As you may know the 2014 Laurel & Hardywood Convention corresponds with the 100th Anniversary of the Hal Roach Studios. Not only will we have celebrities who worked on the films, not only will we visit locations seen in the films, not only will we see rare memorabilia associated with the films (read till the end below for a major rediscovery) – BUT we will see a number of the films themselves…both CLASSIC films, and RARE films. Some we can guarantee that you’ve never seen before, and others that you’ve likely never seen this way before. Which way? The way they were intended to be seen, in a 35mm theatrical setting, by the people on both sides of the camera who made them — the people we met at Hollywood 80, and the people we honor now, and forever.

We will have two major screenings of these rare films in one of Hollywood’s most iconic theaters, the Egyptian Theatre. Many 1920s and 1930s Laurel & Hardy comedies played right here during their original theatrical runs, as the souvenir program notes booklet will show! Do not miss this opportunity. Please do not. Or “You’ll learn a lesson,” that we’ll all tell you later!

Below are notes written by Richard W. Bann on the film program that he has assembled for our entertainment and approval. We thank you…

PROGRAM #1: Wednesday, July 2, 2014, Egyptian Theatre

• Untitled, uncut raw footage for a news story at the time Hal Roach Studios was to be torn down (1963). In the interest of managing expectations, it might be well to remember how Bill Everson used to introduce rare or previously lost films which few alive had seen. Fans tend to project their hopes, and the longer a movie had been out of circulation, the more likely they anticipated a classic. It is probably better to maintain a frame a mind that if we don’t expect too much, we may be pleasantly surprised. To begin with, this film was shot for a TV news story, and as such was timed on the light side because television adds contrast. Footage seen at the outset is silent. There is a juxtaposition of the colonial administration building as it first appeared during the silent era, and then as it looked in 1963 – desolate, with overgrown foliage crying out for a gardener, and cars the size of boats parked where the beautiful front lawn used to be. The first words heard are by Hal Roach himself (not seen), counting to nine testing for sound. Then we see him, standing with a reporter (later in the afternoon, judging by the shadows), midway into the backlot street – once bright and prosperous looking in two reel comedies, now empty and bleak, in shabby disrepair. (Conventioneers visiting the studio site can easily find and stand where they stood, on what is today called Landmark Street.) The reporter remarks, “This is the place that laughs built.” Showing no sentiment whatsoever, the then 71 year-old Mr. Roach explains where they are, what they are there for, and all the while giving no one any reason to wonder why he left the acting profession almost immediately back in 1913. The ghostly, neglected look and feel of the dilapidated physical plant in this footage is remindful of the TWILIGHT ZONE Cold War episode entitled TWO (1961), where Charles Bronson as an American and Elizabeth Montgomery as a Soviet are the last two surviving humans on earth, co-inhabiting a deserted town after war has decimated the planet. TWO was filmed at Hal Roach Studios during the bankruptcy period – the lot’s coup de grace serving as a metaphor for the end of mankind! Following TWO, the final production filmed at Roach during its period as a rental facility was the M-G-M feature DIME WITH A HALO where the studio exteriors were dressed to stand in for the city of Tijuana. And then left as is. So stages, false fronts and buildings that might otherwise be familiar to us from the 1930s had been disguised to make the place resemble Mexico. It gets worse: spliced onto the end are some additional few seconds that show the historic stages and false fronts — 53 buildings in all — being bulldozed into the ground. An old army tank had been deployed to vanquish Fort Roach. It was the final scene of an illustrious epic. In an August 6, 1963 letter, Stan Laurel commiserated with one of his correspondents, “I haven’t visited the Roach Studios since 1955 – it is now being demolished to make space for a super market. Whoever thought this would happen? It’s pretty sad.” Shown in close-up was one item happily spared from the massacre: the plaque for Lake Laurel & Hardy. 16mm print courtesy Richard W. Bann.

• THERE GOES MY HEART trailer (1938). Fredric March and Virginia Bruce. Class-A comedy-drama about a reporter and runaway heiress was the studio’s first feature film release in the new distribution arrangement with United Artists. Theatrical trailer only, but more than just a trailer, this is a behind-the-scenes tour of the Hal Roach Studios physical plant and its departments. What’s more, what is doubly more, spliced on at the outset are some trims and other raw footage (all silent) shot for this very special prevue of coming attractions. One extreme long shot from atop the administration building looking east all the way down the backlot shows a heavy man who is likely Oliver Hardy. The cutting continuity for the prevue quotes the feature film’s screenwriter, a young Ed Sullivan, saying as the narrator, who also appears onscreen, “I’d like to take you folks behind the scenes and show you how an idea is developed into a full grown motion picture.” With this, he has our attention! We are treated to glimpses of carpenters, painters, workmen all over the lot, moving flats and props. We tour the wardrobe, make-up and art departments – recognizing the latter as Billy Gilbert’s residence in the then recently filmed BLOCK-HEADS. We get to see Norman McLeod (he helmed TOPPER, MONKEY BUSINESS, HORSE FEATHERS, and IT’S A GIFT) both consulting with gagmen in a script conference, and directing scenes on a set late in the picture where a special cameo is to be played out. (This cameo may be the single best in movie history. No one could have seen it coming. Unlike trailers today – which not only feature the best scenes and gags but also offer spoilers giving away the plot thus obviating the need to see the movie being advertised – there is no hint as to who it is, or even that anyone performs a cameo.) Then, completely unrelated and just for fun, following is another, earlier trailer, this one promoting a post-Our Gang personal appearance by the always funny, round-faced Norman “Chubby” Chaney. “Coming to this theater…in person!” the graphic exclaims. “He hopes to meet all the kiddies.” But sadly, not for long. Mr. Chaney had already been deceased two years of a glandular ailment by the time THERE GOES MY HEART was circulating in movie houses in late 1938. He lived to age 21 (same as did Roach’s answer to Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, Dee “Skinny” Lampton, who appears in Sunday’s YOUNG MR. JAZZ and who in 1919 died of appendicitis the week a bomb exploded in Harold Lloyd’s hand). It was not until 2012 when convention chairman Bob Satterfield aided locals in Baltimore that a memorial headstone was finally erected to mark Norman Chaney’s Baltimore Cemetery grave in his hometown. 16mm prints courtesy Richard W. Bann. We have restored and preserved 35mm preprint elements safely in the custody of CCA in Munich, but only these 16mm prints are available for our screening

• THAT’S THAT (1939) Laurel & Hardy. Wonderful gag reel assembled by company editor Bert Jordan as a gift presented to Stan Laurel. The occasion was his 49^th birthday party celebrated during the production of A CHUMP AT OXFORD. This compilation of scenes is mild in comparison to what one might expect. Those longing for the kind of wild bloopers described by studio insiders at both the “lot of fun,” and elsewhere around Hollywood, might be disappointed. Footage used here was assembled from random earlier phonetic foreign language scenes, alternate takes, out-takes, and trims extending back to THE LAUREL-HARDY MURDER CASE (for which THAT’S THAT was an undocumented working title) on through WAY OUT WEST, which treats us to a juxtaposition of scenes where the sheriff is played by Stanley Fields, as well as by the original choice for the part, Tiny Sandford. There is also the fun of seeing Laurel’s double and stand-in, Ham Kinsey, who almost never spoke on camera, attempt to read The Declaration of Independence. Not to mention sometimes-director Edgar Kennedy making an editorial decision when he orders, “Cut the damn thing!” Content begs further study as there are doubtless hidden gags and meanings here to which only members of the L&H unit were privy. Rarely screened – maybe 2-3 times on a non-theatrical basis exclusively in the last 75 years – digital transfer from a 16mm print courtesy Lois Laurel. Approximately two decades ago a mute nitrate master element turned up at a film lab going out of business; it was then gifted to UCLA, where unfortunately some decomposition has taken place during the ensuing years. Luckily a private enterprise outside UCLA quietly took action and ran a 35mm safety neg (but minus the track) in the interim. As an unpublished work, indeterminate copyright rests with possible claimants: either Lois Laurel or Sonar and CCA as successors in interest to Hal Roach Studios.

• HIJOS DEL DESIERTO trailer (1933) Laurel & Hardy. Original M-G-M coming attractions trailer for SONS OF THE DESERT. This adaptation, however, was created at the time for Spanish-speaking markets. The track is English with no subtitles, but the written text and graphics are Spanish. Up to now, with this discovery, no other SONS prevue in any language was known to survive. What is especially interesting, as is often the case with trailers, we are treated to surprising alternate takes of staged action and dialogue not seen or heard quite the same way in the final cut of the picture as issued to movie theaters. A scene at the table with Charley (misspelled by Metro as “Charlie”) Chase, e.g., features no incidental music scoring. It is a shame most of us non-Spanish speakers cannot read the hyperbole and splashy graphics that make trailers so much fun. For instance the coming attractions prevue for OUR RELATIONS announced in elaborate lettering that the film was to be “a revel of pixilarity!” Who can argue with that? Restoration and digital transfer from a 35mm exhibition print, courtesy Jeff Joseph/SabuCat.

•  HELPMATES (1932) Laurel & Hardy. “When the cat’s away – the mice start looking up telephone numbers.” Panic-stricken Ollie, hung over, phones Stan to help him clean up the morning after a wild party; his charming bigger-than-he-is wife is returning home, early, at noon. Naturally their housecleaning efforts fail in spectacular fashion. One of the team’s most perfect comedies. And as recently restored and preserved (for commercial purposes by CCA in the Eastern Hemisphere, and by UCLA for the institutional domain), the film now looks and sounds as good as anyone has seen it and heard it since 1932. As common and well known as this comedy may be, if you have not seen a near-mint 35mm print, projected through darkness, without interruption, in a theatrical setting, before an appreciative audience, the way it was intended to be seen by the people who made the film, then this screening will be an entirely new and surprising experience. As though you have never seen HELPMATES before. Glancing at a cell phone-video, in the midst of conversation, while watching for traffic lights, is not by any means the same activity….Location was a five room bungalow erected and furnished on a corner of the studio, as though it were part of the Culver City neighborhood nearby. This stratagem required exercising precaution, because the faithfully adapted script called for burning the house down! Hardy suffered through a cold during production. No matter, his trademark camera looks are eternally priceless. In the splendor of 35mm, writ large on a movie screen, it will be easier for sharp young eyes to glimpse the off-screen hand we are not supposed to see on the right of the frame hurling that potted plant to up-end neighbor Bobby Burns who is outside trying to water his lawn. Watch carefully. Directed by James Parrott. Restoration (utilizing reel two of the camera negative plus the complete nitrate work print, filling in with Film Classics reissue elements) and 35mm print courtesy UCLA.

• WAY OUT WEST (1937) Laurel & Hardy. Arriving in the cow town of Brushwood Gulch, our heroes attempt delivering the deed to a gold mine, as bequeathed to a deceased prospector’s daughter. A larcenous saloon-keeper (Jimmie Finlayson) diverts them instead to his wife, a brassy saloon chirp who enacts the role of grieving daughter. Once this duplicity is exposed, the two tenderheels must retrieve the deed and rescue the rightful heiress. This unadulterated L&H fun is spiced with surrealistic gags and sparkling musical interludes, including an Oscar-nominated score by Marvin Hatley. The review in NEW YORKER magazine declared the picture to be “leisurely in the best sense; you adjust to a different rhythm and come out feeling relaxed as if you’d had a vacation.” Theatre patrons jammed ticket windows to get in, too, as the picture was profitable to the extent of a whopping 60% return on investment. “Brushwood Gulch” was actually the Monogram Ranch in Newhall, later Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch. Often asked late in life to name his personal favorite work, Stan Laurel usually cited WAY OUT WEST. Oliver Hardy’s widow, Lucille, said he concurred with his partner’s choice. Directed by James W. Horne. With Rosina Lawrence as the sweet, victimized heroine, who recalled of the stars, “They were very friendly to everyone. They helped me and others every way they could. They explained things, they were patient, and it made working with them a great pleasure. I never saw any trouble of any kind. Of course they were so funny, as was dear old Finlayson – Jimmie.” Incidentally, THE SIMPSONS’ creator, Matt Groening, known admirer of L&H, concedes that Homer’s famous “Doh!” was derived from Mr. Finlayson, who did it first, and often, punctuated with a one-eyed squint, including several times in WAY OUT WEST. In 1975, a recording of THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE lifted straight off the soundtrack was issued in England as a single. Imagine a 38 year-old post-Beatles hit record with a vocal rendering by visual comedians, then deceased, selling more than 500,000 copies and climbing to number two on the British pop charts! Restoration and 35mm print courtesy UCLA.

PROGRAM #2: Sunday, July 6, 2014, Egyptian Theatre

• YOUNG MR. JAZZ (1919) Harold Lloyd. Eloping with his sweetheart, Bebe Daniels, Harold must flee a disapproving father-in-law, seeking refuge at a low dance hall in the Bowery where crooks, hookers, and pickpockets abound. Besides stock company players Beatrice La Plant, Snub Pollard (without his eyebrows), and Dee “Skinny” Lampton (in drag), watch for Charley Chase’s brother and future director James Parrott in this early, gag-crammed, glass-character one-reeler personally directed by Hal Roach. All four had their own Roach series. Off-screen at the time, Harold and Bebe were an inseparable couple and spent their evenings together dancing up a storm winning contests in clubs around town far better than the tough dive depicted here. This formula comedy is so fast-paced in the style of the day that it is easy to miss the great stunts being performed by Lloyd himself amidst all the action. Daniels reflected on doing these rock ’em, sock ’em shorts, speaking for everyone in the cast, “If you couldn’t do the stunts yourself, you didn’t get the job.” The bombing accident which would cost Lloyd part of his right hand occurred later the same year. Opening scenes by the sea were shot at Venice Beach. The speakeasy as well as the crowd extras (and even their wardrobe) will be familiar to those who have seen some of the five Stan Laurel solos shot on the same stage during this period. And according to John Bengston, several of those buildings glimpsed in the Chinatown and beach scenes are still standing after 96 years. In real life, 25 year-old Harold wanted to marry the almost 18 year-old Bebe, but she told 26 year-old Hal Roach that Harold seemed so desperate in his ardor, she thought there must be someone better for her (and she did have a long and happy marriage with Ben Lyon, amiable star of HELL’S ANGELS). She returned to Hal Roach Studios as a producer after receiving the Medal of Freedom from President Truman for her courageous work during the London blitz in World War II. When television cameras surprised her with a THIS IS YOUR LIFE tribute, Hal Roach appeared as a guest to deliver a testimonial, as he did also for the episode devoted to Harold Lloyd. Daniels looked nearly grief-stricken, and in both programs Lloyd was so happy and unnerved he did little to hide his maimed hand. Roach and Daniels shared the same birthday, which they nearly always celebrated together. Lloyd was eight years older than Daniels; they died eight days apart. Digital transfer from a worn old 35mm Rolin Films exhibition print found in Czechoslovakia, courtesy Rich Correll, who also restored this subject for the Harold Lloyd Trust.

• LAS FANTASMAS (1930) Our Gang. Never seen anywhere worldwide, on any medium, since its original theatrical release, this novelty is the noisy, nervous, phonetic-Spanish re-filming of WHEN THE WIND BLOWS. While only a mediocre comedy-of-errors, it was made immediately preceding the series’ absolute best season, with its finest cast. BIG BUSINESS and WAY OUT WEST director James Horne then seemed to be the studio’s house specialist in foreign language versions, but he was not that well suited to handling Our Gang material. Jackie Cooper, who would marry Horne’s daughter 14 years later, said they shot the picture “in short takes, because as kids we could only manage so much Spanish in one mouthful. And his style on set was to rant and rave, which we weren’t used to from Uncle Bob (McGowan). He (Horne) had us racing around and screaming, essentially mimicking him.” We take these things for granted now, but at the time, some of the track’s sound effects were deemed ingenious, as contemporary critics and audiences took notice and approved. The subject’s title, translated, means “the ghosts,” or “the phantoms.” For the Spanish market, as shown on the main title, Our Gang was re-branded as “La Pandilla.” Jackie is “Juanito,” Mary Ann Jackson is “Maria,” and Pete the Pup is “Pepe.” But Wheezer is still “Wheezer.” A scripted scene, wisely not used, called for Jackie to crawl into bed with his neighbor, Mary Ann, against her character’s will. In real life, their families socialized, and years later Mr. Cooper confessed to having been “desperately in love” with Miss Jackson. She laughed at this declaration, and commented she never knew until I told her what Jackie Cooper had said. She was so great in both Our Gang and the earlier Smith Family series for Sennett, but never cared for acting and got out as soon as her mother would let her. For years I offered to screen prints of the hard-to-see Sennett shorts for her, but – and always nice as could be — she had absolutely no interest. 16mm printdown made from the moderately-worn nitrate comp dupe neg, courtesy Richard W. Bann. Again, we have restored 35mm preprint material safely vaulted for CCA in Munich.

• FOX MOVIETONE NEWSREEL (1937). Our Gang. A screen institution reflects on its history. Uncut, raw news story footage. In late 1936 when Our Gang past and present gathered to commemorate the company’s 15^th anniversary, the event was to be memorialized in their musical comedy REUNION IN RHYTHM. The nostalgic celebration generated a lot of print media coverage, as well as one of Jimmy Fidler’s human interest pieces for the FOX MOVIETONE NEWSREEL series. Our presentation is the unedited footage shot during the luncheon inside the Our Gang Café, and related events outside on the studio grounds. Seeing such candid footage only serves to prove the remarkable patience and artistry of Roach filmmakers in handling these kids – shown here behaving surprisingly like the normal, authentic, and sometimes unruly youngsters they really were! Contrasting these scenes with those in a polished Our Gang comedy is a revelation. The luncheon inside offers glimpses of veteran, unsung assistant director and special effects wizard Charley Oelze (part of the unit since its inception), also Hal Roach, Jr., and returning directors Bob McGowan and Fred Newmeyer (an extra in YOUNG MR. JAZZ). Outside on the lawn, with birds chirping, and the camera looking northeast across the studio gate and front lawn towards the administration building, Our Gang graduates are paired up with their respective successors, two at a time, by approximate type: Mary Kornman with Darla Hood, Farina Hoskins with Buckwheat Thomas, Joe Cobb with Porky Lee, Johnny Downs with Spanky McFarland, and Jackie Condon with Alfalfa Switzer. Throughout the proceedings, the kind voice of current unit director Gordon Douglas (barely older than the returning alumni) can be heard off-camera giving stage directions, and coaxing “Carl” (Switzer) and others to cooperate – with mixed results. (Ask me privately about one out-take which cannot be used.) Curiously Mickey Daniels and Stymie Beard rejoined the cast to appear in REUNION IN RHYTHM, but were absent these festivities. Ever-adorable Mary Kornman was quoted in the pressbook upon re-entering the studio, “It feels like home after all the years I spent on this lot and yet it’s a bit strange because there have been so many improvements in the buildings, stages, and equipment. I am happy though that so many of the old familiar faces are still on the lot to greet me.” 16mm printdown from a comp dupe neg, courtesy Richard W. Bann.  

• HEARST METROTONE NEWSREEL: MOVIE COMEDIANS SEE THE BIG CITY (Vol. 3, No. 294; 1932) Laurel & Hardy. They visit Broadway on vacation. Outside the movie studios and away from closed shootings on location, our favorite laugh-makers, like so many celebrities, were periodically captured on film by those intrepid and daring cameramen of the newsreel profession. Such footage was common in movie houses, and was also often staged to be utilized within popular feature pictures, as we’ve seen in SONS OF THE DESERT, or perhaps the definitive example, Buster Keaton’s THE CAMERAMAN. Arguably the greatest film ever made, CITIZEN KANE, was nominally about the task of completing a newsreel story. Most of the major studios employed their own newsgathering divisions to capture and share candid scenes. The British-Pathe newsreel library, e.g., is now available online containing at least seven 1940s-50s L&H appearances, willingly or not performed before resourceful, often daredevil photographers who managed to first find the two men, then train a 35mm motion picture camera on whatever the boys were trying to do out there in the real world. During the summer of 1932, on the way to their famous tour of the British Isles, L&H stopped in New York, and were riding through Times Square in a “sea-going hack,” when M-G-M’s newsreel arm, Hearst Metrotone, persuaded them to stage a skit. Stories like this offered light entertainment to take an edge off the hard news of the day being regularly reported in movie theaters, usually on a once or twice-weekly basis. As planned, a real traffic cop would give the two a ticket for “passing a light,” surrounded by a crowd of smiling onlookers. Appearing fit and vibrant, their hair slicked down beneath straw hats, dressed in expensive suits, L&H nevertheless quickly assumed their performance characters to everyone’s delight. As a means of soliciting worthy donations toward film preservation, UCLA has posted this clip on YouTube for all to see easily. There, often reduced to the belittling dimensions of a cell phone-screen, one will enjoy it less, but can at least study things more carefully and see how some no-kidding crowd-control cops really did rough up surging pedestrians trying to close in on the two stars. Note the enthusiastic gathering which L&H attract is virtually all men. The most interesting aspect of this scene is at the end where art imitates life, as Mr. Hardy accepts the ticket but hands it to Mr. Laurel, because “he takes care of all the business” for the team. Yes he did. Digital element courtesy UCLA.      

• COUNTY HOSPITAL (1932) Laurel & Hardy. With nothing else to do, Stan pays banged-up Ollie a visit in the hospital, bringing a gift of some hard-boiled eggs and nuts, which he proceeds to eat himself. MOTION PICTURE correctly applauded the comedy as “One of their brightest, fastest and funniest.” The wild ride at the end was intended to top the one from HOG WILD, but economic conditions in the depths of the Depression dictated otherwise. After a screening of COUNTY HOSPITAL at his home in 1986, Hal Roach explained, “We tried to make a gag out of the rear projection by showing we knew the thing looked phony.” This is the last of five shorts re-released by M-G-M in 1937, when it was fitted with a lively new musical score by Roy Shield. Also the production credits cards and the opening gag titles (deemed a relic of the silent era) were deleted, then the main title was modernized for the reissue. Only this re-release adaptation remains today. The original opening title cards, which we won’t see, once read: “Mr. Hardy fell on his leg, and was laid up for two months….Mr. Laurel fell on his head – and hadn’t felt better in years.” Of course during the locations tour, we visited sites in Culver City where the company filmed scenes shown here. Directed by James Parrott. Restoration (utilizing two different lavenders, one slightly sharper than the other) and 35mm print courtesy UCLA. Once more, if you have not seen a pristine 35mm print of COUNTY HOSPITAL in the dark, on a theater screen, with a respectful audience, uninterrupted by conversation, commercials, or anything else, then you have not seen COUNTY HOSPITAL. Because only under those conditions can something truly intangible and magical take place. Talent on both sides of the camera who made COUNTY HOSPITAL understood this back then. Not so many do today. That is the point of this particular convention activity.

• FALLEN ARCHES (1933). Charley Chase. As a clerk in Billy Gilbert’s office (only slightly modified after being used in CHICKENS COME HOME), Charley struggles with an eccentricity: he takes any instruction literally. Told to “hike” out to the San Francisco office, Charley does precisely that, and meets the saucy and delightful Muriel Evans. Then the story borrows from one of his top silent one-reel comedies, ALL WET, featuring an old Ford half-immersed in a muddy, water-filled ditch as staged at the studio’s nearby Arnaz Ranch on Robertson Boulevard. The legs and soaked pants-inflating gag is reprised from another key silent, BROMO AND JULIET. Shot in a week by Gus Meins after Chase’s equally underrated brother, James Parrott, evidently succumbed to more emotional and/or substance abuse difficulties. He never directed another entry in the series. Asked about this, the impossibly cute but always discreet Miss Evans – never the least bit nostalgic about her work in films –politely declined to comment, but her expression betrayed the worst. She did say that “Charley was so nice, it was easy working on this with him as always, except for the scenes in oversized men’s pants. I had never worn anything like that before, and I could not stop laughing!” They clearly had some fun with the scene where she poses as a queen, kids Chase, and invites him to “salaam” her. “Oh, I couldn’t do that,” he smiles. “I – I never slammed a woman in my life.” Miss Evans remembered, “He was a perfect gentleman; he teased me about wanting to rehearse the spanking scene, but we never really did, and only shot it once!” One scene they obviously filmed at least twice was where she falls back into the little lake, as revealed by her freshly dried, suddenly straightened, and combed-out hairstyle, after previously having been carefully curled….The 1980 Sons of the Desert convention which is remembered fondly as “Hollywood 80” featured a mighty array of Hal Roach Studios alumni, including old friends Richard Currier, credited here as the film editor, and Roy Seawright, uncredited cartoonist who animated the wiggling little fish who flop out of Chase’s soaked pants and high dive back into the water. This gag is accompanied by a whistle and other punctuating noise supplied by Marvin Hatley, another now much missed guest at that storied gathering 34 years ago. Billy Gilbert was gone by then, but made appearances at many early Way Out West tent gatherings, and once spoke to us at a New York Sons of the Desert founding tent banquet over the phone. In a letter to Leonard Maltin he wrote, “Charley was a ‘loner.’ He was polite and kind to people but he let very few of them get close to him. I was one of the few.” 35mm print courtesy Jere Guldin.

• THIS IS YOUR LIFE (1954) Laurel & Hardy. Right down the street from the Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, L&H were in a December 1 business meeting at the Knickerbocker Hotel when the remote voice of Ralph Edwards and his camera crew burst in, surprised and snared them – both smoking — for his popular program on NBC. The intended two subjects of this TV profile were under-whelmed to say the least by the intrusion, but stood up to leave (note Hardy finishes his beverage for some courage), and would eventually redeem the program with the warmth, humility, and politeness of their true off-screen personalities. Co-conspirators in this ambush, Lucille Hardy, and their business manager, Ben Shipman, were present too, as was Ida Laurel, though she’d been told about the show only that morning for fear she would not be able to keep the secret. Everyone could have easily walked from the hotel to the El Capitan Theatre nearby where they did the show, but took a cab instead. Then like a scene out of PERFECT DAY, they suffered a flat tire, forcing the flummoxed host on live TV to stall uncomfortably and ad lib while a national audience waited in their living rooms! Some have incorrectly speculated the delay was caused by a perfectionist like Laurel’s reluctance to appear on this, or any show, out-of-character, and where he had no control. “We never dreamed that we would make our television debut on an unrehearsed network program,” Laurel later complained. “I was damned if I was going to put on a free show for them….It was a staggering experience.” Yet trouper that he was, Laurel accepted it all graciously, mostly smiling silently throughout an often mawkish telecast. In later years, upon seeing how much fans enjoyed the celebratory program, Laurel softened his resentment of what transpired. “They weren’t prepared,” daughter Lois Laurel explains. “That was what really upset him. He didn’t have control. Nor did he like that every week the show got all this top talent, and paid them nothing.” Hardy was more animated, even as he endured Edwards’ insensitive jibes about the star’s weight. In 1986 I tried asking Ralph Edwards about all this, but learned he never gave interviews. Evidently Edwards, who coincidentally furnished narration for several L&H theatrical trailers in the 1940s, could ask questions intruding on others, but would not answer any himself. Guests rushed through included Lois Laurel, and Roach alumni Warren Doane and Leo McCarey. Because Hal Roach, Jr. was planning an L&H TV series, his father deferred to him to represent the studio in announcing a “permanent plaque” to be erected in a ceremony later at the studio water tank where L&H were doused so many times. BABES IN TOYLAND comes immediately to mind. The pool was to be renamed “Lake Laurel & Hardy.” (Roach Jr. and Sr. did attend the dedication with L&H.) In Edwards’ words, this “lasting honor” survived less than a decade because Hal Roach Jr. was not his father, and the so-called lot-of-fun collapsed not long after he took charge. Backlot stills exist showing the sign by the pool declaring it to be “Lake Laurel & Hardy” together with some text, and it can also be glimpsed once in a while on subsequent Roach TV series. In a 1959 episode of THE GALE STORM SHOW — OH! SUSANNA, Miss Storm stands by the pool and reads out loud what is written on the plaque, not realizing at first she is standing next to that week’s guest star, Boris Karloff, moonlighting from another Roach series, THE VEIL. And the episode, shot by SONS OF THE DESERT director Bill Seiter, is actually a superior tour of the studio than the brief one shown during the convention on Wednesday. Old favorites Zasu Pitts, Babe Kane, Tom Kennedy and Snub Pollard among others all take roles. And Frank Cady portrays Bill Seiter as a film director on the lot! But then in only four years Hal Roach Studios was bulldozed to a dirt field and the plaque disappeared. For half-a-century after the place was torn down, if not the clock from SAFETY LAST, then this “Lake Laurel & Hardy” sign represented the Holy Grail of Hal Roach Studios artifacts. But after 50 years’ residence in unknown, hidden, CITIZEN KANE-like storage, this treasure has finally been located, thanks to the sleuthing efforts of early Sons member, and Stan Laurel correspondent, Richard Sloan. So we are at last displaying the missing plaque for Lake Laurel & Hardy at the nearby Hollywood Museum to commemorate the Hal Roach Studios Centennial during this International Sons of the Desert Convention. But where was this cherished sign all these years? During the middle of the 1960s bankruptcy period, career-long studio loyalist “Bones” Vreeland had told Laurel right before the lot was to be razed that Mr. Roach intended to give him the plaque as a souvenir. But Mr. Laurel wasn’t quite sure what he would do with such a large and heavy object, telling Sloan at the time, “Maybe I could make a coffee table out of it, or hang it around my neck as a St. Christopher’s Medal.” Ultimately, he had no room for the plaque at his modest Oceana Hotel residence. They decided instead that Dick Van Dyke should visit Hal Roach Studios and officiate at a presentation on Laurel’s behalf to producer Sol Lesser’s ill-fated Hollywood Museum (no connection to the same-named current convention destination). Thereafter, it passed into the custody of the city of Los Angeles. From then till now, one can summon up images of the warehouse with crates as far as the eye can see, as in the concluding scenes of CITIZEN KANE. Unlike the ending there, however, this treasure has now been reclaimed for all serious Sons to see, in person! Digital transfer from a 35mm kinescope negative, courtesy Jeff Joseph/SabuCat.

Programs compiled and screening notes written by Richard W. Bann