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2007-03-24 10:22:26 UTC
http://century.guardian.co.uk/1930-1939/Story/0,,126783,00.html
Laurel and Hardy
Saturday March 22, 1930
The Guardian
Two comedians are at present the most vital force in the American
kinema, and good comedians are rare. They usually are to be found
turning out a number of short films in quick succession with such
skill
that it becomes discouraging to think how good they might be with
better material; and when found they usually end by taking
themselves,
or, what is worse, their humour, seriously. The first has happened
with
Bebe Daniels, the second with Chaplin. It is only a Harold Lloyd or a
Buster Keaton who can survive promotion to full-length pictures. But
Laurel and Hardy are still in the short-film stage, and yet their
films, their methods, and material seem perfect. It is hard to
imagine
them being any funnier or having better stories. It is true that
their
humour is slapstick, but it is all the better for that; real and loud
laughter is too rare in the kinema in these days of "silence for a
talking session."
Not all their gags are new; Laurel and Hardy throw pies at each
other,
they drop heavy weights on their feet, and the picture which Laurel
nails up falls on Hardy's head. They even use the time-honoured
flypaper
- but with a difference. It sticks to Laurel's foot. After the usual
business with getting rid of it, he turns his sock inside out to
prevent it sticking on the floor, and the real point of the incident
lies in what we are left to imagine. Their films are made by
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and so, though they are to be found everywhere,
the surest place to see them is at the London Empire. When a Laurel
and Hardy film precedes Greta Garbo's latest picture, as it did this
week at the Empire, one may be sure of seeing American screen
entertainment at its best; just as, when they are shown in
conjunction
with the beautiful and stirring "Turk-Sib" by the London Workers'
Film
Society, one may be sure one is seeing, in this Russian and this
American film, the best that the kinema has to offer at the moment.
They have been making pictures for about two years, and the
astonishing
thing is that, though they have various directors, all their pictures
have the same remarkable quality. Their gags may be old, and some of
them may not always succeed in making us laugh, but they all succeed
in
holding their place in the film, and the quality which makes these
films so irresistible is the relentless picture they give of logic
carried to absolutely fantastic extremes. Here is no busy attempt to
be
funny; something just goes wrong, and in their attempts to repair it,
either by making two blacks a white or in seeking to cover up a black
with a white, they make a world which from everyday beginnings grows
into a world of incredible and absurd happenings where people do what
they feel they would like to do, where savagery is unchained and
honesty would be defeated were it not that inborn deceit comes to its
rescue again, so that Laurel and Hardy always escape.
Laurel is thin and Hardy fat, with something of the appearance of
Paul
Whiteman. Laurel is always in attendance on Hardy, but it is he who
is
the originator. Hardy has something happen to him, he turns to Laurel
to suggest a way out, and Laurel suggests some things which would be
quite all right were it not that he had overlooked the most important
part of the problem. In "Big Business," they are turned away from a
house. Laurel therefore suggests going into the next street. They do.
But unfortunately the house is a corner house, and it has an entrance
in the next street. Laurel overlooks this, and they get turned away
again. With their efforts to avenge themselves on the householder's
roughness begins the flood of destruction in which their films always
end. From a small beginning things that had begun to rock and totter
fall about them. A picture falls down and a blind goes up; by the end
of the film the ceiling is collapsing and the bed is broken. In "Big
Business" they damage the householder's doorpost. In return for which
he spoils the tree they are trying to sell. They then begin to
destroy
his house in earnest, while he starts to smash their car. One may be
certain that however rich a room or splendid an automobile one finds
them in at the beginning to a picture it will be fit only for a
scrap-heap at the end.
In "Two Tars" they go out for a ride, and head a
long queue held up by a repair in the road. When they try to back
they
touch the car behind them. This is enough. Reprisals begin. Laurel
and
Hardy look at each other. Laurel nods. They remove a lamp from the
other car. The owner then slashes their tyres. Laurel then bends back
his radiator, and by this time all the cars in the queue are
implicated. Doors are ripped off, hoods slashed, running-boards
shattered, and by the time the care are able to move again there is
not
one that can run normally on four wheels or with any ordinary amount
of
springs.
Logical folly
Laurel and Hardy spread destruction in their wake. And yet they have
always a perfectly valid excuse for doing it. Some little thing goes
wrong at the start and they try to repair it. They are not to be
blamed
for that. They are not to be blamed for other people having such evil
dispositions. If someone else rips their tyres they naturally want to
retaliate. When they have got even with their aggressor they are
prepared to move on - but the other person will not let them, and
then
their fighting spirit is aroused. It is all quite logical, and this
is
the secret of their films. They roll on, like a snowball, from one
small
incident, and they are funny because of this and not only because of
what they contain. Most of their tricks are excellently turned, and
one
thing follows another with great technical skill. Laurel and Hardy
are
also good pantomimists; Laurel is the best, though he is always the
unfortunate one in their pictures, bullied and beaten by the larger
Hardy. But he has a bland smile when troubles end or before they
begin
which is delightful, and his look of perplexed astonishment when
Hardy
will not see it was not his fault is one of the best facial
expressions
on the screen. One simple little look when he feels disaster
impending
is worth hundreds of feet of action or dialogue. But the real secret
of
their films is this unfailing formula of one idea being carried too
far,
of one idea developed to the exclusion of anything else. Laurel
pursues
his idee fixe through a world full of many conflicting ideas, and the
havoc he wreaks in that world is something quite new in screen
humour.
Their best films are "Big Business," "They Fall Boom," and "Two
Tars,"
but there are many others, silent and talking, and it is because they
are to be seen all over the country, in kinemas of every size, that I
judged them to be so popular as to justify consideration at length.
They
are not to be missed.
Posted by Igenlode Wordsworth on alt.movies.silent
Laurel and Hardy
Saturday March 22, 1930
The Guardian
Two comedians are at present the most vital force in the American
kinema, and good comedians are rare. They usually are to be found
turning out a number of short films in quick succession with such
skill
that it becomes discouraging to think how good they might be with
better material; and when found they usually end by taking
themselves,
or, what is worse, their humour, seriously. The first has happened
with
Bebe Daniels, the second with Chaplin. It is only a Harold Lloyd or a
Buster Keaton who can survive promotion to full-length pictures. But
Laurel and Hardy are still in the short-film stage, and yet their
films, their methods, and material seem perfect. It is hard to
imagine
them being any funnier or having better stories. It is true that
their
humour is slapstick, but it is all the better for that; real and loud
laughter is too rare in the kinema in these days of "silence for a
talking session."
Not all their gags are new; Laurel and Hardy throw pies at each
other,
they drop heavy weights on their feet, and the picture which Laurel
nails up falls on Hardy's head. They even use the time-honoured
flypaper
- but with a difference. It sticks to Laurel's foot. After the usual
business with getting rid of it, he turns his sock inside out to
prevent it sticking on the floor, and the real point of the incident
lies in what we are left to imagine. Their films are made by
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and so, though they are to be found everywhere,
the surest place to see them is at the London Empire. When a Laurel
and Hardy film precedes Greta Garbo's latest picture, as it did this
week at the Empire, one may be sure of seeing American screen
entertainment at its best; just as, when they are shown in
conjunction
with the beautiful and stirring "Turk-Sib" by the London Workers'
Film
Society, one may be sure one is seeing, in this Russian and this
American film, the best that the kinema has to offer at the moment.
They have been making pictures for about two years, and the
astonishing
thing is that, though they have various directors, all their pictures
have the same remarkable quality. Their gags may be old, and some of
them may not always succeed in making us laugh, but they all succeed
in
holding their place in the film, and the quality which makes these
films so irresistible is the relentless picture they give of logic
carried to absolutely fantastic extremes. Here is no busy attempt to
be
funny; something just goes wrong, and in their attempts to repair it,
either by making two blacks a white or in seeking to cover up a black
with a white, they make a world which from everyday beginnings grows
into a world of incredible and absurd happenings where people do what
they feel they would like to do, where savagery is unchained and
honesty would be defeated were it not that inborn deceit comes to its
rescue again, so that Laurel and Hardy always escape.
Laurel is thin and Hardy fat, with something of the appearance of
Paul
Whiteman. Laurel is always in attendance on Hardy, but it is he who
is
the originator. Hardy has something happen to him, he turns to Laurel
to suggest a way out, and Laurel suggests some things which would be
quite all right were it not that he had overlooked the most important
part of the problem. In "Big Business," they are turned away from a
house. Laurel therefore suggests going into the next street. They do.
But unfortunately the house is a corner house, and it has an entrance
in the next street. Laurel overlooks this, and they get turned away
again. With their efforts to avenge themselves on the householder's
roughness begins the flood of destruction in which their films always
end. From a small beginning things that had begun to rock and totter
fall about them. A picture falls down and a blind goes up; by the end
of the film the ceiling is collapsing and the bed is broken. In "Big
Business" they damage the householder's doorpost. In return for which
he spoils the tree they are trying to sell. They then begin to
destroy
his house in earnest, while he starts to smash their car. One may be
certain that however rich a room or splendid an automobile one finds
them in at the beginning to a picture it will be fit only for a
scrap-heap at the end.
In "Two Tars" they go out for a ride, and head a
long queue held up by a repair in the road. When they try to back
they
touch the car behind them. This is enough. Reprisals begin. Laurel
and
Hardy look at each other. Laurel nods. They remove a lamp from the
other car. The owner then slashes their tyres. Laurel then bends back
his radiator, and by this time all the cars in the queue are
implicated. Doors are ripped off, hoods slashed, running-boards
shattered, and by the time the care are able to move again there is
not
one that can run normally on four wheels or with any ordinary amount
of
springs.
Logical folly
Laurel and Hardy spread destruction in their wake. And yet they have
always a perfectly valid excuse for doing it. Some little thing goes
wrong at the start and they try to repair it. They are not to be
blamed
for that. They are not to be blamed for other people having such evil
dispositions. If someone else rips their tyres they naturally want to
retaliate. When they have got even with their aggressor they are
prepared to move on - but the other person will not let them, and
then
their fighting spirit is aroused. It is all quite logical, and this
is
the secret of their films. They roll on, like a snowball, from one
small
incident, and they are funny because of this and not only because of
what they contain. Most of their tricks are excellently turned, and
one
thing follows another with great technical skill. Laurel and Hardy
are
also good pantomimists; Laurel is the best, though he is always the
unfortunate one in their pictures, bullied and beaten by the larger
Hardy. But he has a bland smile when troubles end or before they
begin
which is delightful, and his look of perplexed astonishment when
Hardy
will not see it was not his fault is one of the best facial
expressions
on the screen. One simple little look when he feels disaster
impending
is worth hundreds of feet of action or dialogue. But the real secret
of
their films is this unfailing formula of one idea being carried too
far,
of one idea developed to the exclusion of anything else. Laurel
pursues
his idee fixe through a world full of many conflicting ideas, and the
havoc he wreaks in that world is something quite new in screen
humour.
Their best films are "Big Business," "They Fall Boom," and "Two
Tars,"
but there are many others, silent and talking, and it is because they
are to be seen all over the country, in kinemas of every size, that I
judged them to be so popular as to justify consideration at length.
They
are not to be missed.
Posted by Igenlode Wordsworth on alt.movies.silent