The Soilers

Before Stan Laurel became the smaller half of the all-time greatest comedy team, he laboured under contract to Broncho Billy Anderson in a series of cheapies, many of which were parodies of major Hollywood features. Most of Laurel's 'parody' films are only mildly funny, and even less funny for modern audiences who haven't seen the original movie which Laurel is parodying. 'The Soilers' remains slightly funny for modern audiences, but was probably funnier in 1923 for audiences who recognised the source material.

'The Spoilers' was originally a best-selling novel by Rex Beach: a tale of two-fisted prospectors in the Klondike gold rush of 1898, culminating in a knock-down drag-out brawl. The story was so popular, it was filmed at least five times (one version starring John Wayne). This 1923 slapstick comedy parodies a film version of 'The Spoilers' released three months earlier ... which was at least the second movie version of Beach's much-filmed novel.

In 'The Spoilers', hero Glennister squares off against villain McNamara. Here, they're parodied as "Canister" and "Smacknamara". Sadly, most of 'The Soilers' remains on that Mad-magazine level of wit. Since 'The Soilers' is a two-reeler, it can't possibly parody the entire plot of Beach's novel, so it inevitably emphasises the climactic barroom brawl.

There are a couple of decent gags here. The sheriff is trustworthy, because -- as a title card assures us -- 'Once he had been bought, he stayed bought.' So that's all right, then.

In recent years, 'The Soilers' has attracted some scholarly attention for the presence of an unnamed character portrayed by George Rowe. Among all these rootin' tootin' manly macho males, Rowe depicts an effeminate simpering cowboy who is clearly meant to be what folks used to call a 'nance'. During the climactic fight scene, while Stan Laurel and James Finlayson are tearing each other apart, Rowe sashays into the room in skin-tight dungarees and rearranges the furniture. Hilarious! Later, he addresses Stan as 'my hero' and tosses him a bouquet in the form of dropping a flowerpot from the balcony above. The pot lands on Stan's head, though the action is cleverly staged so that we can't tell if the lonesome cowboy did it intentionally or not.

What I found utterly fascinating about Rowe's performance here is that it doesn't seem to be malicious: he's depicting the stereotype of an effeminate 'cissy', presumably homosexual, yet none of the humour is at this character's expense. Rather than inviting us to find this character ridiculous or unnatural, 'The Soilers' gets considerable laughs from the incongruous contrast of this simpering figure among the brawlers ... depicting this one cowboy merely as different from manly Stanley and the rest, not inferior to them. 'The Soilers' indicates that gays weren't invisible in 1923 ... and straight audiences were savvy enough to recognise them. I'll rate 'The Soilers' 7 out of 10, as one of Stan Laurel's funniest pre-Hardy movies.

This is a decent Stan Laurel parody feature, and it helps to show why this kind of comedy was one of his specialties in the years before he teamed up with Oliver Hardy. This one is more dependent than most of them are on viewers having a familiarity with at least one version of the original story, but in its time that probably was a largely reliable assumption. James Finlayson, later a supporting player in many Laurel & Hardy classics, plays Laurel's antagonist here.

The story had already been filmed twice when this parody was made, and it was also filmed a number of times since then, most notably in the 1940s with John Wayne, Randolph Scott, and Marlene Dietrich. The main portion of the original story follows a claim dispute in Alaska, with a lengthy fight sequence capping it off.

This parody focuses most of the running time on the fight sequence, which it handles with a couple of amusing touches. The setup scenes are rather bland, and it was probably a good decision to rush through them to get to the highlight of the parody. The fight sequence sets up some humorous satirical parallels with the original, in which the whole town chose up sides during the big showdown. It also has some provocative touches of the kind that occur more often in movies of the era than many modern viewers might realize.

Some of Laurel's other parodies are a bit easier to understand now, since the originals are either better known or at least follow a familiar pattern. But this one works all right as long as you have at least a basic idea of the original story.

This film was one of many parodies Stan Laurel made of famous dramas of the day before he was teamed up with Oliver Hardy. In this case, he lampoons THE SPOILERS, though he also did comic versions of BLOOD AND SAND as well as DR. JECKYL AND MR. HYDE.

The film is much like THE SPOILERS, as it's about claim jumping during the Alaska gold rush. However, it's played for laughs and includes an awfully funny prolonged fight scene between James Finlayson and Stan. The fighting is very brutal and exciting, but what makes it funny is how the very effeminate guy keeps walking into the scene and seems to take absolutely no notice of the fighting. This mincing guy is awfully funny to watch (especially later when making passes at Stan), but I am sure many watching the film will be offended by the sterotype. If you can ignore the tackiness of this humor, it really is awfully silly fun.

Actually, now that I think about it, I am surprised that Truner Classic Movies didn't include this film in it's June 2007 salute to gay images in film--it is a very interesting curio.