Fra' Diavolo

Two hapless misfits find themselves working for Fra Diavolo (THE DEVIL'S BROTHER), the notorious singing bandit of the early 18th century.

Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy are at the top of their form - high praise indeed - in this lavish, but rather obscure, rendition of Daniel-François Auber's popular operetta. Laurel's frightened squeak & Ollie's pout of wounded dignity are on display, as is the easy camaraderie and genuine affection of these two gentle souls. Here they are simply allowed to do what they did best: amuse. One hilarious sequence follows another: Stan attempting to hang Ollie (really!); their slapstick endeavor to capture the bandit; the Boys helpless in an uncontrollable fit of laughter. Director Hal Roach understood their comedic style better than anyone, and he lets them make the most of their time before the cameras. Their every moment captured on film is precious; each minute they are missing so that subplots may develop is decried as an intolerable waste.

In the title role, British opera star Dennis King monopolizes much of the screen time. A good deal of his vocalizing is unintelligible, but he plays the charming rogue well. However, it is important to notice that despite his charm, he is one of the most dangerous villains the Boys encounter in any of their films. Beneath the thin veneer of civility, he is little more than a murderous, thieving rapscallion. He has nothing but his handsome face & dulcet tones to separate him from a Karloff or a Lugosi.

Peppery James Finlayson & lovely, tragic Thelma Todd play silly, vain aristocrats who have more jewels than common sense. Both of these wonderful performers were always welcome in roles large or small - his bristling mustache and popping eyes & her classic beauty so often the focal point of great humor. But here they have very little contact with the Boys and so much of their comedic talent is rather dissipated in mildly adulterous scenes with the Bandit Chief. Pity...

There is a subplot involving the Innkeeper's daughter and her forbidden love of a young military officer, but fortunately it is not allowed to intrude too much. Henry Armetta as the Innkeeper, however, is given some very funny moments as he tries without success to duplicate Stan's intricate hand games.

I can't understand how the comments on this film, thus far, can have been less than spectacular. This is probably among the top five of my favorite L&H films...the scene with drunken Stanlio alone is enough to split my sides every time I see it. L&H are such a joy to watch, and this film truly shows how much chemistry they had, and in the end, how much they truly respected and cared for each other--beyond the slapstick! I also loved the triptych of Thelma Todd, James Finlayson, and Dennis King. Todd was just so beautiful, graceful, and a true diva of her time. She even captures the tittering laughter that is described as typical of ladies-of-court in the late 1700's. James Finlayson, all pepper and brimstone, is a fantastically funny foil (and an alliterative jewel!) to the cast. And what can I say about Dennis King...it is such a shame that this gentleman did not have much in the way of recorded work. He is most dashing, charming, swashbuckling and handsome as the bandit Diavolo and his pseudonym, San Marco. True, he is the villain, but can we really resist him when he sings to the tavern folk, stealing a kiss from the Countess? This is a jewel of a classic. I will need to find a new VHS cassette of it soon, for mine is nearly worn with use. Better yet--wouldn't it be grand if these classics were released on DVD?

Dennis King is a marquis, traveling around the countryside. trying to seduce Thelma Todd. He is also the notorious bandit Fra Diavolo, although that's supposed to be a secret.

Laurel and Hardy offer a lot of comic relief to this Americanized version of the Auber operetta; although the music is used throughout the movie, there's little in the way of actual singing until halfway through. Mostly it's an excuse for Laurel and Hardy to offer a lot of comic relief Stanley provides most of the gags, including his disconcerting nimbleness, while Ollie is his perpetually disconcerted straight man and unconscious accomplice. The singing, what there is of it, is good. Miss Todd is gorgeous, although she doesn't get much to do. With the Boys to while away the time, who cares?

Two of the funniest scenes in a movie. One where Laurel keeps drinking all the wine he's supposed to be putting in a vat. Soon he's sloshed and starts making a smack noise with his mouth, that gets funnier every time he does it. Soon after, they're both sitting at a table in a restaurant and Laurel can't stop laughing. Ollie tries to make him stop but he is quickly consumed by laughter as well and they are ramping up the laughter with every past moment they reminisce. You can't help yourself from laughing and I was laughing hard.

Everything else about this movie is damn good too. The support acting is ahead of it's time and the music is well placed, novel and catchy. And the main female lead is very easy to look at. Check it out, won't we?

Laurel & Hardy could very easily have slid into musical comedies, as could the Marx Brothers. Hardy had a tenor voice, put to good use in WAY OUT WEST, and Stan (while he was not as good a singer) could talk sing quite nicely (and was prepared to do comic singing - his change of voice in singing "In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia" in WAY OUT WEST is an example). As a result a musical number will frequently pop up in their movies. In SONS OF THE DESERT it's the HONALULU, BABY! number. In SWISS MISS there were several (even a ditty, supposedly composed by Walter Woolf King, entitled "Crick, crick, crick goes the cricket"). Even in their earliest features numbers appear (in PARDON US we hear "MICHIGAN"). So it was not unexpected that Hal Roach and Stan Laurel would do full scale musicals. They turned to operettas (or spoofs of operas like FRA DIAVOLO) because the costumes and settings gave opportunities for Stan to come up with new pieces of business for himself and Babe Hardy.

The actual opera by Auber is more dramatic than this comedy. Fra Diavola dies at the end (he is, after all, a villain). But here there is a light hearted element that overcomes the original. Stan and Ollie (or Stanlio and Ollio) are robbed by brigands on the road and decide to turn brigand themselves. Naturally, Ollie decides that he will protect them from discovery by claiming to be the infamous Fra Diavalo. Their initial attempt at theft is hardly successful. They confront a man with a hard luck story, and end up giving him money. Then they seem to be more successful confronting a younger man, until Ollie brags that he is Fra Diavolo. The younger man demands proof. Diavolo always sings a theme song, and everyone knows his voice. Ollie starts singing the tune, and the man (you've guessed it - it's Dennis King) continues singing it. They almost get hanged for that, but King decides to use them as minions in a plot to rob an English mi-lord and his wife (James Finlayson and Thelma Todd*).

(*Finlayson's name, as a joke, is Lord Rocburg. In reality, the character in the opera was Lord Cockburn.)

The bulk of the film deals with King and the boys in the inn run by Henry Armetta, where Finlayson and Todd are residing on their trip. King is romancing the frivolous and bored Todd, and hoping to get her jewelry. Finlayson is suspicious of her activities, but is not swift enough to catch King in action (at one point, he is mistaken for King by Ollie and Stan, who lock him up after beating him, and start telling him off - they think of course he's King, who listens to them annoyed but amused).

The music is actually not overdone, and King (who had a fine trained voice) gets several opportunities to sing. He was not the first major Broadway star to work with the boys (Lawrence Tibbett had in ROGUE SONG) nor the last headliner to do so (Dante the Magician would in A-HAUNTING WE WILL GO). But he seems to work quite nicely with them, sharing screen time, and even showing elements of comic timing and reactions. In one song number, he even shudders and turns away from an ugly woman while addressing a romantic passage in the tune.

For an early example of their use of operetta, THE DEVIL'S BROTHER is (as Stan Laurel said) one of their best films. Of course, to most people, it will always be recalled as the film where Stan drives both Ollie and Henry Armetta to distraction with his "finger wiggle" and his "earsie - eyesie - nosie" games that he can handle with ease but the other two can't quite coordinate. It is fun to watch here, and would later be subject to a rare repeat comment: in BABES IN TOYLAND, when Ollie insists that anything Stan can do Ollie can, Stan smiles and shakes his head. He then does "earsie - eyesie - nosie", much to Ollie's annoyance.