandon who should enter
but the lady's boyfriend, vVcious Vincent, alias Nasty Nate.
(suspenseful music)
(whimsical music)
(clanging)
(whimsical music)
Just passing by Laurel and Hardy's wives,
human bloodhounds, master hen peckers and crack shots.
Into the distance and into memory.
We will never see their like again.
(gun firing)
(acoustic music)