Two Tars **** (1928, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Edgar Kennedy) – Classic Movie Review 7420

Director James Parrott’s elaborate and inventive 1928 Two Tars is a tip-top Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy 21-minute silent short film of madcap mayhem.

Laurel and Hardy play the two tars, sailors on shore leave who pick up two gals (blonde Ruby Blaine, brunette Thelma Hill) in their rented car, have a clash with a shopkeeper druggist (Charlie Hall) and a battle royal involving motorists in a traffic jam on the open road.

Two Tars is funny, clever and complex – with a brilliant reciprocal destruction comic climax involving more than 100 vehicles on a California highway.

Also in the cast are Edgar Kennedy as Motorist, Charley Rogers, Jack Hill as Motorist with mattress, Edgar Dearing as Motorcycle policeman, Harry Bernard as Truck driver, Sam Lufkin, Charles McMurphy, Fred Holmes as Motorist, Baldwin Cooke as Motorist, with Ham Kinsey, Sam Lufkin, Retta Palmer, Lon Poff, Thomas Benton Roberts, George Rowe, Lyle Tayo, Chet Brandenburg, Frank Ellis, Helen Gilmore and Clara Guiol.

The opening scenes were shot in the studio on Main Street in the Hal Roach Studios at Culver City, California, and the car battle was filmed in Santa Monica along Centinela Boulevard. It was filmed from 22 June 1928 to 3 July 1928.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7420

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com