STACK #124 Feb 2016

EXTRAS

STACK PAYS TRIBUTE

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Roach Productions.

Continued...

 Hardy was about to start filming Get ‘Em Young , which was to be co-directed by Laurel – a film that has since attained legendary status in the Laurel and Hardy saga because of an accident that befell Hardy the night before shooting began, which consequently marked Stan Laurel’s return to film acting. Hardy’s wife had torn the ligaments in her leg and was bedridden, leaving him to undertake the cooking of their

calling him “Baby” at first, then Babe – and the name stuck. Over the next ten years Hardy would appear in a staggering 250-plus silent one-reel films, including the “Fatty” and “Plump & Runt” series. His rotund physique meant he invariably played the roles of heavy villains or comical fat characters, but his prolific output of movies helped him hone his acting skills in front of the camera. Through exaggerated facial expressions he demonstrated an uncanny ability to communicate a whole range of emotions that an audience could understand, without the need for dialogue. In 1917 Hardy relocated to Los Angeles and freelanced for several Hollywood studios, including the Vitagraph Company (which was eventually sold to Warner Bros.). He was then teamed with silent comedian Larry Semon (now Norvell Hardy adopted the name Oliver as a tribute to the father he never knew. long forgotten, but at one time Semon’s films were more popular than Chaplin’s) for a number of comedy movies, including an early version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (released in 1925) with Hardy in the Tin Man role. January 1925 saw Hardy working as a jobbing actor at the Hal Roach Studios. Roach was an independent film producer whose output of comedy productions challenged Mack Sennet’s sobriquet as the King of Comedy. Roach had produced the Harold Lloyd “Lonesome Luke” films and the very popular “Our Gang” series, initially distributing them through Pathe, and in 1927, through the then fledgling studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was at the Roach studios that Hardy met Stan Laurel again, although Hardy barely remembered the Englishman who had appeared with him in the one-reel comedy  The Lucky Dog some seven years earlier. Since appearing in that early movie with Hardy, Stan Laurel had made a further 80 short films but had struggled to find a character that suited and matched his vaudevillian style of comedy. He had practically given up on a career in front of the camera and was now employed as a gag writer and novice film director for Hal

Stan Laurel listens intently to instructions from a scruffy, unshaven Oliver Hardy in the comedy short Duck Soup (1927)

dinner. Whilst removing a leg of lamb from the oven, Hardy accidently spilt the pan of scalding grease over his wrist and hand, resulting in an agonising injury which immediately placed him on the sick list. Roach pressed a very reluctant Stan into the absent Babe Hardy’s role of the butler, where Stan introduced his famous crying routine. Much to his surprise, Get ‘Em Young was a huge success, so much so that Roach insisted that Stan write himself into his short films. Subsequently, for the next twelve months, Stan alternated between acting and directing several solo projects.  By the end of 1926, Babe Hardy had appeared in eight short films either directed or co-written by Stan Laurel, but they had still not appeared together again onscreen. That is until Duck Soup (1927), which was adapted by Stan from a vaudeville sketch originally written in 1908 by his father, Arthur Jefferson Snr. The story concerned two tramps who hide out in a mansion, whose aristocratic owner is on vacation. The part of the second tramp had originally been allocated to another Roach contract player, but for reasons unknown and by a strange quirk of fate, it was offered instead to Oliver Hardy. Although neither of them were yet wearing any of their famous trademarks, or had even developed their characters of Stan and Ollie, it was here that their movie partnership began to take shape. A further six films followed, with both of them playing separate characters within the story rather than as a team. Their next short, however, titled Do Detectives Think? (1927), paired them as private detectives, and their familiar and hallmark characteristics of crumpled suits, bowler hats and childlike ineptness were displayed onscreen for the very first time. The production supervisor on this film and Duck Soup was 30-year-old Leo McCarey (who would go on to become one of the few film

directors to win Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay Academy Awards). It was McCarey who was the first to recognise the onscreen chemistry between Laurel and Hardy, even before they themselves realised what they had. And perhaps more importantly, he recognised their potential for becoming a permanent and successful filmmaking duo. Next to Roach and Laurel, McCarey was the man most responsible for developing the unique Laurel and Hardy brand of comedy that would follow. In June of 1927, with McCarey in the director’s chair, they began filming the first “official” Laurel and Hardy team-up movie: The Second Hundred Years . No-one at the Roach studios, not even

their director, could have possibly known that “The Boys” onscreen antics were going to make movie audiences across the world guffaw with laughter for the next 15 years. To be continued... Laurel and Hardy as the two bumbling detectives in Do Detectives Think? (bowler hats and suits were actual uniforms of US detectives in the 1920s)

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