So you've seen every Laurel & Hardy comedy there is to see - even that sad, past-their-prime "Utopia" swan song from 1952 - and you've grown envious of the thrill of discovery that can belong only to newcomers.
But against all reasonable odds, a revelation has taken place that puts seven virtually unknown films of the Stanley Laurel-Oliver Hardy team within the reach of comedy buffs.It helps if you know Spanish, although the humor is, of course, primarily visual. And no, we're not talking about dubbed or subtitled versions.
When an archivist chanced to find several long-forgotten canisters labeled "L&H - SPAN.," a few years ago, the first - and wrongheaded - assumption was that the contents must be ordinary voice-dubbed prints intended for foreign distribution.
Sharper memories prevailed, however, and the resurrected films were examined. Inspection disclosed unique short subjects and hourlong features, remade from their familiar English-language original versions, with Stan and Ollie reading phonetic Spanish from cue-card chalkboards while interacting with Spanish-speaking supporting players.
Soundtrack dubbing, after all, was a treacherous craft in the primitive phase of widespread sound-on-film technology, the early 1930s. And subtitling was an unfashionable hangover from the silent screen.
So in quite a few instances, the Hollywood studios, anxious to maintain the lucrative export market, would shoot distinct, simultaneous remakes of their likelier hits. Universal Pictures, for example, filmed a separate "Dracula" (1931) in Spanish. That "Dracula" has only recently been issued as a videocassette attraction (MCA Home Video; $14.95) and become an unanticipated best seller.
As the Depression deepened, Hal Roach's independent, MGM-affiliated film company found its greatest domestic and international cash cow to be the Laurel & Hardy act. Teamed for keeps during the latter 1920s as a silent-screen partnership, the nervous Englishman, Stanley Laurel (born Arthur Stanley Jefferson), and the jovial but easily exasperated Deep Southerner, Oliver Norvell Hardy, made a graceful transition to the "talkies," the added dimension of sound enhancing their routines beyond expectations.
But where any silent comedy was ripe for export - swap out the dialogue insert cards, and you could play anywhere - that newfangled soundtrack posed a dilemma.
So producer Roach sought an ambitious higher ground, financing L&H remakes in Spanish, French and German. (Pictures in the latter two languages have yet to be brought back to light.)
Upon rediscovery, the Spanish L&H's were conveyed to Roach's company, which during the latter 1980s was operating its own home-video label. The video branch went out of business, however, before it could follow through on a plan to release the rediscovered titles.
These have finally turned up in the catalog of A-1 Video, an Indiana-based source. The seven titles are contained in four video-cas-settes, each listing at $15. (The catalog is available from A-1 Video, Box 8808, Michigan City, IN 46360.)
Savvy variations on the familiar English-speaking originals, the films include:
"Politiquerias," a fresh take on 1931's "Chickens Come Home," in which Oliver's political aspirations are dashed by blackmail.
"Las Carraveras," a feature-length composite remake of the English-language short films "Be Big" and "Laughing Gravy."
"Noche de Duendes," a composite of "The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case" and "Berth Marks."
And "Ladrones," remade from "Night Owls," with a remarkably different ending.
The chief immediate pleasure of these titles is their sheer novelty. But the value runs far deeper, allowing devotees of movie comedy to watch how two accomplished masters would modify and embellish material for the sake of keeping it fresh and sparing themselves the tedium of repetition.
Stanley and Oliver also do a quite acceptable job of speaking an unfamiliar tongue, although it is obvious that they are keeping watch on those off-screen prompters to know what to say next! No one - not even the overseas audiences for whom the editions were intended - has seen these charmers in more than 60 years. As it is with most of the Roach company's better-known output, the Spanish Laurel & Hardys seem only to have improved with age.
VIDEO QUESTION
Question: I'd like to buy a closed-caption decoder box for a hearing-impaired relative but no one in the electronic stores can help me. Which stores have them?
Answer: Sears and J.C. Penney both offer them as catalog items, but you can also get where-to-buy information from the National Captioning Institute's consumer marketing toll-free number: 1-800-533-9673. Those using TDD (telecommunications device for the deaf) should dial 1-800-321-8337. You might be interested to know that by July 1993, all new TVs with screens 13 inches and larger will be required to contain built-in caption decoders. - Andy Wickstrom (Knight-Ridder)