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This polished, fast-moving, complex story with solid production values was an artistic, box office and critical success. Though it was a meaningless concession to salve his bouts of temperament, this was the first of two films nominally credited as “A Stan Laurel Production. ” In fact, it was just business, and business as usual. During principal photography, Roach wrote his son, then away at military school, of making “a very funny Laurel & Hardy picture. Had the Laurels over for dinner…borrowed his fishing boat last weekend and went to Coronado for yellowtail. ” The lavish shooting required 48 days. The cast included Alan Hale and Sidney Toler, soon to become the next “Charlie Chan” at Fox, and effervescent Betty Healy, former wife of Ted Healy of Three Stooges fame. This was her only movie; she played Mrs. Laurel, and remained his lifelong friend, as so many surviving letters now attest. Also featuring an intricate and lively musical score by Roy Shield, which the studio used as “stock tunes” to score concurrent Charley Chase and Our Gang comedies, as well as the reissues of five Laurel & Hardy shorts. Directed by Harry Lachman, a visual stylist and neighbor of Roach who was brought in to help the studio graduate from the custard pie era. With Daphne Pollard, James Finlayson, Iris Adrian, and Lona Andre, who said in 1990 she had never seen the film! Looking at a still photo, she remembered, “This one (Hardy) was always doing something that made the other one (Laurel) laugh; and I mean he would roar!”

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