The Birth of Hardy´s Tie-Twiddle

[Paul Holbach]

In John McCabe´s biography of Laurel & Hardy one reads the following:

"A typical Comedy All Stars film made some time after the first Laurel
and Hatdy film, and important in a consideration of their history, was
WHY GIRLS LOVE SAILORS, based on an idea of Roach´s. [...] Babe Hardy
was cast as a rough sea captain who kidnaps a lovely young lady and
spirits her away to his ship. [...]
WHY GIRLS LOVE SAILORS is significant because it gave Babe Hardy one
of his most durable and humorous trade-marks, the 'tie-twiddle'. In
one sequence, he is walking along deck when he hears a tremendous
racket going on inside a stateroom. He opens the door to quell the
disturbance but is met with a pail of water in the face. 'I was
expecting it', Babe admitted later, 'and yet in a way, I wasn´t. I had
a vague memory of it being part of the action coming up but as I
recall I didn´t expect it at that particular moment. It threw me
mentally, just for a second or so, and I just couldn´t think of what
to do next. The camera was grinding away, and I knew I had to do
something, so I thought of blowing my nose with my wet and sopping
tie. I was raising my tie to my nose when all of a sudden I realized
that this would be a bit vulgar. There were some ladies watching us.
So I waved the tie in a kind of tiddly-widdly fashion, in a kind of
comic way, to show that I was embarrassed. I improved on that little
bit of business later on, and I used it for any number of situations.
But usually I did it when I had to show extreme embarrassment while
trying to look friendly at the same time. And that´s how the
tie-twiddle was born.'"

[McCabe, John (1966). /Mr. Laurel & Mr. Hardy. An Affectionate
Biography/. New York: Signet. (p. 83f)]

Today I´ve purchased a DVD-copy (the one with MEN O´WAR and TOWED IN A
HOLE) of WHY GIRLS LOVE SAILORS (KINOWELT EDITION); and after having
watched this early silent I was rather astonished that I didn´t see
any such sequence as described above, in which Hardy allegedly shows
his famous tie-twiddle for the very first time!
What is more, what really puzzles me is the fact that throughout the
entire film Hardy doesn´t wear any tie, not even a scarf, but merely
the vulgar clothing of a typical seaman!
So is the important tie-twiddle scene simply missing from the
Kinowelt-DVD or is the original film material lost or what?
But even if it is missing, there is no occasion, according to the
plot, for Hardy to change his clothes and to put a tie on!
So I conclude that there has never been any scene in which he wears a
tie or at least a scarf. But if that is actually the case, then the
tie-twiddle was created without a tie ...! ;-)

By the way, McCabe is mistaken in writing that "Hardy was cast as a
rough sea captain who kidnaps a lovely young lady and spirits her away
to his ship", because Hardy neither plays the captain--but the first
mate--nor the person--i.e. the captain--who kidnaps the young lady!

Anyway, might it be the case that McCabe happened to mix up two early
Laurel & Hardy movies?

There is another silent from 1927, SAILORS BEWARE, which was directed
by Fred Guiol, the one who also directed WHY GIRLS LOVE SAILORS.
Unfortunately, I haven´t watched SAILORS BEWARE yet, but the German
edition of William K. Everson´s book about the Laurel and Hardy films
contains a still showing Hardy with a uniform and a tie on!

Does anybody know the historical truth about the apparently mysterious
birth of Hardy´s tie-twiddle or am I just too blind to see the
invisible tie in the Kinowelt edition of WHY GIRLS LOVE SAILORS?

Regards
PH

[Burbank74]

I think if you watch SAILORS BEWARE! - that you'll have your answer.

[James Neibaur]

I think if you watch SAILORS BEWARE! - then you'll have your answer.

When McCabe wrote the book, he and Hardy were going by memory. They didn't
have all the films at their immediate disposal. Hence the faux pas.

JN

[Steve]

I think L&H may rarely, if ever, have seen some of their films after
the original release. Some silents, in fact, went unseen by anybody
from the 'twenties till the 'sixties or so. Hardy only watched himself
on screen occasionally, as a general rule, throughout his life. Stan
and Oliver got details and titles mixed up sometimes when speaking of
movies they had made many years earlier. I think Hardy also told
McCabe he got some aspects of his film character from a cartoon strip
character. As I recall he said the strip was "Helpful Henry" or
something like that but it turns out he had the title of that a bit
off too. We fans have detailed books and VHS tapes of nearly all the
films at our fingertips if we want them, things L&H, didn't have. Try
to think of the exact first and last names of teachers and
schoolmates, or details of your activities, from decades ago. You'll
get some things right and probably more things mixed up or wrong.

Steve