Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1061972
26 CINEMONTAGE / Q4 2018 to reshoot most of them at night in a simulated downpour, enhancing the gags considerably. Two big gag scenes written for the convention were not filmed at all. Instead, Roach comedian Charley Chase's performance as an obnoxious Texas lodge member, wielding an actual two-ply slapstick, was allowed to drive the comedy at a swifter pace. But the first convention scene — the Sons of the Desert parading in the streets, also seen later in a newsreel in the film — had to be shot out of continuity at the end of the shoot. Before production, on one of his trips to the Elks convention, director Seiter had taken a small film crew to shoot the Elks on parade in the Santa Monica streets. He and Laurel planned to use these long shots as masters and cut in closer views of the Sons in the parade to be shot on the Roach lot's city street set. Returning to the lot, though, they realized Roach's city street did not look contemporary enough to cut together with the Santa Monica footage. Roach decided to modernize and expand his set at a cost of $25,000. Postponing the parade shoot, he had four crews work around the clock to complete 500 feet of new facades in time to avoid extending the production schedule. When they finally filmed on the lot, over 500 extras (including the drill team of the American Legion's Glendale post) marched on the new set — a studio record for the number of extras used on any film at one time. By the time production wrapped on October 23, editor Bert Jordan had already started cutting. In 1939, he would go on to edit Lewis Milestone's adaptation of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, produced for Roach. But early in his career, in 1932, Jordan "was officially named the Laurel and Hardy film editor," as he told movie historian Skretvedt in 1980. According to the editor, Laurel had the right of final cut and supervised the editing of each sequence of all the pictures on which he worked. "I used to be on the set as much as I could," he attested to Skretvedt. "After I put together my version, the director and Stan would look at it, and they had the privilege of making changes… Mr. Roach would sometimes…suggest some changes — but if Stan didn't agree with them, they weren't changed." When the movie was released, critic Andre Sennwald of The New York Times noted the difference between Sons and Laurel and Hardy's earlier features. He wrote that it "has achieved feature length without the benefit of the usual distressing formulae [sic] of padding and stretching. It is funny all the way through." The popularity of this unique pair of comedians and this film endures to this day in the real-world Sons of the Desert, a fraternal organization devoted to their memory and their films. Founded by the duo's biographer John McCabe in New York City in 1964, the organization boasts more than 100 "tents" active worldwide today. And for all who laugh with them, Laurel and Hardy's endearing innocence and sustained lack of insight resonate deeply in our everyday human existence. It is surely no accident that the team's mutual dependence and cluelessness is reflected in the bowler-wearing Vladimir and Estragon of Samuel Beckett's 1952 tragi-comedy in two acts, Waiting for Godot. Given the world's present predicament, let us at least find a modicum of wisdom in simple-minded Laurel's last line to Hardy in Sons of the Desert: "Honesty is the best politics." f THIS QUARTER IN FILM HISTORY continuity at the end of the shoot. Before production, on one of his trips to the final cut and supervised the editing of each sequence of all the pictures on which he worked. "I used to be on the set as much as I could," he attested to Skretvedt. "After I put together my version, the director and Stan would look at it, and they had the privilege of making changes… Mr. Roach would sometimes…suggest some changes — but if Stan didn't agree with them, they weren't changed." critic Andre Sennwald of Times Sons features. He wrote that it "has achieved feature length without the benefit of the usual distressing formulae [sic] of padding and stretching. It is funny all the way through." of comedians and this film endures to this day in the real-world Sons of the Desert, a fraternal organization devoted to their memory and their films. Founded by the duo's biographer John McCabe in New York City in 1964, the organization boasts more than 100 "tents" active worldwide today. Sons of the Desert. MGM/Photofest