User:Rizzleboffin/American topics

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[edit] The Garage (Arbuckle)

Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton and the pup are the three principal characters in the current comedy. there are really about a dozen good belly laughs in the picture. The tricks of a garage with a whirling turntable, the "Human Roulette Wheel" idea being used, and a breakaway Ford are the funniest touches in the picture. The idea of a customer walking and throwing down a half-dollar, asking for a Ford, getting 20 cents change and a car, is a bit that is sure to get a scream. Another funny bit is a handling of the grease, with the "dude" character getting his at the hands of the comedians. In all it is a fast moving comedy that will be liked.

-- Fred.

-- Variety, January 16, 1920

[edit] Curses! (1925) Al St. John, Arbuckle directed as 'William Goodrich'

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0372837/

A satire of the serials popular a decade before in five chapters, with internal cliff-hangers between chapters, and stereotypically melodramatic intertitles.

[edit] Plot

'Buttonshoe Bill' (Al St. John) a man with two left feet pursuing Nell and her father. He 'beans' Nell's father withi Nell's flapjacks and absconds with the papers he's owned since his days as a paperboy. The hero, Rodney Hemingway, arrives (a little too late, because he's combing his hair while running) to save the day. Bill ties Nell to a sawmill When Bill ties Rodney to a tree with a boulder rolling towards him, the cliff-hanger intertitle announces "What a buster!"-- a nod to the famous falling boulder scene in Keaton's Seven Chances which had been released 2 months earlier.

[edit] NYTimes The General Review

In spite of his bursts of speed and flashes of ingenuity, Johnnie Gray, the hero of "The General," the new picture at the Capitol, is hardly the person who would be trusted with a locomotive. This role is played by Buster Keaton, who appears to have bitten off more than he can chew in this farcical affair concerned with the days of the Civil War. Mr. keaton still preserves his inscrutable expression; he looks like a clergyman and acts like a vaudeville tumbler. The production itself is singularly well mounted, but the fun is not exactly plentiful. Sometimes laughter yesterday afternoon was stirred up by slapstick ideas, and at other junctures the mere stupidity of the principal character had the desired effect. During a few chapters in the beginning there was more or less interest in this feature. it happens when the pre-occupied Johnny Gray is driving his dear old locomotive, known as the General, through the Northern lines. He is chased by other locomotives equally speedy and graceful. The other love of Gray's life, Annabelle Lee (not a locomotive but an attractive girl) spends part of her time putting anything from toothpicks to great logs into the locomotive fire. Together, hero and heroine thrown out timber and crates to hinder their pursuers. One wonders that the man who has sense enough to defeat his enemies is so utterly brainless when he throws wood on the tender. This is by no means so good as Mr. Keaton's previous efforts. Here he is more the acrobat than the clown, and his vehicle might be described as a mixture of cast iron and jelly. -- by Mordaunt Hall, February 8, 1927.

[edit] NYTimes review: The Red Mill dir. by Arbuckle

Scenically, "The Red Mill" is frequently very interesting, with its reproductions of a small Dutch community wherein one perceives a nice, comfortable old inn, a canal and the inevitable windmill. The story, however, which is based on that of the musical comedy by Victor Herbert and Henry Blossom, limps along, relying sometimes on strained puns in the subtitles to carry it over the dikes and ditches. The humor is far from subtle, but nevertheless a charitably inclines audience in the Capitol Theatre yesterday afternoon was occasionally moved to mirth, either by the actions of a white mouse or by the happenings in the so-called haunted mill.

Marion Davies and others in the cast do their best to imbue their respective characters with individuality, which is a pretty thankless task. This chronicle is a Cinderlla yarn and Miss Davies appears as a Dutch drudge in the nice, old inn. She has been willing to appear before the camera with a freckled face and without any hair protruding under her cap. In fact, she tries to make herself look plain so that when she appears in a subsequent sequence, the contrast is pleasing. She is active, good-natured and willing to fall throught he ice, to tumble down a well and to be soundly thrashed by Willem, the proprietor of the nice, old inn.

Ice is actually the feature of this film. It is in a scene of a Dutch canal, wherein men and women in Dutch costumes are beheld gliding over the frozen water on old-fashioned skates, some having merely steel blades, attached to their wooden sabots. This scene is excellent, and it is followed by a glimpse of Spring withi boats and barges and the billowing skirts of the much-petticoated and not infrequently plump females.

This background deserves a better story, and so does Miss Davies. It is all very well to have a mouse appear out of a hole in Miss Davies's sabot, but that and other comedy touches drag the narrative down to something dangerously near to slapstick. Flowerpots are hurled across yards, and the haunted mill has all its queer noises at work as soon as Tina (Miss Davies) is locked in there by the proprietor of the nice, old inn.

It chances in this story that the Prince is played by Owen Moore. He figures as Dennis, an American, who at first scorns to give Tina a kiss, but as soon as he discovers how delightfully pretty she is he spends a good many chapters of the story trying to make amends. Tina is a resourceful girl. She proves it in a skating race in which she does not appear to have the foggiest chance. It happens that a dog chases the white mouse and Tina catches hold of the dog and is pulled along at a fine clip. Incidentally, the white mouse serves to cause a panic in a church and to disturb Willem by getting into the bowl of his capacious pipe in the nice, old inn.

Major Edward Bowes has arranged an attractive prologue to the feature. Major Bowes is also responsible for making a horse talk (in subtitles) like William S. Hart in a short film called "The Tale of a Horse." This is not a particularly illuminating piece of work and the horse frequently seems to be camouflaged.

-- Mordaunt Hall -- Feb 14, 1927

[edit] TV series infobox

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[edit] Jitterbugs DVD booklet

This film features the humorous adventures and misadventures of a two man jitterbug band. Made in America during World War II, the film deals with none of the era's serious problems, but sticks to the lighthearted humor that deservedly earned Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy worldwide popularity.

Malcolm St. Clair, who would helm a number of the comic pair's films, handled the directing chores for Sol M. Wurtzel in his 1943's production of Jitterbugs. St. Clair came to films after years of cartooning for newspapers, as well as acting. He endeared himself to Laurel and Hardy by discussing each scene with them after it was shot, and he often did retakes with suggestions to further draw out the pair's unfailing instincts for milking every laugh out of a situation.

Producer Sol M. Wurtzel's film included three tunes sung by newcomer Vivian Blaine in her first starring role. The songs, written for the film by Lew Pollack and Charles Newman included the, film's theme song, "The Moon Kissed the Mississippi," and a boogie-woogie called "I've Gotta See for Myself" and the bluesy "If the Shoe Fits You, Wear It!" Pollack wrote the music for such songs as "Diane," "Charmaine," "Angela Mia," "Two Cigarettes in the Dark," "You Do the Darndest Things" and the title song for the Fox film One in a Million. Newman was the lyricist for "I Met Her on Monday," "Six Lessons from Madame LaZonga," "Why Don't We Do This More Often" the title song for Sweethearts on Parade. He would also go on to write the lyrics for both Little Miss Broadway, and Easy to Look At

Although 50 jitterbugging couples were initially sought for a production number in the film, the studio had to settle for only 30 because of a wartime issue - "Shoes, mostly," St. Clair said. Shoe rationing hit all actors hard, particularly dancers. (Like everyone else, ice skater Sonja Henie, under contract to Fox at the time, was limited to three pairs of shoes per year, including her skate boots. This was a real hardship, since she performed up to five production numbers in a film per year, then spent nine months on the road with her professional ice, show.) Also, many dancers had either joined the armed services or were working in war plants The ones who stayed would rehearse barefoot to save their shoe leather. The studio objected, but moved rehearsals from bare wooden floors to the soft grass outside to save footwear., The studio had hired 150 jitterbugging teams for its film Orchestra Wives in 1942, but as the war continued, rationing became a problem, as did the shortage of male dancers.

The complex plot of Jitterbugs begins with Laurel and Hardy's Ford roadster stranded in the desert, out of gas. A likeable con man, Chester Wright (Bob Bailey), comes to their rescue with a "miracle" pill that supposedly turns water into gasoline. He convinces the duo to hawk the phony pills at a carnival, where they also manage to draw crowds with their two-man Zoot Suit Band. However, the crowds turn angry when it becomes obvious that the pills are just a scam.

Meanwhile, Chester has met the entrancing songstress Susan Cowan (Vivian Blaine), and he wants to help her retrieve $10,000 that her mother lost in a phony land deal. Not only does Chester know the swindlers, but he understands how to work a con, and he convinces Laurel and Hardy to help track down and expose the crooks. So, they all head for New Orleans and, as soon as they locate the crooks there, Hardy poses as a Texas millionaire and becomes the target of an intended shakedown for hush money after a seductive woman (Lee Patrick) makes a play for the ersatz rich man. Ultimately, Susan, Chester, Laurel and Hardy discover the $10,000 swindled from Susan's mother has been split between two of the thugs, and the tables are turned on the crooks amid much hilarity when Laurel dresses up in drag as Susan's proper Bostonian aunt, and the four work numberous angles to retrieve the money.

The Zoot Suit was an oversized flamboyant outfit popular with young men. Although initally banned by the government as violating the spirit and purposes of wartime conservation, eventually the Zoot Suit was declared a "costume" and, as such, could now be kept indefinitely by Fox's, studio wardrobe director in their wardrobe departments, alongside Roman togas and costumes for medieval knights.

This film is generally regarded as the best picture Laurel and Hardy made after their glory years with Hal Roach. Following this production, Vivian Blaine went on to become best known as "Miss Adelaide" in the Broadway musical and film Guys and Dolls, and she would enjoy a long and thriving Broadway career.

SYLVIA STODDARD Noted film historian and television writer Sylvia Stoddard has published books and articles on classic TV shows, film and musical theatre. She also provides audio commentary for DVDs

[edit] The Big Noise DVD booklet

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy had each been a successful silent film comic in his own right before they joined forces in 1926. Each had a personal style quite different from the idiosyncrasies that would develop in their partnership. Both had been on the Hal Roach lot for some time, appearing solo and in one- and two-reelers with other stars. The team made a fairly smooth transition to talking pictures and continued their partnership with Roach until 1940, when they were considered more a liability than an asset. Roach had moved into bigger and better pictures and, with second-rate directors, the Laurel and Hardy feature films were sliding into "B" movie territory. Saps at Sea was their last film for Hal Roach.

Studio publicist Harry Brand cited The Big Noise as the 177th film Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel made together. This time, the men play private detectives hired by the eccentric inventor of a high-powered bomb. A house of the future and a host of crazy inventions complicate the plot. Malcom St. Clair, who also helmed the pair's two previous comedies for Twentieth Century Fox-- The Dancing Masters,and Jitterbugs-- directed this wacky film, featuring Doris Merrick, Arthur Space, Bobby (a young Robert) Blake, Robert Dudley, Esther Howard, Phil Van Zandt and James Bush. After a career that spanned decades with Twentieth Century Fox, producer Sol M. Wurtzel selected this comedy as his final picture with the studio.

One general trend distinguishes this picture from the previous slapstick comedies that were Laurel and Hardy's trademark in their long and successful association. It had been their routine to engage in outrageous antics. But, throughout World War II, the comics accepted the public's wartime resentment of waste and destruction by swearing off pie throwing, clothes ripping and furniture breaking. Studio publicists estimated that the team had previously destroyed some 2,438 suits and 5,672 derby hats between them. During the filming of The Big Noise, they adopted a new soft felt derby, instead of the previous harder models, and drew up a trio of restrictive measures to decrease wear: "Destructive" scenes reduced to a minimum; those left in for the sake of story content had to be filmed in one take, so that no more than one set of wardrobe or props was destroyed; and the boys threw no lemon meringue pies. But in an hommage to their pie shtick, in one scene, they sit down to dinner in the in ventor's home and find a completely dehydrated meal in pill form-- a yellow tablet.

One of the primary gags in the picture, and certainly the most complicated one, is the introduction of the "House of Tomorrow" as a completely mechanized home. Nine prop men, headed by Ed Jones, were required to operate the set, which featured revolving walls and floors, and vanishing beds, chairs and tables. Jones estimated that The Big Noise required at least 40 wacky inventions. His imagination, at Laurel and Hardy's suggestion, produced an automatic paint remover, a motorized wheelchair, a robot wall-paperer, a weight-propelled roller skate and a cigar box from which a live duck emerged with lighted stogies. Every member of the crew was encouraged to add his suggestions to the fun, and although Stan and Ollie are credited with most of the gags, at least 14 were devised by technicians and cast members, and two of the gags by Wurtzel himself.

To interrupt the monotony of classic blue and gray suits and derbies, The Big Noise offered big changes for the duo: They appear as janitors, parachutists and Boy Scouts!

Another development in this film was especially appreciated by the comics-- the increased empathy of the actor's problems shown them by their director, Mal St. Clair, since he himself was a former actor.

The Big Noise marked the film debut of the double-talk nonsense song "Mairzy Doats," which was popular on the radio. Numerous actors on the lot who had been longtime fans of Laurel and Hardy would frequently visit the set to watch the pair in action. Dick Haymes, Phil Baker and many others were visitors.

[edit] Great Guns DVD booklet

After an 18-month hiatus in their long and remarkable careers, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy returned to the screen in producer Sol M. Wurtzel's film Great Guns. The goal of the film was to put the duo in a completely new type of entertainment. Before moving to Twentieth Century Fox, they had worked out material as they went along. The new approach was to write a script incorporating the gags, and Wurtzel, hired writer Lou Breslow to create a screenplay tailored to this approach. Some material was still ad-libbed on the set, however, and director Monty Banks chose which spontaneous material to use. But the cameras were always rolling whenever the comics were on the set, because some of their improvisations were so outrageous that they couldn't be repeated with the same flair.

Twentieth Century Fox felt that the public's sense of humor had changed in the several years leading up to this film-- circus clowns and Keystone Kops had disappeared from the screen. Current comedians, including Jack Benny, Abbott and Costello and Bob Hope, were all "normal" in appearance. Laurel and Hardy had always enjoyed a fantastic foreign following, probably because their physical comedy and overblown expressions crossed any language barriers. But in wartime, the European film market was shut down and domestic tastes had to be addressed.

Laurel and Hardy's gestures were toned down, and an effort was made to modify their appearance to make them appear more "normal." They would still be an oddly eccentric pair, but they would seem more likely to really exist. Stan Laurel's usual white clown makeup was made more naturalistic. Instead of Oliver Hardy's clothes being 10 sizes too small and Stan Laurel's being disproportionately large, the margin of misfit was dropped about five sizes. The Fox wardrobe director's people were surprised, in fact, that the sizes of the duo's garments actually differed by less than half a yard.

The pair was popular on the Fox lot for their hard work, willingness to do all their own stunts and consideration of others. Hardy reportedly sustained an injury to his back while driving an Army Jeep through a ditch, but the next day he did an especially exhausting physical routine. Laurel worked without complaint with a raven who often clawed his neck, drawing blood. The bird is called "Penelope" in the film, but was really a male named "Jim". Stan and Ollie tried to purchase "Jim", but the bird's owner, Curley Twiford, claimed that the raven was worth $7,000 and was insured. The use of the bird inspired a suggestion that the military use ravens instead of pigeons, since no one would supect a raven of carrying a message.

The comedians also took Bob Hoffman, who played a soldier, under their wings. They felt that the former All-American halfback from the University of Southern California would make a good comic "heavy." Stan enjoyed a reunion in this film with actress Ethel Griffies, who plays Aunt Agatha. Griffies knew him as a boy back in England when she was a leading lady in the repertory company, which toured the country at the turn of the century,and was run by Stan Laurel's parents.

Television was in its infancy when Great Guns was made, and although Laurel and Hardy both wanted to work in the new medium, they decided to try radio first and were negotiating with a large advertising agency for sponsorship while making this film. Normally, their kind of pantomime comedy wouldn't be suitable for radio, but again wartime intervened. The National Defense Program knocked out any hope of television for the time being, and the pair decided to adjust their work to make it more verbal.

When asked where they got their material, Laurel and Hardy always replied that it came from watching people around them. An odd gesture someone might make could find its way into their movies. Laurel took his signature crying face from a bad actor trying to register sorrow in a film he had been in many years before. When Hardy twisted his wrist to look at his watch, spilling a glass of tomato juice down his shirt, he was repeating an incident he'd once witnessed.

After a long series of business misadventures, and having lost thousands of dollars on bad investments, Laurel and Hardy finally formed a corporation. Their attorney was the treasurer and had to sign the checks they wrote and approve all their contracts.

The team was anxious to emphasize to the studio publicist that during their 17 years of partnership and 169 films together, they'd never had a quarrel. This was in answer to rumors several years prior that they had fought and broken up the team. They claimed that this was a false rumor perpetrated by a producer who was determined to lower their salary demands. The man evidently tried to play one against the other, but to no avail.

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