Zenobia, der Jahrmarktselefant

I have read the post before mine about this movie. Much I do agree with, but I wish to comment a bit more in defense of this movie. At the time, Hal Roach had a contract dispute with Stan. In short, Stan was offered more money then Oliver, and Stan said either pay us equal, or you don't have us anymore. That loyalty is amazing in any era. This movie was suppose to be for the both of them, but had to be re-written for just Oliver. Yes, the movie's writing suffers in many places, as it gets to be too silly, and even racist. However, the actual acting of Oliver, and Billie are truly wonderful, even if their lines were not. I view this movie as a rare treat, a historical footnote in the years of Laurel and Hardy. No, not a classic, nor anywhere near one, but entertaining? Yes. One can not compare this with any Laurel and Hardy movie. That would be unfair. They never knew if they would work together ever again at this point. True, at times I thought the concept of this movie was childish, but in an innocent entertaining way. As if to say we know it is silly, but it is just a silly movie. So no huge amount of thumbs up for this movie, but a nice treat for hardcore Laurel and Hardy fans. I will say though, thank God they got back together again! Ha! Two movies like this would have been a bit much to take Ha!

I had always been interested in watching this curiosity (Oliver Hardy without Stan Laurel!) - however, it finally came about by way of a colorized and atrociously-dubbed version on Italian TV! I don't know if it was intended as such but, rather than Harry Langdon, the character that was made to fill Stan's shoes, as it were (complete with the Italian voice typically associated with him), was Billie Burke - playing Hardy's wife - but she came off as such an irritating dim-wit that I wanted to strangle her!! To make matters worse, with the story taking place in the Old South, we're treated to the unenviable comic relief of Stepin Fetchit (though his antics proved reasonably tolerable, under the circumstances).

Hardy's character, then, isn't the pompous, bumbling and flustered one we'd come to love! Langdon, as the owner of a traveling medicine-show and a pachyderm, is okay (especially during his scenes in court - having learned his deposition by heart, every time he's asked to speak he starts from the very top!); this was only his second Talkie that I've watched - the first occurred only recently with HALLELUJAH, I'M A BUM (1933). Jean Parker and James Ellison provide bland romantic interest and the supporting cast also features Oscar winners Alice Brady and Hattie MacDaniel, but their stereotypical characters - snooty matriarch and black cook, respectively - add very little of substance to the proceedings!

In the end, while the elephant's persistent and awkward devotion to doctor Hardy for having cured her (even disrupting a society party and following him into the court-room!) provides some undeniably charming moments, I think I'd still prefer Laurel & Hardy's maligned vehicles of the 1940s over it...

For those wondering what Oliver Hardy was doing in a film without Stan Laurel, we have to remember that Hal Roach created the team back in silent days when he had these two comedians both signed to contracts with him. Their contracts were negotiated separately unlike Abbott and Costello or the Ritz Brothers, etc. So with Ollie signed with studio again and Stan balking at terms, Hal Roach decided to pair Hardy with Harry Langdon who was trying to recapture the stardom he enjoyed in the silent era.

Ollie is a country doctor in post Civil War Mississippi who lives with wife Billie Burke and daughter Jean Parker in genteel poverty. James Ellison, late of the Hopalong Cassidy series, wants her hand in marriage, but his mother Alice Brady forbids it as Jean's parents are just not her sort.

Nevertheless Ollie and Billie try to help Jean with her romance, but Ollie gets himself entangled with traveling medicine show man Harry Langdon and his performing elephant Zenobia. When the pachyderm becomes ill, Ollie effects a cure and the beast's gratitude makes his life miserable.

Though they were advertised as a team, Langdon and Hardy are not a team really in this film, though their scenes with Zenobia are pretty funny. They're like Abbott and Costello in The Time Of Their Lives, a comedy team in two separate roles in which they only interact occasionally. Actually Burke and Brady, a couple of veteran Broadway performers, have some scenes together and they're pretty good in and of themselves.

Getting Alice Brady and Billie Burke was a casting coup of sorts for Hal Roach. Look at the rest of his cast which he got from the major studios, if he was to have a new comedy team, they would be launched properly.

Of course Stan Laurel came to terms and Langdon and Hardy were no more. But Zenobia is a film filled with gentle humor and some good comic situations.

For those looking for the magic of Laurel and Hardy, "Zenobia" offers an alternative that occurred because of Laurel's contract negotiations. Made the same year as "Gone With The Wind", Zenobia takes place in a time before the Civil War, where a small Southern plantation town at peace, is disrupted when the excitable traveling promoter (Harry Langdon), seeks aid for his ailing partner. A beloved country doctor (Oliver Hardy) is surprised and resists, but is coerced into treating a fully grown elephant for a terrible condition. Proving that a good deed never goes unpunished for Hardy, the patient, attempting to say 'thanks', relentlessly follows the good doctor and there is no place to hide, not even a formal social gathering. With the town in an uproar and his wife (Billie Burke) embarrassed at the spectacle, Dr Tibbetts is the focus of laughter, ridicule and a lawsuit. Twelve year old Philip Hurlic turns in a memorable performance that needs to be seen in the context of today.

Langdon is little known by most and seems very much like Buster Keaton, but just a bit more shy. Although, Langdon is not as appreciated for his works as Stan and Ollie, his touching performance in "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp!" when he meets Joan Crawford, the girl of his dreams, face to face for the first time is something to behold. If you can look past Laurel's absence in this rare partnership, Zenobia will have you laughing at a moment in time when fate put two funny men and an elephant on a collision course. On such paths they prove there is just no dignified way to get around a loving elephant.

Oliver Hardy shines as a small town doctor in this amusing comedy set in the Old South. After tending to an ailing elephant Hardy can't get rid of the beast since she is so appreciative and an elephant never forgets. It's a fun path as Zenobia follows the portly doctor just about everywhere he goes. This is one of the few times that Hardy appeared in a film without his partner Stan Laurel however he handles it quite well. Co-starring are Jean Parker, James Ellison, Alice Brady, Billie Burke as the doctors befuddled wife and the ever dependable Hattie McDaniel. It's available on VSH folks.