Roberts on the Radio: The Laurel and Hardy Podcast

[Richard M Roberts]

Patrick Vasey had me on THE LAUREL AND HARDY PODCAST recently to talk about BERTH MARKS. I was filling in for an ailing Glenn Mitchell (I'm not sure how many ales he consumed, but he was unable to do the podcast and told Patrick "ask Richard, he actually likes BERTH MARKS).

So we had a nice conversation about the film, even if Patrick made me play the Atoll game and tried to nail me down to favorites, something you all know I hate doing.

You can access the Podcast from most streaming platforms, but here's the Youtube link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfJL_ulxIcU

And there will be a special extra edition available on Patreon soon with another half-hour of the interview where Patrick makes me banish some Laurel and hardy stuff to "bogeyland", we'll put the link up to it when it airs, but it is only available to Patreon supporter of the podcast, but it wouldn't hurt to put some money in Patrick's purse and keep the podcast going.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

[William Ferry]

Hi Richard,
I'm just about finished with Part 2 (I think it's Episode 62), and it was so enjoyable, it prompted me to subscribe to the entire podcast. Sounds like there's much to look forward to as I visit the previous episodes. As always, I enjoyed your perspective as to your favorites, as well as the anecdotes about Everson's book (a now well-worn copy has graced my bookshelf since around 1974). I can understand his wanting to revise it. I'll confess that he colored my opinion about THE BIG NOISE, until I actually saw it (I bought it on VHS when it was part of the Fox Studio Classics series). I saw all the Fox features as a boy on CBS' Saturday Afternoon Early Show. Frankly, I think A-HAUNTING WE WILL GO is their worst of that group. It's as if they wandered into a Charlie Chan movie by mistake. THE BIG NOISE, on the other hand, holds a lot of charm for me, and The Boys are front and center throughout. Anyway, nice job with the podcast, and I hope we get to hear you elsewhere soon.

[Richard M Roberts]

It's so weird William, because as I said on the podcast, the first Laurel and Hardy features I saw were GREAT GUNS, AIR RAID WARDENS and NOTHING BUT TROUBLE, and it took me years to get to see the other Fox features. And of course, I had read Everson by that time and heard his take on how horrible they were (though I didn't find GREAT GUNS to be all that bad) and then those Medved twits put BIG NOISE in their "50 Worst Films of All Time" crap so that by the time I saw THE BIG NOISE, I had expected it to be this embarrassing hellhole devoid of laughs. Surprise on me when I realized it's actually the BEST of the Fox features, which I think do get an unfairly bad rap.

I agree with you that A HAUNTING WE WILL GO is probably the least of the Fox films, but AIR RAID WARDENS is worse than all the Fox features combined, and the thing that Fox never gets credit for is that the Fox features make an attempt to and do get better as they go along. AIR RAID WARDENS has the usual MGM comedy disaster mode where they portray the comics as total idiots and humiliate them horribly in the middle of the film so they can make a half-hearted effort to redeem themselves at the end of the movie, and Eddie Sedgwick proves once again that he can't stage and photograph any actual comedy scenes so that they're actually funny.

Fox at least made the effort to make Stan Laurel happy as best they could in a studio system, things get better when Mal St. Clair takes the reins behind the camera and they actually hire some of Laurel and Hardy's old gagmen and they begin to treat their characters not like total boobs, but two gentlemen lost in a somewhat crazy world. Start with JITTERBUGS (which Oliver Hardy in at least one interview said it was one of his favorites of their films), where, if their characters aren't quite what they were at Roach at least we have the pleasure of watching them play other characters and the films rolls along rather nicely. THE DANCING MASTERS would make seven good Castle Film one-reelers but there are some pretty good gag sequences in it.

When we get to THE BIG NOISE, Stan and Babe are pretty close to their old selves, everyone else in the household they are protecting as detectives are crazy and the Boys get to react to that. There are some good comedy sequences, even if some are retreads like the upper berth scene with Jack Norton, but it all moves along pretty agreeably and has a genuinely charming wrap-up scene that feels like a typical Laurel and Hardy bizarre-gag finish. THE BULLFIGHTERS continues the up-turn in quality, and they pretty much remain in their own characters, even if Stan has slicked his hair down. Those last four Fox features may not be up to top Hal Roach standards, but they are nothing to be ashamed of either.

Even the second MGM feature, NOTHING BUT TROUBLE, is watchable, with Buster Keaton writing them some gags and good support from people like Mary Boland and Henry O'Neill and Sam Taylor being a bit of a better comedy Director than Ed Sedgwick. The MGM humiliation and schmaltz is still there, but it is more tolerable than the propaganda-filled WARDENS.

As someone else commented on one of the podcast comments sections, it's sort of like William K. Everson brainwashed a whole generation of fans to hate these films and not even give them a chance before they saw them, and it's taken some real staring the films in the face to and giving them a chance to knock that out of some folks heads. Even Randy Skretvedt, who basically does an Everson in the first edition of his Laurel and Hardy book, then later got the gig to do some of the commentaries on the Fox Films for the DVD release and actually had to re-watch the films for the first time in decades and gee, figured it out for himself that these films weren't as bad as he originally stated, and had kinder opinions of them in his later revised editions.

As I always say, ignore anyone's opinions until you've actually seen the films yourself. I find I have a lot more movies to laugh at and enjoy that way rather than those who just want to parrot something they once read in a book. This is why we had BERTH MARKS to laugh at all those years when people were avoiding it.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Ed Watz]

Thoroughly enjoyed the podcast and your spot-on comments, Richard. Like William, I joined Patreon after listening to this episode and look forward to listening to the rest. I was especially pleased that it was you, someone who’s being fair-minded, who discussed BERTH MARKS. As you mentioned, it's got at least 12-15 minutes of great comedy in it, and there's nothing wrong with idea behind the upper berth scene - apart from that it's twice as long as it ought to be.

I recently showed my German mother-in-law and her friends SPÜK AM MITTERNACH. They laughed at everything in the BERTH MARKS footage, and when Stan began crying in the new berth footage, they completely lost it. No one should overlook the comedy business that comes before the boys get into that bunk: Stan belting Ollie in the jaw and then saying "Shhh" before Hardy can retaliate - or realizing he needs to take off that 50 lb. overcoat before going into the berth while standing on Ollie's back - even Walter Kerr enjoyed that bit. Pat Harmon gave the performance of his life as the station announcer. Got a big laugh that you and Linda persuaded the Disneyland conductor to add "...and Pottsville!" to his spiel!

I’m glad that you pointed out how the Roach crews quickly realized that they didn’t need to be trapped on a soundstage, and began making sound comedies pretty much like their silents, only with dialogue and soon, that lively LeRoy Shield background music. We read from film historians how innovative King Vidor's HALLELUJAH and Mamoulian's APPLAUSE were in adapting sound, but as you indicated, Roach's comedies were already ahead of the curve, in some cases by years. Perhaps the L&H shorts frequent exposure on tv without any historical context (because the films didn’t require historical context to be enjoyed) made their innovations taken for granted.

I didn't get an 8mm projector until I was eight but the first film I received was Americom's THE BIG NOISE, which we ran countless times (I got pretty good at playing with the Bell & Howell’s speed control to sync the record). Next year I got William K. Everson’s The Films of Laurel & Hardy (in 1967) for my ninth birthday, and because of what it meant to me, it's still my favorite L&H book, warts and all. But I was surprised at Everson’s low regard for THE BIG NOISE, at least based on that one terrific scene. When I finally saw the entire film on tv, I thought it was one of their best later films (I’d still rather watch it over things like SWISS MISS or FLYING DEUCES). If one takes all of Everson's L&H critiques at face value you'd imagine that the team didn't make many good films at all, or maybe that Bill didn’t really enjoy their films. Sometimes his descriptions are so wrong that I wondered back then whether he’d actually seen the film. THE SECOND 100 YEARS and PUTTING PANTS ON PHILIP are two of the few titles I can think of where he accurately describes gags and situations in great detail. But for titles like THE HOOSE-GOW and NIGHT OWLS, I wonder if he was relying on old notes from a Huff Society screening when his audience had a collective toothache.

Looking forward to the extra half hour on Patreon, hoping you’ll do more of these podcasts soon!

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[William Ferry]

The Viacom "Vitaphony" version (forgive the pun) was one of my first purchases, too. I still have it; never was able to synchronize, but had fun trying.

Scott Macgillivray makes an excellent case for the later films. My take is, while they're generally not up to the standard of their best Roach films, they had some clinkers back then, too. Overall, Fox and MGM get by on the charming personalities of Stan and Ollie. For me, personally, that's often enough. I've encountered people who absolutely refuse to accept that.

The first time I sat through BERTH MARKS all the way through, I said, "This is really pretty funny". Perhaps the two plot threads didn't mesh as well as they could, but I thought it so good, I actually bought a copy on eBay.

Erratum: for the nitpickers on That Other Site, ok, it was episode 36. D'oh!

[Tommie Hicks]

At our Liberty Tent in Englewood, CO around '76, BERTH MARKS was one of the best laugh getters shown. I started to doubt Everson for the first time.

Oddly enough, ANY OLD PORT was one of the best laugh getters in our tent. An audience is nearly everything. While observing an elementary school for a college class I told the principle that I could show a 16mm Stooge comedy for a Friday Festival, I got the go ahead. I chose to show CACTUS MAKES PERFECT which always killed a crowd. When I opened the can I'M A MONKEY'S UNCLE was in it, not CACTUS. My brudda must have been watching films and didn't pay attention to detail when putting them away. Most Shemp fans will say I'M A MONKEY'S UNCLE is an average Shemp. I ran it anyway and it rocked the house. I thought the gym teacher was going to pass out from laughing. A live audience made the difference.

I had Americom's BIG NOISE also. I was thrilled to be able to have a sound L&H. but I could never get it to sync. My print had super-imposed titles so I settled for having a silent condensation of THE BIG NOISE

[Richard M Roberts]

One of the first Three Stooges prints I owned was CREEPS (1956), and when I ran it for audiences, it killed as well. There are reasons comedians like the Stooges went on for decades, and that was because people were laughing at those films the supposed fans hate today. That's why I don't have a problem with Joe DeRita because he was the first third Stooge I saw, and if you don't think people found him funny, take a look at those live 1959 appearances the Stooges made on the Steve Allen Show, the audience is rocking at DeRita's work. When I saw those 1960's features at the Wallace and Ladmo matinees, gee, everyone was laughing at those too.

One of the Nitwitville Nitwits was recently commenting on how he couldn't go to movie theaters to see movies because the sound of audiences laughing distracted him, and the light from the exit signs distracted him, and people moving in the theater distracted him, so he sat at home in his home theater all alone where everything was covered by black material except the screen, how sad is that? Too many of those type of film buffs out there today, the ones who sit and watch this stuff at home daring it to make them laugh, afraid to guffaw as they might deflate or lose their life force or something. Laughter actually recharges, not discharges.

Some of these so-called comedy fans and film buffs in general have such narrow blinders on, they can only watch films made before June 1934, or they can only watch Three Stooges shorts with Curly made before 1944 or the Fox Laurel and Hardy's will make their virgin eyeballs burst into flames if they ever saw them, and if the copy of the film they're seeing is not "definitive", they cannot enjoy it because the screaming voices in their heads are screaming "You're missing something! There's a frame missing there, Leonard Maltin did not give this his blessing, YOU ARE FORBIDDEN TO ENJOY THIS!!!!!!" We came from an era where we watched whatever was in front of us, a film came on television, a print showed up in our hands, something was playing at a local art house. We watched it, enjoyed it (or if it sucked, bailed on it, at least we were able to decide that for ourselves), and went on to the next thing we got to see. We didn't worry about the condition of the print, or which Stooge it was or what any damn book said about it. Expecting only an evening's entertainment, we were satisfied by that 98 percent of the time.

Todays film nerd had too many annoying issues to let themselves enjoy themselves. A former Cinecon attendee once told me the reason they quit going to Cinecon was because it was basically a "theater filled with 200 people all of whom want to be there by themselves" and their own quirks and issues, like having to clap for every bit player so we can all be impressed by the fact that they know who they are, or shushing anyone who actually dared to whisper to the person next to them while they were busy chatting away with the spectrum member next to them about whether or not that was Bess Flowers eighth from the back in the crowd, or just not bothering to shower any of the four days into the Festival. Perhaps they were all being distracted by the exit signs.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Tommie Hicks]

Remember living with jump cuts? In my early childhood I realized the video and audio were not synchronized with the splice and wondered why.

[William Ferry]

Remember living with jump cuts? In my early childhood I realized the video and audio were not synchronized with the splice and wondered why.

Or cue marks? There's an entire digital generation that couldn't tell you where the reel(s) originally ended. But we knew when it was coming up, regardless if it was in the theater OR on tv. I have to admit, I don't really miss them.

[Richard M Roberts]

Now up on Patreon is the Bonus episode portion of my interview where Patrick wants me to "banish to bogeyland" three Laurel and Hardy films. Will I do it? Will I banish Patrick to Bogeyland instead?

To find out, it'll cost ya' five dollars, or even better, subscribe to the Podcast on Patreon for as little as three dollars a month and support the podcast and get the bonus features:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/bonus-seg ... -110143693


RICHARD M ROBERTS