Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1061972
25 Q4 2018 / CINEMONTAGE accomplished Hollywood stalwart with almost 150 directing credits stretching from 1915 to 1960 and encompassing shorts, features and television of all genres, Seiter made only this one film (eventually renamed Sons of the Desert) with his close friend Laurel. Seiter and Laurel, with Roach company regulars joining in for brainstorming, worked on the script through September, but the director felt they had no clear ideas for staging the convention scenes. Fortunately, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks held its national convention in Santa Monica that month and the director and his stars were able to observe it for themselves. On September 28, the script was considered sufficiently complete for shooting to begin October 2. Comedienne Patsy Kelly was originally cast as Laurel's wife, but she had been loaned out to MGM for Going Hollywood (1933). When that picture went over schedule, the part of Laurel's wife was given to Dorothy Christy, who joined the cast four days after Sons started filming. Hardy's wife was played by Mae Busch, who appeared in 12 Laurel and Hardy pictures over seven years, four times as Mrs. Hardy. True to form, shooting began with the first scene: The local meeting of the Sons of the Desert, filmed on location at the Hollywood American Legion Post with 20 legionnaires among the 60 extras playing the Sons. Director of photography Kenneth Peach, ASC, played with dramatic lighting on the face of the Grand Exalted Ruler but, like all of the team's cinematographers, was required to keep the lighting as flat as possible on the faces of the two stars. Also true to form, whole routines appear in the movie that were not in the final script, now in the Production Code Administration records in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library. In the script, the lodge members stand up throughout the opening scene, but are seated in chairs in the film so that Laurel and Hardy's late entrance can properly disrupt them. Soon afterwards, Laurel waits in next-door neighbor Hardy's house for his own wife to get home. During filming, Laurel was inspired to devise the torturous process of eating an apple from a bowl of wax fruit. The surreal image of Laurel's wife entering with a rifle and a brace of dead ducks was also invented on set; in the script, she was just returning from target practice. The final sequence of the movie was shot as scripted; with the husbands coming home to learn their supposed cruise back from Hawaii was caught up in a hurricane, they hide from their wives in the attic, then on the roof. Although those sequences were originally filmed in daylight, it was decided THIS QUARTER IN FILM HISTORY CONTINUED FROM PAGE 22 Fortunately, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks held its national convention in Santa Monica throughout the opening scene, but are seated in chairs in the film so that Laurel and Hardy's late Sons of the Desert. MGM/Photofest According to Bert Jordan, "officially named the Laurel and Hardy film editor," Stan Laurel had the right of final cut and supervised the editing of each sequence of all the pictures on which he worked.