Classic movie site with rare images, original ads, and behind-the-scenes photos, with informative and insightful commentary. We like to have fun with movies!
Archive and Links
grbrpix@aol.com
Search Index Here




Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Laurel and Hardy Winding Down Silent Careers


Radio Gets Results in Bacon Grabbers (1929)

Deadbeat Edgar Kennedy won't make payments on his radio, so the sheriff sends Laurel and Hardy to retrieve it.  Taking a man's radio in 1929 was worse than seizing his wife or dog, that listening post a most important article of furniture in anyone's Jazz Age home. $600 million was spent on radios in 1929, over 80% " bought on time," that is, monthly payments that added from eleven to forty percent onto original cost of the luxury. But radio had become a necessity. Without it, you'd be out of everyone's loop. It made sense, then, for Kennedy to seal his entrance against Stan and Babe effort to seize the set, '29's public at least able to appreciate Ed's anxiety if not his honesty.

Bacon Grabbers was always obscure among the Laurel-Hardys. Blackhawk in heady days offered it on 8 or 16mm, minus the disc score available to bookers in 1929, latter mattering less for fact the two-reeler had no dialogue. Robert Youngson never used Bacon Grabbers in his comedy compilations (anyone know why?). Like Big Business and The Perfect Day, this too was shot on sunny environ that was L.A. neighborhoods before all of open space was filled. Nothing conveys bucolic beginnings of filmland like L&H done outdoors. You can never mind comedy of these and still get a marvelous travelogue with each. Bacon Grabbers is all roof and ladders and windows busted, as good a reflection of bungalow living in the 20's as we'll ever have. There's even Jean Harlow to deliver the finish gag. Too bad this short is out-of-print DVD-wise. Will these silent Laurel-Hardys ever see light again?

UPDATE --- 6/17/15: Long arm of coincidence brought news of a Laurel-Hardy rediscovery just after this post went up. Seems the long missing second reel of Battle Of The Century has turned up. This is really a find, as that short had survived till now in its first reel only, plus a pie fight from the second that was used (after editing) by producer Robert Youngson for The Golden Age Of Comedy. A Greenbriar post on various L&H Battles Of The Centuries from the silent era is HERE.

14 Comments:

Blogger Ed Watz said...

Raymond Rohauer told me that Bob Youngson didn't have film elements on BACON GRABBERS, thus it never appeared in any of his compilations. Rohauer said that for THE CRAZY WORLD OF LAUREL & HARDY they simply made a blowup of Blackhawk's 16mm print to 35mm. Since Blackhawk's source material on this title looked like a battered workprint, the grainy blowup makes BACON GRABBERS resemble one of the early primitives instead of the technically polished late silent it actually is. BACON GRABBERS is one of my favorite L&H silents, it always plays better with my audiences than some of the team's certified classics like TWO TARS or YOU'RE DARN TOOTIN'. Today the title gag that Edgar Kennedy hasn't paid an installment on his radio since 1921 needs a little clarification: commercial radios were first introduced that year!

4:52 PM  
Blogger Randy said...

I had one of those Blackhawk prints of Bacon Grabbers. Second tier Laurel and Hardy is still better than most comics' first tier.

And speaking of Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy and their silent screen output, does anyone know anything more about this announcement that the second reel of their Battle of the Century has been found? If it's true, it gives hope that maybe, just maybe, Hats Off is still out there somewhere.

http://silentlondon.co.uk/2015/06/15/second-reel-laurel-hardy-battle-of-the-century-pie-fight/

5:30 PM  
Blogger John McElwee said...

Always good hearing from you, Ed, and thanks for that very interesting background on "Bacon Grabbers." I wonder if there are surviving elements that would yield a better quality image today ...

5:33 PM  
Blogger Dave K said...

Great news about BATTLE OF THE CENTURY! After decades of having to settle for an abridged version, this is fantastic! And just in time for Stan's 125th!

As to the missing soundtrack to BACON GRABBERS, that's a mystery... although not as big a one as how grumpy ol' Edgar Kennedy ended up with sexy 17 year old dish Jean Harlowe for a wife!

5:52 PM  
Blogger John McElwee said...

The track isn't actually missing ... it's on the out-of-print DVD. We just didn't have it on the old Blackhawk prints, although it did turn up, as I recall, on 16mm prints that were later struck by Film Preservation Associates.

6:12 PM  
Blogger Scott MacGillivray said...

And today's Stan Laurel's birthday! How nice is that?

10:36 PM  
Blogger John McElwee said...

Donald Benson considers the questionable position of Laurel and Hardy as repo men:


A thought: Maybe the film sort of faded because audiences didn't want to see
their beloved boys as repo men.

Note that the finance company gets the last
laugh on Kennedy: they got their money, he owns a mess of broken vacuum tubes.


From gaslight days on, anybody holding a perfectly legal mortgage note was
almost by definition a villain. Was there ever a comic tasked with evicting a
comically unlikable deadbeat? Maybe there was a similar antipathy towards the
enforcers of outrageous payment plans.

4:42 AM  
Blogger John McElwee said...

Dan Mercer supplies some detail about the photo of L&H broadcasting:


That is an intriguing photograph, showing Laurel and Hardy goofing in the austere broadcasting studio of an early radio station. It was probably taken early in their transition to talkies, with Ollie talking and Stanley obviously "OK for sound." The clue is a sign on the wall showing the call letters KFVD, a station that began broadcasting from San Pedro, California on June 30, 1926. From January 3, 1929 through December 31, 1931, however, it was using the offices of the Hal Roach studio in Culver City, California. That probably accounts for the presence of the boys and the inscription in the corner of the photograph, indicating its origins with the studio. Does anyone know the identity of the boy in the photo, who is apparently in costume?

KFVD moved on to Los Angeles and was the broadcast home of a " hillbilly" singer called Woody Guthrie in the late 1930s. He was paired with Maxine Crissman at first, offering a mix of politics and music in their popular "Woody and Lefty Lou" show. When Crissman left, Woody carried on as "The Lone Wolf," until his propagandizing for the Soviet Union became a little hard to stomach after its nonaggression pact with Germany and invasion of Poland.

The station changed call letters to KPOP in 1955 and then went through more location and designation changes over the years. Presently it is KTNQ, a Spanish-language station in the Univision network.

8:47 AM  
Blogger dis220 said...

That looks a LOT like Harry Spear of Our Gang sitting in the chair on the edge of the frame.

11:14 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

According to a source of mine, BACON GRABBERS only existed as a dupe 35mm. Did anyone here buy used films from Blackhawk? I never was sent what I asked for (pre-internet days) but I was sent my 20th alternate which was BG. While Blackhawk was selling 8mm two reelers on 400' reels at this time (circa 1973), my copy of BG was on 2 200' reels.

I was at Mostly Lost last weekend and was bowled over by the frame grabs of BOTC. It was bittersweet as my buddy Cole Johnson just missed this.

The next high point of the event was finally being able to see a Montgomery & Rock short DAMSELS & DANDIES.

9:30 PM  
Blogger John McElwee said...

Thanks for that info, Tommie. "Mostly Lost" must have been quite an event this year, what with the "Battle Of The Century" news breaking there.

4:46 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That intriguing photo, which certainly does include OUR GANG's Harry Spear, appears to predate the VOICES OF FILMLAND broadcast of January 27, 1930. This was an MGM-conceived series that hyped their upcoming releases, and that January program was a "Hal Roach Special" that starred the Gang, L&H, Charley Chase, Thelma Todd and Harry Langdon. It's likely that the KFVD studio originated the broadcast, but by January 1930 Harry Spear had departed the Gang for vaudeville. Perhaps the photo is from a January 1929 series designed to publicize the station's new home at the Roach studio.

2:58 PM  
Blogger Tricky Springs said...

"The Great Tear of '29~!" (tare, torn tearing)
Firstly; Awesome shot of KFVD... I am doing some research into the Roach years of the station..(there is similar photo of Hal Roach sitting in that same spot about 10 minutes prior to this shot with Laurel & Hardy; as shown by the clock on the wall!)

Secondly; I agree that the KFVD photo was 1929, apart from Harry Spear's departure from "Our Gang" around this time, that shabby rip on Stan's left-lapel of his suit jacket is a clue; It's the same one he wore in a few famous Stax photographs & those were studio portraits rather than 8 x 10 production stills & one (I saw online) had an inscription as Stan had autographed to a friend, dated 1929....The same rip appears on that same jacket!
So in terms of Laurel & Hardy forensics, I have traced Stan's torn lapel all the way back to 1929's "Hoose-Gow".
Now I have no way of knowing whether it's the same suit or not, (I am sure he had more than one), but this particular one seems to have a distinct tare on the left lapel. It's style is distinct; It's the double-breasted jacket with a pin-stripe.
That same jacket can also be seen in 1929's "Angora Love", "Night Owls", "Below Zero", "The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case" (1930) & finally makes a final appearance in "Laughing Gravy"...a year later in 1931! My theory is that the same jacket WAS saved & used for purposes of continuity. The foreign language versions of many of the Laurel & Hardy titles were linked together as featurettes for overseas export, hence Stan would be wearing the same suit he wore in "Murder Case" because it linked to "Laughing Gravy" Etc.
Ladies & Gentlemen...Submitted for your approval....
Patrick (Oasis #64)

12:22 AM  
Blogger John McElwee said...

This is great info and detective work, Patrick. Thanks a lot! --- and my best wishes to Oasis #64.

4:37 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

grbrpix@aol.com
  • December 2005
  • January 2006
  • February 2006
  • March 2006
  • April 2006
  • May 2006
  • June 2006
  • July 2006
  • August 2006
  • September 2006
  • October 2006
  • November 2006
  • December 2006
  • January 2007
  • February 2007
  • March 2007
  • April 2007
  • May 2007
  • June 2007
  • July 2007
  • August 2007
  • September 2007
  • October 2007
  • November 2007
  • December 2007
  • January 2008
  • February 2008
  • March 2008
  • April 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2008
  • July 2008
  • August 2008
  • September 2008
  • October 2008
  • November 2008
  • December 2008
  • January 2009
  • February 2009
  • March 2009
  • April 2009
  • May 2009
  • June 2009
  • July 2009
  • August 2009
  • September 2009
  • October 2009
  • November 2009
  • December 2009
  • January 2010
  • February 2010
  • March 2010
  • April 2010
  • May 2010
  • June 2010
  • July 2010
  • August 2010
  • September 2010
  • October 2010
  • November 2010
  • December 2010
  • January 2011
  • February 2011
  • March 2011
  • April 2011
  • May 2011
  • June 2011
  • July 2011
  • August 2011
  • September 2011
  • October 2011
  • November 2011
  • December 2011
  • January 2012
  • February 2012
  • March 2012
  • April 2012
  • May 2012
  • June 2012
  • July 2012
  • August 2012
  • September 2012
  • October 2012
  • November 2012
  • December 2012
  • January 2013
  • February 2013
  • March 2013
  • April 2013
  • May 2013
  • June 2013
  • July 2013
  • August 2013
  • September 2013
  • October 2013
  • November 2013
  • December 2013
  • January 2014
  • February 2014
  • March 2014
  • April 2014
  • May 2014
  • June 2014
  • July 2014
  • August 2014
  • September 2014
  • October 2014
  • November 2014
  • December 2014
  • January 2015
  • February 2015
  • March 2015
  • April 2015
  • May 2015
  • June 2015
  • July 2015
  • August 2015
  • September 2015
  • October 2015
  • November 2015
  • December 2015
  • January 2016
  • February 2016
  • March 2016
  • April 2016
  • May 2016
  • June 2016
  • July 2016
  • August 2016
  • September 2016
  • October 2016
  • November 2016
  • December 2016
  • January 2017
  • February 2017
  • March 2017
  • April 2017
  • May 2017
  • June 2017
  • July 2017
  • August 2017
  • September 2017
  • October 2017
  • November 2017
  • December 2017
  • January 2018
  • February 2018
  • March 2018
  • April 2018
  • May 2018
  • June 2018
  • July 2018
  • August 2018
  • September 2018
  • October 2018
  • November 2018
  • December 2018
  • January 2019
  • February 2019
  • March 2019
  • April 2019
  • May 2019
  • June 2019
  • July 2019
  • August 2019
  • September 2019
  • October 2019
  • November 2019
  • December 2019
  • January 2020
  • February 2020
  • March 2020
  • April 2020
  • May 2020
  • June 2020
  • July 2020
  • August 2020
  • September 2020
  • October 2020
  • November 2020
  • December 2020
  • January 2021
  • February 2021
  • March 2021
  • April 2021
  • May 2021
  • June 2021
  • July 2021
  • August 2021
  • September 2021
  • October 2021
  • November 2021
  • December 2021
  • January 2022
  • February 2022
  • March 2022
  • April 2022
  • May 2022
  • June 2022
  • July 2022
  • August 2022
  • September 2022
  • October 2022
  • November 2022
  • December 2022
  • January 2023
  • February 2023
  • March 2023
  • April 2023
  • May 2023
  • June 2023
  • July 2023
  • August 2023
  • September 2023
  • October 2023
  • November 2023
  • December 2023
  • January 2024
  • February 2024
  • March 2024