SALLY MORRIS: LAUGHING THROUGH HARD TIMES
My dad was a very serious guy most of the time, but there was one thing that was guaranteed to have him laughing to near tears - Laurel and Hardy. And it was really not that surprising. A child of the Great Depression, who grew up laboring on his father’s farm during the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s, there wasn’t always that much to laugh about. That was where Laurel and Hardy came in. Their short films were visual humor at its best. Whatever the warped imagination could conjure up, you would find Laurel and Hardy acting it out. Ollie (Oliver Hardy) was the foil for Stan’s (Stan Laurel) insane antics. Some of it was funny for reasons you can’t explain. Stan would do a little flip motion with his thumb and it would light a flame at the tip, like a lighter. Ollie would look on, amazed, and try it. Of course it wouldn’t work. Then Stan would do it again and it worked perfectly. It was a perfect combination - a pseudo-serious Ollie (a representative of the audience in general) and Stan, the opposite of the possible, the epitome of silliness.
One of my favorites was always The Music Box, which has one of the greatest piano moving scenes of all time. The boys arrive with a large, upright piano, to be moved up a narrow, steep staircase. This is a timeless classic. I remember the old Shakey’s Pizza parlor. On Wednesday nights they would show Laurel & Hardy films and we must have seen more than half of their catalog there. Years later, my husband told me how, as a kid, he had laughed until he cried over A Chump at Oxford and still wondered why. Other favorites were Helpmates in which, in an effort to straighten up the house before their wives returned, they burned it down and the bittersweet Flying Deuces, wherein they fall for a girl, join the French Foreign Legion to forget her and she turns up, the amour of their commanding officer. In all, Laurel and Hardy appeared together in 106 films, full-length,shorts, both silent films and talkies. They helped to take people out of their 1930s miseries and make them laugh for a while and they brought a smile to people’s faces long after the reel ended. Here are a few highlights:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flm216VTf5s
The Music Box: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s4nVg_W_6Y
And here’s a full-length version of The Flying Deuces: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD8fidgARzM
Laurel and Hardy had company - the zany Marx Brothers, borrowed from vaudeville, were actual brothers, “Chico” (Leonard Joseph), “Harpo” (Adolf/Arthur), “Groucho” (Julius Henry), “Gummo” (Milton) and “Zeppo” (Herbert Manfred). All multi-talented, Chico’s specialty (or “schtick”) was playing piano with a characteristic, fluid glissando action finishing with a trigger-motion, Harpo, a self-taught harpist, was an inspired musician and always played his roles as mute, Groucho, besides being very fast on witty, wisecrack comebacks, also sang and played the guitar.
Again, it is hard to pick a favorite. Favorite scenes, though, that’s easy! The “stateroom scene” from A Night at the Opera, “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It”, from Horsefeathers, the “trunk” scene from A Night in Casablanca, almost any scene involving the “other Marx brother”, Margaret Dumont. Dumont always played the society lady, constantly confused, bemused and generally annoyed by Groucho and the others. She was usually mock-courted by Groucho. Stately, pretty in a stately sort of way, always stylish, Dumont was indispensable to many Marx Brothers films. They made 13 in all. Duck Soup was generally considered their best, but my favorites vary depending on my mood. Often Monkey Business, mostly because I love its opening scene of the barbershop quartet of the brothers, all stowed away in barrels. The movie begins as the ship’s captain orders that these stowaways be found and clapped in irons . . . and The fun begins.
Here’s one fan’s roundup of the Marx Brothers:
https://travsd.wordpress.com/2014/05/01/trav-s-d-s-thumbnail-guide-to-the-six-marx-brothers/
Here’s someone’s description and ranking by favorites of Marx Brothers’ films”
And here’s Monkey Business - the whole thing!
https://ok.ru/video/298061990648
The 30s were also a time for some great “Rom-Coms” , such as the “screwball comedy”, It Happened One Night, with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert - here’s a clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIDcWfdx8CU
And another great 30s film, The Front Page, with Adolphe Menjou, Pat O’Brien, Mary Brian and the great Edward Everett Horton. Here, for your pleasure, is the complete The Front Page!
Laughter, they always say, is the best medicine. It can't hurt - we might as well try it now!
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