Laurel and Hardy

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are probably the most famous comedy duo in film history.

Laurel and Hardy, together

Hal Roach years

The first encounter of the two comedians in a film took place in The Lucky Dog (1921). They first appeared in the same Hal Roach film in Forty-Five Minutes From Hollywood (1926), and their first 'official' film was The Second Hundred Years (June 1927), directed by Fred Guiol and supervised by Leo McCarey, who was the one to suggest that Stanley and Oliver be teamed permanently.

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From 1926 onwards they starred in Hal Roach comedies, including silent shorts, talkie shorts and feature films – 106 in all. They made a great number of popular shorts before their first feature film with director James Parrott, Pardon Us (1931). The duo reduced the number of shorts they made to concentrate on feature films, such as Pack Up Your Troubles (1932), Fra Diavolo (1933), Sons of the Desert (1933), and Babes in Toyland (1934). They made the classic short The Music Box in 1932, which won the Academy Award for Best Short Subjects, Comedy, and stopped making shorts in 1935.

Related Topics:
Talkie - James Parrott - Sons of the Desert - Babes in Toyland - The Music Box - 1932 - Academy Award for Best Short Subjects, Comedy - 1935

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The duo's subsequent feature films (produced by Roach and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) were Bonnie Scotland (1935), The Bohemian Girl (1936), Our Relations (1936), Way Out West (1937) (which includes the famous song "On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine"), Swiss Miss (1938), and Blockheads (1938).

Related Topics:
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer - Way Out West

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Style of comedy and notable routines

The humor of Laurel and Hardy was generally slapstick in nature, often employing Laurel's character as dominant (although Hardy always presumed he had the upper hand), usually to Hardy's chagrin. A typical sequence would be their collaboration on the construction of a house: Hardy holds a number of nails in his mouth, Laurel warmly claps him on the back, Hardy swallows the nails.

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In some cases, the comedy bordered on the surreal. For example, Laurel might light his pipe by flicking his thumb upwards from his clenched fist as if he held a cigarette lighter. His thumb would ignite, and he would light his pipe. Hardy, seeing this, would attempt to duplicate it. When, after many attempts he actually would achieve the same effect, he would be surprised to discover that his thumb was actually burning, and would cry in pain and hastily blow it out.

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A famous shtick the team often performed was a bizarre kind of tit for tat fight with an opponent. In the basic scenario, the pair would begin the fight by damaging something that the opponent valued, while that opponent did not defend himself. However, when the pair were finished, the opponent would then calmly retaliate by damaging something that Laurel and Hardy valued, while the pair strangely refrained from defending themselves. The pair then dispassionately retaliated with an escalating act of vandalism and so on, until both sides were simultaneously destroying property in front of each other.

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Throughout their career the driving force was Laurel, who wrote the scripts and frequently produced (and sometimes directed) the films, and always insisted on being paid twice as much as Hardy.

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Decline

By 1936, the relationship between Laurel and Hardy was under strain, and both of them were distanced from Hal Roach. Laurel in particular frequently argued with Roach, and extended stand-off periods became common during the late-1930s. In 1938, The Roach studio switched distributors from MGM to United Artists. Laurel and Hardy made three more films before they split with Roach in 1940. They signed with larger studios, where they were relegated to the b-film divisions, making eight more films through 1944.

Related Topics:
United Artists - B-film

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After spending the rest of the 1940s performing onstage in Europe, Laurel and Hardy made one final film together in 1950, the French-set Atoll K aka Utopia, directed by Léo Joannon.

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Oliver Hardy died in 1957 at the age of 65 and was interred in The Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood, California. Laurel did not attend his partner's funeral, due to his own ill health, explaining his absence with the line "Babe would understand."

Related Topics:
Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery - North Hollywood, California

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For the remaining eight years of his life, Laurel refused to perform, but did contribute scripts and gags to several comedy filmmakers, and did some personal writing as well. He was anonymously assisted financially by Frank Sinatra. Stan Laurel died in Santa Monica, California in 1965 at the age of 74, and is buried at Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles, California.

Related Topics:
Frank Sinatra - Santa Monica, California - Los Angeles - California

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