The Serenade

Oliver Hardy and Billy Ruge are two feuding musicians in Billy Bletcher's oompah band in this typically primitive Vim comedy shot in Jacksonville.

It's about 90% rough slapstick as Babe kicks tiny Billy -- the series was often sold as "Plump and Runt". It was Hardy's first series as a comedy pair, and under director Will Louis, there was little time for the fussy ornamentation that Hardy would bring to his character in later years -- although there is a brief moment, when dealing with the foam of his beer, when you can see the beginning of those moments. Billy Bletcher is fine as always, but Ruge is the sort of comic that was ultimately replaceable: he was small, he could take a fall, but he never developed a personality that kept him an audience favorite. He was gone from the movies by the early 1920s, while the other two kept working.

The remaining bits are Florence McLaughlin as Billy attractive daughter who canoodles with all the boys.

The online, 39th Pordenone Silent Film Festival ended on an upbeat note with five comedies featuring Laurel and Hardy, but not featuring the famous duo together in any of them; hence, the program being entitled "Laurel or Hardy." Their social-distancing days, you could call it. So, this one features Oliver "Babe" Hardy before he became famous teaming up with Stan Laurel. A Billy Ruge and a bunch of other comedians join "Babe" in this one. Reportedly, the duo were popular enough to earn their own "Plump and Runt" series. It's the usual knockabout slapstick of the era--not my thing, although I heartily endorse restoring films I'm not fond of, as well as the ones I love. I've been spoiled by the artistry of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd. I guess the humor in this one--besides them hitting each other, running around and a few trick effects--is supposed to be how bad their band is. We call them "silent films," but this is a good reminder of how important music was and is to the art form. The score for the "Laurel or Hardy" program was provided by Neil Brand.