Scandale à Hollywood

"45 Minutes from Hollywood"

Aspect ratio: 1.33:1

Sound format: Silent

(Black and white - Short film)

A naive country boy (Glenn Tryon) arrives in Hollywood and gets mixed up in robbery and chaos at a posh hotel.

The first pairing of Laurel and Hardy in a Hal Roach comedy short, though neither of them appears in the same scene (Stan's footage has faded badly over the years). Top-billed Tryon does his best with the flimsy scenario, which substitutes frantic farce for genuine wit, as Our Hero is mistaken for a robber dressed in drag (yep, it's THAT kinda movie!) and chased hither and yon by house detective Ollie. The comedy is fast-paced and beautifully timed though not especially memorable, and the film survives as little more than a record of L&H's earliest pairing. Theda Bara and the Hal Roach Bathing Beauties make brief cameo appearances. Directed by Fred Guiol.

Several years after first appearing together in The Lucky Dog, Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy both ended up at the Hal Roach Studios-Stan as a writer and director, Ollie as supporting player, usually as a heavy. Between May 1925 and January 1926, they combined their respective talents on three films at The Lot of Fun: Yes, Yes Nanette, Wandering Papas, and Madame Mystery. Eventually, Stan would be persuaded to appear on film again. And so in August of '26, both Stan and Ollie appeared again on the same short-but not together. Ollie played a hotel detective chasing the leading man (Glenn Tryon) while Stan played a sleeping guest whose nap is bothered by Glenn's fight with another man when they crash in his room. Ollie is outside of Stan's door but he never comes in narrowly missing meeting Stan by several feet. They're both funny here what with Stan's befuddlement at the goings on and Ollie's occasional looks to the camera when confronted with his jealous wife. The film is mostly slapdash but I laughed heartily at most of it. The main reason I'm reviewing this now is because since I'm reviewing Our Gang shorts in chronological order, this was the next on my list since they appear here in an insert from one of their then-recent films. So on that note, I highly recommend 45 Minutes from Hollywood especially if you're an L & H completist.

A kind of early version of the Beverly Hillbillies, this film stars Glenn Tryon as a hick from the country who travels to Hollywood with a bundle of Maw and Paw's cash to pay off the debt on their house. Almost immediately upon his arrival in Tinseltown he mistakes a bank robber in drag for an actress who he believes will get him into the pictures. The 'actress' hides out with our hayseed hero in a hotel room in which house detective Oliver Hardy just happens to be taking a bath, and all sorts of hilarity ensues.

Well, maybe hilarity is too strong a word: mild amusement tempered by an occasional bout of boredom is probably a better way to describe this one. I can't imagine why Glenn Tryon was a star back in the twenties; he lacked any kind of charisma, had no looks to speak of, and no discernible comic talent judging by his performance here. Hardy's OK, but Stan Laurel steals the entire film in the last couple of minutes as another hotel guest (complete with brush moustache) who finds a fight between Tryon and the thief taking place on the bed he's sleeping in.

Much of this two-reel comedy is rather unexceptional, but it does have a couple of good sequences. Glenn Tryon and the rest of the cast add some energy to the material, and part of it is mildly interesting as a satire on the idol-worship of movie stars that was already so prevalent even in its era. Otherwise, the movie doesn't really go anywhere, and though it does have a lot of motion, only very occasionally is it funny or exciting.

Tryon is part of a family of rural Californians who make a trip to Hollywood, ostensibly to pay a bill, with Tryon's character getting led astray by his inability to distinguish fantasy from reality. He also draws a detective played by Oliver Hardy into the mess he has created. Along the way, there are some occasional brief glimpses at a few of the stars of the era.

A couple of the sequences work rather well, but the rest of it is distinguished only by a brief scene in which Hardy and Stan Laurel, in a small role, appear on-screen together. It still works all right as light viewing for anyone who enjoys the silent comedies of the era, but otherwise it is only notable for this moment of significance in movie history.

This is a fast past gag filed movie that runs more like a Max Senate movie than something produced by Roach! It also seem sot be an ad of a lot the the Roach talent -- many who make uncredited or credited walk ons (E.G. Our Gang)

There isn't much of a story, but I really like looking at the scenes in a fairly barren Los Angeles! Dirt streets and empty landscape. There's even a quick scene in teh Hollywood Hotel where teh first oscars were given out. It later turned into a drug infested dump from the 60's-80's, was renovated and then populated by thugs and gangstas.

Hardy sports a Chester Conklin brush mustache and hadn't gained all that weight yet. Stanley has one too! Odd. I nearly mistook him for Jimmy Finlayson.

And apparently there was no gun control in 1927.