Viewing Single Post From: Hollywood Heritage Museum

Viewing Single Post From: Hollywood Heritage Museum
mort bakaprevski	May 14 2009, 12:41 PM
Soony Roony! Posts: 1,429 Group: Members Member #73 Joined: January 1, 2006	Last night I attended the monthly presentation at the Hollywood Heritage Museum. This month it was a celebration of the 80th anniversary of Laurel & Hardy’s transition to sound. Of course, the turnout was so large, they had to do a repeat for the customers who were turned away from the 7:30 presentation. Someone named Stan Taffel gave the introductory remarks, but the majority of the show was made up of three L&H shorts… plus an example of a scene from a domestic version of a short contrasted to the Spanish language version. WRONG AGAIN – Presented as the first of their films to use a synchronized musical score. I don’t think anyone really gave a damn about the historical significance of the film. We were too busy laughing at the boy’s antics as they mistakenly believe the reported stolen “Blue Boy” (a painting) is a horse of the same name. As funny as L&H were, the horse got almost as many laughs as they did. UNACCUSTOMED AS WE ARE – Their first “talkie.” I was surprised to find that I had never seen it before. However, the plot was quite familiar as it was re-used to form the latter portion of their later Hal Roach feature, BLOCKHEADS. However, this little bijou had Thelma Todd & Mae Busch as the lady in the trunk & the shrewish wife, respectively. For me, a grand improvement. I’ll leave it up to you as to whether Edgar Kennedy was an improvement over Billy Gilbert… or not. MEN O’ WAR - I’ve always had a soft spot in my head for this one. Stan pretty much plays the same character he always does. Ollie, on the other hand, gives a subtly different performance as a young(ish) gob on the make. Definitely a different persona from (say) his hen-pecked husband. Also loved the fact that the whole film (save the soda fountain portion) was done on location. I definitely treasure scenes of SoCal back in the old days. THE LAUREL & HARDY MURDER CASE – Actually this was just the intro with L&H on the dock discovering Stan’s possible inheritance. First it was shown in English… & then in Spanish. Since it wasn’t dubbed, Stan & Ollie attempted to read the lines phonetically… often with hilarious results. One of the jokes had been changed. In the English version, Ollie asks Stan if he had an uncle. Stan replied that his uncle had died falling off a platform & breaking his neck. Ollie asks if his uncle was in construction & Stan replies negatively, explaining that his uncle was being hanged. In the Spanish version, Stan reports that his uncle is currently at the University of Barcelona. Ollie queries as to whether he is a professor. Stan says, “No, he’s in a jar.” After the show, Randy Skredtvedt was busy in the lobby hawking his book. I respectfully kept my mouth shut about the quality of the contents. Next month, the presentation will be on Cinerama. Should be interesting! Then, no more presentations while the Hollywood Bowl season is in swing… as they use the same parking lot. Probably should start again in October.
	“You’ve got to take the bitter with the sour.”

Hollywood Heritage Museum · Movie Makers