On the Front Page

This agreeable little two-reeler would be totally forgotten today but for the appearance relatively late in the proceedings of Stan Laurel without Oliver Hardy, as a pawn in yet another of those daft schemes beloved of old movies by an inept rookie reporter (played here by Tyler Brooke) to get the Big Story no matter what.

Lillian Rich is seriously hot in a slinky early 30's style dress as the object of the scheme, the notorious Countess Polasky, and as her private secretary, Bull Montana features incongruously dressed in a wing collar.

This is a textbook example of a supporting actor stealing a film. I guarantee you people walked out of the theater thinking that Stan Laurel had a bright future.

Stan plays an uptight butler who is shy and terrified of women. (Think Gilligan of Gilligan's Island in a butler's uniform.) When he is forced to take part in a scheme to sell papers by creating a scandal, he has to overcome his shyness in an hurry and seduce the sophisticated "Countess Polasky", who, the film tell us, "would make Sappho and Salome look like two Eskimos." She gets the idea to seduce him, but the joke is on her when the shy butler discovers that, yes, it can be wonderful to hold a woman in your arms!

This delightful short is a triumph for Stan Laurel, an undervalued classic, and well worth viewing for nothing else but the early shots of glorious, undeveloped California in the late 1920s. My jaw dropped at the sight of those almost bare, lightly motored, tree-lined streets. Beautiful.

Tyler Brooke is the son of a newspaper owner. His father is angry because the other local rags are finding better scandals than paper and demands the son dig up some dirt on a vamp who is in town. Now this begs the viewer to wonder if the newspaper has any reporters other than Brooke. You'd think they would but you never see any and all this pressure is placed on Brooke to get the scoop. So Brooke decides the best thing to do is arrange for a scandal himself, so he gets his dopey butler (played by Stan Laurel) to pose as a rich man and make love to the vamp while Brooke is nearby with his camera.

While Stan Laurel is in the film, he really isn't the lead and this was made in the pre-Laurel and Hardy days. Oddly, while Brooke is clearly the lead, the film gives the vamp, Lillian Rich, top billing--though she is on hand mostly like a decoration. The plot itself could have been very funny, but there honestly aren't all that many good laughs in the film. So it's not a particularly distinguished film and mostly only of interest to Laurel and Hardy die-hards who want to see all of their films (both before and after their pairing) or perhaps silent movie die-hards. Either way, the average person probably won't be particularly impressed by the relatively tame antics.

By the way, I agree with "wmorrow59"--you gotta love the art deco outfits and apartment of Ms. Rich--particularly the spiderweb curtains.

This is an amusing two-reeler that silent comedy buffs will enjoy, one of those silly-but-fun short subjects Hollywood used to crank out with the greatest of ease. On The Front Page was recently unearthed for the "Lost Films of Laurel & Hardy" DVD series, as it features Stan Laurel in a prominent supporting role. It was produced at the Hal Roach Studio in the mid-1920s, when Roach was trying to find a star comic to replace his departed golden boy, Harold Lloyd. Stan hadn't quite clicked as a solo comic and preferred working behind the camera at this point in his career, and thus plays second fiddle to the studio's latest would-be star Tyler Brooke, a dapper little gent who resembled Adolphe Menjou. Brooke is moderately appealing, but his broad, eye-popping manner might have been better suited to the Mack Sennett school of comedy; the house style at the Roach studio tended to be more low-key. In any case, Stan takes the role of Dangerfield the butler, dominates the second half of the film and provides the funniest moments. Dangerfield is quite similar to the hapless, simple-minded Stanley we recognize from Laurel & Hardy comedies, in sharp contrast with some of the other characterizations Stan assumed in his solo days.

Top billing in On The Front Page was assigned to neither Brooke nor Laurel; the official star of the show is Lillian Rich, a strikingly pretty actress I don't recall seeing anywhere else. Here she portrays the infamous, much-married Countess Polasky, a vampy femme fatale who, we're told, "would have made Sappho and Salome look like two Eskimos," whatever that means. The plot turns on the efforts of a cub reporter (Brooke) to make good at his paper, The Daily Squawk, which not so coincidentally is run by his father. The son is a hard-partying playboy who hasn't amounted to much, but he tries to atone by delivering a 'scoop' on Countess Polasky's latest scandal. Since she's not engaged in any scandalous behavior at the moment our hero decides to disguise his butler (Laurel) as a suitor, inflict him on the Countess, and photograph them in a compromising situation. But the flimsy story's just an excuse for a parade of gags and joke-y title cards, some of which are pretty funny. I especially enjoyed the butler's solemn presentation of cigars ("Your evening weed, sir") and his panicky objection to his master's plan: "I'm afraid of women, they increase my pulse, sir." I also liked the running gag involving motorcycle cop Edgar Dearing, who keeps popping up at the darndest times.

One good reason to see this movie is simply to gaze upon the Countess' lavish Art Deco apartment and her bizarre outfits. I don't know how much they paid Lillian Rich to play this role, but I hope they let her keep the spectacular pearl tiara she wears during her seduction scene with Stan. And check out those curtains with the spider web design! This engaging short comedy is no lost classic, but film buffs who enjoy sight gags and colorful period detail should have a fine time with it nevertheless.

Stan Laurel and Tyler Brooke star in this Hal roach comedy. It's got a good plot, including some really funny moments. The comedy acting of Brooke and Laurel is good, but the best part of the film is when Stan, who is scared of women, has to get into a comprimising position with Lillian Rich, for Tyler to take a picture of them together. Stan is at his best in this scene, and even uses his famous 'cry'.