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016 MAY 2015 JB Hi-Fi
T he rise of the double-feature
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,
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
request Hal Roach to
begin cutting back the
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 movieThe Big House
(1930), so he decided to build
his own. This, however, proved
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.
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
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.
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
Stan and Ollie take direction from Harry Lachman
whilst filming a scene fromOur Relations
Part 5
visit EXTRAS
The boys famous soft shoe shuffle from
Way Out West
The Classic Feature Films