Harping on 'The Flying Deuces'

So we beat on, boats against the current. borne back ceaselessly to Laurel and Hardy in the French Foreign Legion.

A comment from a Facebook friend today made me look up the movie and read up a little more about it. Everyone should be as blessed as I am, to have friends who care about Laurel and Hardy! And I was reading about the scene in "The Flying Deuces" when Stan and Ollie are in jail, waiting to be shot by a firing squad at dawn. Stan dismantles the cot and plays the bed frame like a harp.

It was really virtuosic in the movie, which made it all the funnier when the jailer sticks his head in and puts a stop to it by barking, "Shut up!"

It ends up that you had really been listening to Harpo Marx.

Harpo Marx did the music in that scene! And not only that, but the song was, "The World Is Waiting For the Sunrise." Funny in view of what is about to occur. I have heard that song before but I do not have it in my head. In 1939, when this movie was made, everyone would probably have recognized it. Now we miss out on the joke.

Apparently Harpo Marx coached Stan Laurel to look as if he were really playing the harp. It is like Leonard Pennario coaching Joan Fontaine to make it look in "September Affair" as if she were really playing the piano.

How very cool all of this is, you know? Great personalities cooperating with each other, helping each other do the best work they can do. Stan Laurel collaborating with Harpo Marx.

That and, we love the airplane scene. When Laurel and Hardy don't know how to fly the plane and they are being chased by the Foreign Legion. The plane turns and chases the soldiers (at about 4:35) -- and then it turns the other way again, and you realize it is all by accident. Honest, I was laughing so hard last night I was crying.

I love the clever use in the orchestral score of the Laurel and Hardy theme.

The babysitter

Tonight I babysat my little niece and nephew, Barbara and Georgie. And we had Movie Night kind of the way we used to when my mom was still around.

We watched the Laurel and Hardy movie about when Laurel and Hardy joined the Foreign Legion!

I have to look up the name. It is called The Flying Deuces.  I do believe it is all on YouTube.



Go ahead, cancel your plans for your day or your night, as the case may be, and watch it. It is a great movie. It has Jimmy Finleyson whom my dad always loved, as the jailer when Laurel and Hardy are in jail and are supposed to be shot at dawn. And there is this other guy we love, Charles Middleton, who plays the Commandant and, voice quivering, delivers the immortal line, "I've never been so grossly insulted in my life!"

And there is the scene where Laurel and Hardy dance to "Shine On, Harvest Moon." Laurel and Hardy, my favorite comedy team. That is what Pennario said and what I say too.



I found myself telling our little George and Barbara, "My dad used to love this scene." I remembered watching it with him! Heck, right in the very room where I was watching it now.

He was probably watching it with us tonight only we could not see him. We used to watch all this stuff, Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers. My father would laugh so hard at the Marx Brothers that once he actually fell off the couch.

It felt good to be back in the old homestead. Georgie and Barbara were great and actually were attentive through the whole movie even though occasionally it is hard for a kid to follow. Who even knows what the French Foreign Legion is? So much fun, you know, to see this movie again, with kids.

So much great silliness!

'County Hospital'

It is a classic Laurel and Hardy, "County Hospital."

Laurel and Hardy were Leonard Pennario's favorite comedy team and they are mine too. My brother George is on a Laurel and Hardy kick and I followed him onto it although George has gone farther than I have in that he is reading biographies of Laurel and Hardy and I have not gotten to that yet. Long story short, today we were watching "County Hospital."

Hahahahahahaa!!

What happens right at the beginning after Laurel looks at the sign asking for quiet. He gives the Quiet sign this befuddled look and then you can guess what happens... Noise!

Then the look on Hardy's face when you see him in the hospital room with his foot up.And how he reacts when Stan has come to visit.

Then the business with the doctor hanging out the window.

Too much, too much.

"County Hospital." Just the title is hilarious. It is a two-reel, as I hear from George. Two reels mean 20 minutes.

Anyway.

A classic!