One Good Turn - 1931

One Good Turn (1931) shows the pluck, the kindness, and the good humor needed to forge on during the Great Depression, all qualities that were abundant in a Laurel and Hardy short—along with several smacks on the head.

Laurel and Hardy, like The Three Stooges, moved from job to job as interesting and humorous scenarios for their exploits.  We mark this Labor Day with one Laurel and Hardy short that not only has them without employment, but actually mentions that their plight is due to the Depression, as we continue our look this year at movies made during the Great Depression that addressed that crisis.

We find our heroes on the side of the road in their rattletrap 1911 Ford open touring car, where they are camped.  Oliver Hardy washes their laundry in a stream resembling more a mud puddle than a brook, and Stan Laurel cooks soup over a campfire, but accidentally burns down their pup tent with all their belongings.  Any trip, slip, or misunderstanding usually leads to catastrophe for the boys, but their personality traits that always have Stan squeakily whimpering and Ollie punctuating his emotions with a side glance at the camera—breaking the fourth wall is part of their schtick—are so well known that we really don’t need complicated plots.  The gags are set up and we have an easy time almost knowing what’s next.

Ollie remarks on their situation, “Our earthly possessions are slowly getting less and less, no place to sleep, and no food.  What could be worse?”  Then they notice their laundry, which includes, of course, a union suit, has shrunk with washing.

The boys stop at a nearby house to beg for food.  Like any practiced hobo, they check to make sure there are no dogs about.  With hat in hand, Ollie smiles charmingly and asks the elderly lady of the house, played by Mary Carr, “Pardon the intrusion, lady, but my friend and I are victims of the Depression.  We haven’t tasted food for three whole days.”

To which Stan remarks, “Yesterday, today, and tomorrow.”

Ollie coyly twists his finger around on his derby hat and requests a piece of buttered toast, but Stan heartily adds, “Would you mind throwing a piece of ham over that?”

The lady is kind and says she is going to “fix them something very nice.”

Ollie, ups the ante, “Is there some little thing we could do to repay your kindness?  We’re willing to work, you know.”

Stan suggests that Ollie chop wood, and Ollie tells him to do it. Eventually, the lady calls them into the kitchen and gives them coffee and sandwiches.  The prolonged taking of one more and then one more sandwich by Stan, completely oblivious to good manners, has Ollie steaming, and after a few tit-for-tat reprisals, they settle down to enjoy their food.

But what’s this?  They overhear the lady in the next room in conversation with a man who says he is going to foreclose on the mortgage, and that she must have $100 by three o’clock or he will throw her out on the street! She pleads with him for more time, discovering that the money she has saved in her sewing basket has been stolen!  He is heartless. 

“I have you in my clutches!”  It sounds like an old-time “mellerdramer,” which it is.  Unbeknownst to the boys, the lady is just rehearsing a play for the local community theatre.  James Finlayson, well known to Laurel and Hardy fans, is the evil banker.  The lady refers to him by his real name, which was perhaps a joke among the cast.  Blink and you miss him Snub Pollard also plays one of the community theatre players.

Our hapless heroes, however, eavesdropping from the kitchen, think it’s real.  Gallantly, Ollie vows to raise the money, and the boys go into town to auction off their car.

Billy Gilbert plays a drunk who places a bid, but then mistakenly puts his wallet into Stan’s coat pocket. After a misunderstanding in the bidding and Ollie pummeling Stan in the car that remains unsold and, in fact, crumbles to pieces in their fight, the wallet is discovered.  Ollie thinks Stan has stolen the old lady’s mortgage money.

Just how he jumps to this unlikely conclusion, we can’t imagine, but the childlike chums are quick to wound (literally) and quick to jump to conclusions.  He muscles Stan back to the old lady’s house to return the money and to confess.  She laughingly tells them it was a play rehearsal they heard, and Ollie, a tad embarrassed, makes the hysterical remark, “I must have made a faux pas.”

Stan, fed up, goes after Ollie with an axe and brings down the old lady’s shed on his head.

The gags and slapstick would have been familiar and fun to the Depression-era audiences, but those audiences were not as blind to the social commentary of the film as we might be today.  People did camp out on the side of the road.  They did live in their cars.  They were removed from their homes when the banks foreclosed.  They and their belongings were thrown out on the street.

Just as is happening more and more today. The felon in the White House has taken measures to criminalize homelessness, institutionalize captured homeless, and, ironically, increase the number of homeless in this country.

May we show as much resilience, heart, and generosity in our troubled time as Laurel and Hardy.  But I somehow think if one of us were knocked repeatedly on the head by chunks of firewood, we might not fare as well as he does. Got to give him that.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Movies in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century and Hollywood Fights Fascism and Christmas in Classic Films. TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

My new non-fiction book, CHILDREN'S WARTIME ADVENTURE NOVELS - The Silent Generation's Vicarious Experience of World War II -- is now available in eBook here at Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and a wide variety of other online shops.

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From Cherry Ames, to Meet the Malones, from Dave Dawson to Kitty Carter - Canteen Girl, the Silent Generation spent their childhood immersed in geopolitical events through the prism of their middle grade and young adult books.  From the home front to the battlefield, these books are a window on their world, and influenced their hard-working, conformity-loving generation. 

 

 

 

Big Business - 1929

Big Business (1929) is an unabashedly violent and vengeful look at the selling of Christmas trees.  But when Laurel and Hardy are the salesmen, you just don’t regret the absence of peace on earth and good will toward men.

This silent short, directed by James “J. Wesley” Horne, boasted two future greats as supervising director and cameraman – Leo McCarey and George Stevens.  The film was enrolled in the National Film Registry in 1992.

The title card begins the adventure telling us, tersely, that we are witnessing “selling Christmas trees in California.”  This would explain the lack of snow and the palm trees gliding by the little open car with the tiny truck bed on the back, into which are standing a few spindly Christmas trees mounted on wooden stands.  “Spindly” only according to today’s opulent standards (I have brought home real trees in years past which, when crammed into my living room, the single tree took up half the room. Small animals could have lived in its branches and never been discovered. Even getting the tree into the house and squeezing it through the door, some years, my twin brother and I in our younger days would have to grab it and run up the steps with a heave-ho as if we were storming a castle with a battering ram.)

The streets are wide, refreshingly free from the chaos of traffic, and the boys park among a row of Spanish-style stucco houses to peddle their trees door-to-door.

A customer declines.  Another customer hits Ollie on the head with a hammer.  The third customer, our old pal James Finlayson, proves to be the ultimate hard sale.  The shenanigans begin innocently enough:  Stan gets a tree branch caught in the door after Mr. Finlayson slams it on them.  It happens again.  He then gets his coat caught. Soon, the irritated homeowner and the frustrated salesmen devolve into a tit-for-tat battle of one-upmanship.  Finlayson attacks their tree, Ollie’s watch, and the boys start ripping pieces off Finlayson’s house.

The chaos builds, neighbors come to watch, as does a surprisingly laconic policeman, as the boys destroy Finlayson’s house, and Finlayson destroys their little truck. 

Released in April 1929, we may note two things: first, just as we discussed in this previous post, many Christmas-themed movies were not released at Christmastime; and second, perhaps because this movie was released well before the Wall Street Crash in October of that year, there is a bravado of commercialism and complete lack of sentiment.  The boys want to hustle their trees, but we are not given any indication that they are down and out.  As the melee concludes, though all three men appear tearful under the threat of the cop’s presence, they are not regretful for what they have done, only that they were caught. 

There is no Yuletide softening of the heart here as they would be in movies of later years, no message of reconciliation or discovering the true meaning of Christmas after their fits of destruction.  Stan and Ollie give Finlayson an exploding cigar, and then they run away from the cop.

Even modern Christmas comedies with more grit and sarcasm to them have an “aww-gee” moment, but not Laurel and Hardy in 1929.  Comedy was unapologetically brutal, and consequences were swift and severe.  And funny.

You can watch Big Business here from YouTube:

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Memories in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century. Her newspaper column on classic films, Silver Screen, Golden Memories is syndicated nationally.  Her new book, a collection of posts from this blog - Hollywood Fights Fascism - is available here on Amazon.