Slipping Wives

I wonder whether this was the film that convinced Hal Roach he had the makings of a comedy partnership in Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. They share a lot of screen time here, even though this isn't a Laurel & Hardy comedy as such. The boys play second fiddle to Priscilla Dean and a forgettable leading man, and they take an immediate and intense dislike to one another from the moment Stan appears on Dean's doorstep to deliver paint. Dean is feeling neglected by her artist husband and solicits the aid of Stan to cosy up to her in her husband's presence in the hope of making him jealous.

I don't think I would make Priscilla Dean feel neglected – she's something of a looker, and makes a good attempt at keeping up with the boys. Even though their third and fourth on the cast list, Laurel and Hardy supply all the memorable moments – apart from the guy who keeps departing with odd things attached to the top of his hat. Stan retells the story of Samson and Delilah at one point and, this being a silent film he has to tell it in exaggerated mime which he does very funnily. Another reviewer has observed that Laurel was a funnier comic than Hardy, and I think he's right. Having said that I think neither would have lasted long without the other once sound movies were established.

This isn't a classic by any means, but it possesses that frantic energy common to so many silent comedies and has quite a few funny moments. The chase finale is particularly good. The intertitles have a coy knowingness about them at times. 'He only kisses me on Sundays and holidays,' bemoans the neglected wife, and you know it isn't kisses that she's missing. And watch closely as Dean talks Laurel into being her accomplice. Read her lips. It looks to me like it's not 'do you want to make love to me,' that she's saying to him but something much more earthy.

In the late 1910's and early '20s Priscilla Dean was a top star, sometimes known as the "Queen of the Universal Lot." She was an attractive and vivacious actress with dark flashing eyes, more statuesque than such petite contemporaries as Gloria Swanson and Mary Pickford. Those ladies retain a degree of widespread name recognition today, even among people who've never seen their movies, but for some reason Miss Dean's fame began to fade before talkies arrived, and nowadays only silent movie buffs recognize her name. Several of her features films have survived, including two in which she co-starred with Lon Chaney, The Wicked Darling and Outside the Law. Her performances hold up well, in part because her screen persona is still a recognizable type: Dean was often cast as "good-bad" types, i.e. young women who were drawn into the criminal lifestyle or were outcasts in some way, but nonetheless essentially good-hearted. She worked with director Tod Browning no less than nine times between 1918 and 1923, back when he was making crime thrillers, not the macabre tales with which he is primarily associated today. In any case, Miss Dean's career was faltering by the late 1920s, and thus she found herself appearing in two-reel comedies for producer Hal Roach, whose "All Star" series featured a number of former headliners, including Theda Bara and Mabel Normand.

Priscilla Dean receives sole star billing in Slipping Wives, although she was playing opposite another once-prominent actor, Herbert Rawlinson. (I'm afraid it's tempting to call this movie "Slipping Stars.") Like the leading lady, Rawlinson made his film debut before the First World War; unlike her, he would continue acting for another quarter-century, well into the 1950s, and would give his final screen performance under the direction of the infamous Ed Wood Jr., in a 1954 anti-classic entitled Jail Bait. Here, Dean and Rawlinson play a prosperous married couple. He is a successful but preoccupied artist, while she is his neglected spouse, who decides to regain his attention using the method favored by many a frustrated wife in many a farce: i.e., by hiring a third party to pose as her lover and thus make her husband jealous. And here's where we meet the real star of the show, the comic lead who acts as our protagonist and certainly gets most of the laughs, third-billed player Stan Laurel.

At this time Laurel had been in the movies as a solo performer for a decade, but still hadn't quite found his proper screen persona or the right style for his comedy. Stan didn't know it when this film was made, but the solution to his problem would soon be supplied by the fourth-billed actor, Oliver Hardy. Slipping Wives marked one of the earliest occasions when Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy appeared together before the cameras, although they don't work as a team. In fact, their characters are adversaries from the moment they meet until the final scene, but it's a kick to watch them work together anyway, even in such uncharacteristic roles. Ironically, in the film made just prior to this one, Duck Soup, the guys worked as a team, but afterward they made a number of comedies in which they worked apart, before their familiar screen characters finally began to develop.

Stan plays a delivery man named Ferdinand Flamingo, who has brought buckets of paint for the man of the house, Rawlinson. Ollie is Jarvis, the butler. He meets Stan at the door, looks him over, and tells him to use the servants' entrance. Before long they're grappling, and Ollie's face is smeared with paint. From then on, "Jarvis" is the sworn enemy of "Ferdinand Flamingo." (And incidentally I'm glad they soon dropped the silly names.) Much of the subsequent comedy is based on a familiar farcical situation: wife Priscilla hires this dim-bulb delivery man to pose as a famous author, and stay on as her weekend guest, whereupon he's expected to flirt with her whenever her husband is nearby. But Stan -- or Ferdinand, rather -- mistakes a family friend for the husband, and thus mistimes his attempts at flirtation. Meanwhile, slapstick ensues when Jarvis the butler forcibly gives the unwelcome house-guest a bath, fully dressed. But the real comic highpoint comes, rather gratuitously, when famous author Stan -- introduced under yet another name, Lionel Ironsides -- is asked about his latest book. He says he's working on a version of the story of Samson and Delilah, and proceeds to act it out. Gratuitous or not, Stan's pantomime is a real treat to watch: his Samson puffs out his chest and swaggers, while his Delilah minces about, clips Samson's locks, then strikes an amusing pose of triumph. And so forth, right down to those tumbling columns.

After this virtuoso performance the frantic finale is something of an anti-climax. Slipping Wives isn't much of a comedy otherwise, but the Samson & Delilah bit is certainly worth seeing. Stan and Ollie would do better later on, of course, while poor Priscilla Dean's career was coming to a premature close. Based on the evidence here, and in her earlier features, she deserved better. It's ironic that today she's known only for her roles opposite Lon Chaney, and for appearing in a Laurel & Hardy comedy that wasn't really a Laurel & Hardy comedy. Instead of being appreciated in her own right, Miss Dean is remembered only for the company she kept.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were comedic geniuses, individually and together, and their partnership was deservedly iconic and one of the best there was. They left behind a large body of work, a vast majority of it being entertaining to classic comedy, at their best they were hilarious and their best efforts were great examples of how to do comedy without being juvenile or distasteful.

After 'Duck Soup' indicated a step in the right direction for early on in their careers after their previous two short films underwhelmed somewhat (especially '45 Minutes from Hollywood), Laurel and Hardy's fourth outing featuring them both 'Slipping Wives' sees a step backwards. It is nice and entertaining, more than watchable in an inoffensive way, but later offerings make far better use of Laurel and Hardy and their partnership and are much funnier. 'Slipping Wives' felt like they were not yet fully formed and yet to properly find their feet.

'Slipping Wives' looks quite good and hardly the work of an amateur. Priscilla Dean is charming and amusing and Laurel is great fun, especially in his re-telling of 'Samson and Delilah'. 'Slipping Wives' is worth watching for him alone.

There are amusing and charming moments, the aforementioned moment and the climactic chase finale are the highlights, and the pace is generally very energetic.

Hardy however has a relatively unimportant and nowhere near as interesting role and his material is inferior to that of Laurel's. A waste, and even more so that 'Slipping Wives' misses the chance to utilise their chemistry properly. 'Slipping Wives' doesn't really feel like Laurel and Hardy, due to Hardy having little to do and their chemistry barely existent, and more a Priscilla Dean vehicle featuring the two.

Not everything is funny, too much of it being predictable and not being sharp enough in timing. The story is very slight and erratically paced, sometimes too busy while not getting going soon enough.

In summary, worth a look but hardly a Laurel and Hardy essential. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Priscilla (Priscilla Dean) is married to an artist named Leon (Herbert Rawlinson), who doesn't show much interest in her or anything romantic, ignoring her requests, no matter how intimate or personal, at the dinner table while he reads the morning paper. Priscilla decides that the only way to try and win his affection is to make him jealous. Things take an unexpected turn when a paint salesman (Stan Laurel) shows up at the door to solicit his products to Leon, to which Priscilla intercepts his request by trying to coerce Stan into making Leon jealous, all the while the couple's butler Ollie (Oliver Hardy) finds himself in on the whole thing.

Such is the premise for the Laurel and Hardy gem Slipping Wives, which features enough substantial physical comedy and ribald situational humor to make the twenty-three minute short film fun and memorable. Laurel and Hardy team up before they were billed as a regular duo to deliver the same kind of comedy that made them and their feature films famous. Consider the scene where Stan and Ollie get in a fight, with Ollie ending up in the bathtub, in classic, silent comedy fun. Scenes like this provide an ostensibly-stunted premise with more life and gusto than one would initially expect.

Laurel and Hardy, regardless of how physical they can get with each other, still make for one of the most fun silent duos in history, effortlessly carrying out solid situational pranks and giddy scenarios that find new ways to be joyfully silly but touching and memorable. Slipping Wives is simply no exception.

Starring: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Priscilla Dean, Herbert Rawlinson, and Albert Conti. Directed by: Fred L. Guiol.

A line or two to supply due credit:

This little film is indeed very important in the saga of Laurel and Hardy, but I don't like to see Priscilla Dean slighted. The lovely and lively woman gives a performance in this film which which must be considered outstanding in any silent comedy. She delivers carloads of presence and is not afraid to make hilarious comic use of her very pretty face. And she DOES have the lead, after all!