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RALPH, ALBERT & SYDNEY
Ralph Remembers
Laurel and Hardy

Ralph McTell remembers Laurel & Hardy
From the book “Funny Talk” edited by Jim Driver 1995
 

Stan and Ollie first entered my life in 1951.  My next door neighbour and friend, Charlie Ranger, had found himself with an extra sixpence in his pocket and had treated me to Saturday morning pictures at the Croydon Hippodrome – which for some reason was always known as the Odeon.  I was an instant convert.  In my absence my mum had reported me missing to the Police, but I was so high after the adventure that my ration of ‘coating’ didn’t deter me from thinking up ways and means of going back on a regular basis.  I was six years old. 

The ‘Odeon’ was a lovely old cinema with a balcony and boxes.  It was sixpence downstairs, ninepence upstairs and on Saturday morning pictures it was packed with highly charged pre-teen kids.  The noise was already cacophonous, but somehow got even louder as the lights were dimmed for The Chief’s entrance.  I suppose he was the manager and it was his job simultaneously to keep us under control and whip us up to a high pitch of feverish excitement.  First of all, he told us to shut up, and then persuaded us to join in the communal singing of songs like Jerusalem (Blake) and Alouette, Gentille Alouette

Next came the birthdays, and after the embarrassed and fortunate few (you got in free on your birthday) had returned to their seats after having Happy Birthday sung to them on stage, the place would darken.  The noise level would explode again, and the show would begin. 

After a cartoon, a comedy short and a serial, came the main feature.  Of all the films I saw, I remember the comedies best, and Laurel and Hardy best of all.  I can’t remember if I laughed out loud or even if I grinned in the dark, but Stan and Ollie touched me with their eternal optimism and genteel, impoverished charm.  Sometimes I would get annoyed when Ollie acknowledged the presence of the camera, but only because I wanted to keep the magic intact and feel that I was the only one to see a way out of their predicaments.  Although Ollie was looking at me from the screen, I couldn’t help knowing that he was really looking at a camera. 

It was at the Odeon that I first became aware of my own mortality.  As kids, we assumed that all our favourites - Laurel and Hardy, The Bowery Boys, Abbott and Costello – were roughly contemporary, and when a newsreel announced that Laurel and Hardy were coming to tour the UK, it really shocked me to see them as lined-faced old men.  The footage was all the more frightening – sinister, even – because they were wearing their little trademark bowler hats and smiling.  Ollie, as usual, had his little finger held out, as if he were holding a porcelain tea-cup.  It was a horror and an awakening I’d never forget. 

In spite of being a big man, Ollie had tremendous grace.  As slapstick comedians, Laurel and Hardy’s incredible timing had more to do with dance than with knockabout comedy.  It came as no surprise to discover that Ollie (or Babe, as all his real friends called him) was a marvellous ballroom dancer and among the first male Hollywood stars to be invited to showbiz parties.  His services as a dancing partner were always in high demand, and even though he often tired as the night wore on, it is said that gallant Ollie never refused a lady’s request.  This gallantry was a part of his Southern upbringing:  Babe was raised in Georgia by his mother and great aunt, whom he always addressed in the French manner as “Tante”.  When Babe flaps his tie in diversionary shyness, places the tips of his fingers together parson-like, or screws up his face in embarrassment when addressing the ladies, I see Tante’s influence.  Not only would he have absorbed all these mannerisms from his family, he would also have been aware of the values of true Southern hospitality and know the kind of behaviour expected of a Georgian gentleman.  This graciousness came naturally to him, and because of the distressed circumstances of his screen roles, it added poignancy to his performance. 

English-born Stan, on the other hand, was simply a genius.  He was also an amazing craftsman who often spent hours working on a particular few moments in a scene.  Stan had learned his stage craft in England and was already well-versed in the arts of pantomime and music hall long before he arrived in the States in the same troupe as Chaplin.  Babe’s film career was well established before he and Stan were teamed up by Hal Roach.  They had appeared in the same two-reeler as early as 1918 (The Lucky Dog), but it took nine more years for Should Married Men Go Home? to be credited as the first Laurel and Hardy short.  Ollie soon recognised Stan’s superb comic talent and for the rest of their time together was content to let Stan make all the artistic decisions. ‘Whatever Stan says is okay with me,’ Ollie would reply when asked for a directorial or comedy decision. 

I believe that the complete trust Hardy had in Stan’s ability was the key to their success.  There is not the slightest hint of rivalry or upstaging in their films, and – unlike many comic partnerships – they actually enjoyed each other’s company away from the studio lot.  Theirs was not a ‘straight-man and funny-man’ relationship, they were both funny men.  The fat pompous one and the thin stupid one were both capable of making us laugh.  Even as a kid I realised that their child-like understanding of the world really was child-like, and we loved them all the more for their innocence.  Stan would offer up a ridiculous solution to a problem only to have Ollie (who had apparently seen its pitfalls) counter with an even sillier one. 

Until Laurel and Hardy’s teaming, American comedy was very broad, very slapstick and very fast.  And although there is an undoubted slapstick element to the boys’ work, their ‘business’ was positively graceful compared to what others were up to: it was ballet as distinct from the rest’s Charleston.  The pace of their comedy was also much slower (Stan took what must have seemed terrible risks to the studio bosses with his long silences) and even today, I am hard-pressed to think of anyone who dares leave such long gaps between lines. 

Did Stan invent the comic close-up?  I think of those marvellous moments as the camera scrutinises Stan’s face as he ponders a problem.  He almost arrives at a solution and opens his mouth to speak, only to stop and scratch his ‘just got out of bed’ sticking-up hair.  While Stan’s close-ups portray him lost in a world he doesn’t fathom, Ollie’s invite us in.  We are offered the chance to share in his frustration at the numbskull he is required to take care of.  The irony being, of course, that he is barely able to take care of himself. 

I have often noted the contrast in their eyes.  Just how did Stan achieve that totally dead-eyed look, when ‘straight’ photos show his eyes full of life and vitality?  And in close-up, no one could fail to be moved by the softness and great humanity in Babe’s eyes.  What is so wonderful about these two is that in real life they were every bit as warm and kind as you would expect from their on-screen roles, as countless contemporaries have testified.  I was particularly moved to read the accounts in John McCabe’s biography, Babe, of supporting artists on a late English tour describing how big Ollie climbed several flights of stairs in order to collect their autographs as souvenirs.  Yes, Laurel and Hardy as autograph hunters. 

We saw dozens of Laurel and Hardy shorts at the flicks – silents as well as talkies – and occasionally full length features.  These ranged from the brilliant Way Out West to their last, and truly dreadful Robinson Crusoe Land (aka Atoll K), which was filmed in three languages with as many directors.  Although many of their best films are credited to Hal Roach, Stan actually did most of the directing.  Professional jealousy might explain why Roach found it necessary to tamper with so many of their films after the event.  Two of the most irrational interferences appear in Swiss Miss, with the insertion of the gorilla in the end scene, and the ruining of the piano gag.  Roach removed the scene where we see the piano key of ‘middle C’ being connected to a bomb, and so makes the ensuing close-ups of the boys’ hands almost hitting it completely pointless.  Luckily, this didn’t stop the movie from being a great success: it would have taken more than a spot of shoddy editing to do that. 

My favourite Laurel and Hardy movie – after much soul-searching – is probably Way Out West.  It could have been a success with any pair of competent comic actors in the lead roles, but with the boys, it is superb.  The plot of Way Out West is pure melodrama: the rightful heiress is deprived of her inheritance by her villainous boss and his floozy.  The twist is that well-intentioned Ollie and Stan are the cause of her problem, even if they do eventually come to her rescue and – by default – save the day.  From the moment we see our heroes’ carefree gait as they walk over the hill with their mule, all our cares begin to vanish.  A favourite scene is the one where the floozy tries to tickle the map out of Stan’s grasp in her boudoir.  It appeared as if the director had to abandon any hope of a ‘clean take’, the actress is laughing hysterically, and so, apparently, is Stan.  For a Laurel and Hardy film, I think this scene is incredibly sexy.  

Stan and Ollie are often caught in bed together, but there is no thought of any naughtiness.  Our only concerns are to do with who has the lion’s share of the blankets, who has to get up to turn out the light, and which of them is going to investigate the mysterious noise.  When Stan and Ollie appear with wives in films, their partners are usually harridans of the first order.  We wonder why on earth they married the boys in the first place, and as far as sex is concerned, the very idea that the marriage might ever have been consummated is too ridiculous to contemplate.  The wives are there either as additional authority figures or else (and more dangerously) to draw the boys away from us and in to the real, adult world of complex, sexual politics and proper responsibilities.  But, thank goodness, they are never allowed to succeed. 

It’s strange to see what still makes us laugh from the old films.  Stan and Ollie’s gentle art was replaced by the likes of Abbott and Costello, The Three Stooges and Martin and Lewis, and double acts continue to be big box office.  But these later comics had a different and more predictable format: straight man / funny man, handsome / plain, clever / stupid.  I enjoyed them all in their different ways, but looking back, they’ve all dated badly.  Chaplin is a link to the humour of the Victorians, Abbott and Costello represent the fast-talking ’40s, Martin and Lewis the ’50s and early ’60s, but Stan and Ollie are timeless. 

Children love them because they are at least as smart as they are, and as we grow older, their innocence and child-like optimism has the power to lift our jaded spirits.  Those of us who are even remotely connected with the entertainment business can only marvel at their skill, humanity, and timing.  Their catchphrases are still with us, and let’s face it, when it comes to character-led comedy, Laurel and Hardy wrote the book. 

Whenever I am appearing at a theatre I know they performed in, I get an added buzz.  Towards the end of their career, they toured Britain quite extensively; I often wonder if I might be sharing their dressing room, and try and guess as to what they would have said to each other.  Somehow, I can’t believe that they would ever have run out of things to discuss.  Some bands I know only get through the grind and repetition of life on the road by playing cards and trying to win money from each other, but that doesn’t sound like Laurel and Hardy to me.  I can tell that they were pals to the end. 

Their last scene together was in 1957 and was held in private.  I can only guess at the script, Babe had suffered a series of strokes that had left him paralysed and unable to speak.  But somehow he was able to indicate that he wanted to see his old friend and partner one last time.  Stan never talked about that last scene but we know that he was greatly distressed by it.  In my mind I can see Ollie’s eyes looking imploringly up at Stan from the bed. 

Another fine mess? 

I see Stan turning his hands palms upwards and raising his eyebrows and looking nowhere in particular for inspiration.  Perhaps he scratches his head, starts as if to speak, and then pauses to think again.  He repeats these familiar gestures as if in a film.  Ollie indicates a smile, Stan’s bottom lip begins to quiver, his eyes screw up and real tears begin to fall.  He looks at his friend and partner once more.  Ollie indicates a smile but real tears fall too.  Stan makes one last attempt to speak, but nothing comes out.  With eyebrows raised, he lifts his hand to his face and, moving his fingers in a downward flick beginning with the little finger, he mouths the word ‘bye’.  He walks to the door and leaves the room.  It ends, as it began in the silents, in silence. 

Cue: The March of the Cuckoos…


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