Blotto *** (1930, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Anita Garvin) – Classic Movie Review 7408

Director James Parrott’s 1930 three-reeler short film Blotto tells a quintessential Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy yarn in which, despite the ever-present vigilance of Mrs Laurel (Anita Garvin), they escape from Stan’s wife to a club where they must take a bottle of liquor during Prohibition. This makes it the only Laurel and Hardy film where Stan is married and Ollie is not.

Ollie suggests that Stan fakes receiving a telegram to convince his wife that he has been called away on business. Stan thinks she is ‘so dumb she’ll never know the difference’.

But, unfortunately, Stan’s wife is listening on another line and overhears Ollie conspiring with Stan on the phone, so she substitutes her own horrid brew for the liquor, and later arrives at the Rainbow Club nighterie with a shotgun.

Blotto is a beautifully played, often subtle comedy, with a marked absence of slapstick (until a silly ending), slightly held back by a lack of pace and brio. The first of the three reels is the best.

Both French (Une nuit extravagante) and Spanish versions were also made – bizarrely both with different Mrs Laurels. Laurel and Hardy read their dialogue from cue cards on which the French or Spanish lines were printed phonetically.

Also in the cast are Tiny Sandford as waiter, Charlie Hall as cab driver, Frank Holliday, Dick Gilbert as phone booth gawker, Baldwin Cooke as waiter, Jean De Briac as shopkeeper and Jack Hill in a bit part

The writers are Leo McCarey for the story and H M Walker for the dialogue.

The film survives only in a censored 1937 re-release print which had Pre-Code sequences removed and runs only 18 minutes, instead of the original’s 26 minutes. Whereas the original had no music except for the orchestral version of the Ku Ku song on opening titles, the 1937 print has a background music track, mixing Leroy Shield jazzy tunes with stock music from Hal Roach films. This is the print shown on TCM.

Linda Loredo plays Mrs Laurel in the Spanish language version entitled La Vida Nocturna, which has survived in full.

The phone number Hardy calls to reach Laurel (OXford-0614) was Laurel’s real number.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7408

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