STACK#127 May 2016

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Part 5

T he rise of the double-feature The Classic Feature Films

extremely costly and Roach soon realised it would not make a profit as a three-reel movie unless it was extended to feature length. Laurel was reluctant to increase from three reels to seven as he considered it difficult to sustain the comedy antics beyond 30 minutes of running time. Nevertheless, when Pardon Us was released with a running time of 56 minutes, it proved another L&H box-office hit. A year later they followed it up with their second feature, Pack Up Your Troubles (1932), before falling back to Stan's favourite projects – the three-reel shorts.

programme was a direct result of the Great Depression. The Wall Street

crash in 1929 and the subsequent mass unemployment had a negative impact on the profits of all the Hollywood studios. Cinema audiences plummeted from 110 million a week in 1930 to around 55 million by 1933, which forced the studios to close over one third of its US theatres. A conglomerate of theatre managers informed the major film studios that they wanted to show two features per programme in an attempt to lure audiences back into their theatres. This initiative – showing two features, a cartoon and a newsreel – would offer three hours of entertainment for a patron's 35 cent admission ticket. They also proposed that the programmes be changed twice a week,

Stan and Ollie take direction from Harry Lachman whilst filming a scene from Our Relations

Now with an MGM order for more feature length films, they began filming Fra Diavolo in early 1933. Based on Daniel Auber's 18th century comic operetta and personally directed by Hal Roach, it featured the

instead of once, to try and double their weekly ticket sales.  These suggestions were swiftly adopted by the majors and as a direct consequence, the Budget (B) feature movie was established, which diminished the necessity of the two/three-reel shorts. This then was the catalyst that prompted MGM to amount of comedy shorts and concentrate instead on full length Laurel and Hardy feature films.  The boys had already made a couple of feature films prior to 1933; the first, Pardon Us (1931), almost by accident. Originally written as a short titled The Rap , Hal Roach had failed to obtain the use of the huge MGM prison sets as seen in the award- winning movie  The Big House (1930), so he decided to build his own. This, however, proved request Hal Roach to begin cutting back the

boys as Stanlio and Ollio, who are robbed of their life savings by a gang of bandits. At Stan's urging, Ollie masquerades as the notorious brigand leader Fra Diavolo (The Devil's Brother) and they begin a career of bungling robberies until they hold up Diavolo himself, who makes them his servants. The frequent operatic songs sung by the rest of the cast and the base story unfortunately distracted from L&H's usual comedy antics. Although a huge success when released (and one of Stan's favourite films), Fra Diavolo has not aged as well as the rest of the boys' films. But their next project, Sons of the Desert (1933) , was – and remains today – pure Laurel and Hardy magic. Along with Our Relations (1936) and Way Out West (1937) , it's probably the funniest and the best of all of their feature films.

The boys famous soft shoe shuffle from Way Out West

Sons of the Desert has a classic battle of the sexes theme, featuring Dorothy Christy and Mae Busch as Stan and Ollie's formidable wives. The boys want to attend their Sons of the Desert lodge convention in Chicago, but their wives demand they take them on a mountain retreat vacation instead. Ollie feigns a chronic illness, for which the doctor (in fact a veterinarian found by Stan) prescribes a long ocean voyage so that he may recover. The boys announce they are following doctor's orders and are sailing to Hawaii, but instead sneak off to Chicago where they have a whale of a time, completely unaware that the boat they are supposed to have sailed on has sank. Their now distraught wives see a newsreel of the Chicago convention parade and guess who is in the front playing to the camera? Now exposed, they dream up the ruse that they had "ship-hiked" in an attempt to placate their furious wives, but as usual, Stan blows the story. In Our Relations , Stan and Ollie's identical twin brothers, Bert and Alf (also played by

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