James FinlaysonFilmography

Laurel and Hardy's Laughing 20's

Actors: Jay Jackson, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Vivien Oakland, Glenn Tryon

Synopsis: Five of Laurel and Hardy's best features from the silent film era are compiled in this collection by Robert Youngson. Included are From Soup To Nuts, Wrong Again, The Finishing Touch, and iberty. On hand are legendary comic foils like James Findlayson and Edgar Kennedy, both masters of the "slow Read More

Royal Wedding

Actors: Fred Astaire, Jane Powell, Peter Lawford, Sarah Churchill, Keenan Wynn

Synopsis: Two real-life events were incorporated into the plot of the 1951 MGM musical Royal Wedding. One, the marriage of Fred Astaire's sister Adele to a British nobleman had occurred years earlier; the other, the wedding of England's Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip was only four years in the past. Read More

Ça C' Est Du Cinema

Actors: Stan Laurel, James Finlayson, Buster Keaton, Harry "Snub" Pollard

Down Memory Lane

Actors: Steve Allen, Bing Crosby, W.C. Fields, Donald Novis, Gloria Swanson, Mabel Normand

Synopsis: Down Memory Lane is a pastiche film comprised of old comedy footage from the Mack Sennett studios. The vintage clips are tied together by a thin continuity wherein TV host Steve Allen hopes to boost his ratings by screening excerpts from Sennett's silent and talkie two-reel comedies. Among the Read More

Grand Canyon Trail

Actors: Roy Rogers, Jane Frazee, Andy Devine, Robert Livingston, Roy Barcroft

Synopsis: Released in Republic Pictures' low-budget Trucolor and filmed at the majestic location of the title, Grand Canyon Trail stars Roy Rogers is a rancher going up against a crooked mining engineer played by fellow Western star Robert Livingston. The latter, Bill Regan, has conned eastern silver Read More

Bob, Son of Battle

Actors: Harry Allen, James Finlayson, Peggy Ann Garner, Edmund Gwenn

Synopsis: Often mistakenly identified as a sequel to My Friend Flicka, Thunder in the Valley actually has more in common with the Lassie saga. Lon McAllister plays the son of truculent Scottish sheepherder Edmund Gwenn. Though he has no time for people, Gwenn is quite fond of his collie dog. Partly as a Read More

The Perils of Pauline

Actors: Betty Hutton, John Lund, Constance Collier, William Demarest, Billy De Wolfe

Synopsis: The third of four films bearing the title of The Perils of Pauline, this musical biopic purports to tell the life story of famed silent serial queen Pearl White. Right at the beginning, however, an introductory title informs the audience that what follows is merely "suggested" by incidents in White Read More

Two Reelers: Comedy Classics 2

Synopsis: This collection of three comedy shorts separately stars Billy Gilbert, Leon Errol and Edgar Kennedy in Chicken Feed (1939), Twin Husbands (1946) and False Roomers (1938). ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide Read More

Till the Clouds Roll By

Actors: June Allyson, Robert Walker, Judy Garland, Lucille Bremer, Gower Champion, Cyd Charisse, Joan Wells, Bruce Cowling, Van Heflin

Synopsis: MGM's Till the Clouds Roll By is the musicalized, and highly fictionalized, life story of beloved composer Jerome Kern, who gave his blessing to the production shortly before his death in 1946. As played by a gray-templed Robert Walker, Kern is a likeable but none too exciting sort who expresses Read More

Yanks Ahoy

Actors: William Tracy, Joe Sawyer, Marjorie Woodworth, Minor Watson, Walter Woolf King

Synopsis: Yanks Ahoy was the last of a series of Hal Roach "streamliners" teaming William Tracy as Sgt. Doubleday, he of the photographic memory, and Joe Sawyer as long-suffering Sgt. Ames. This time, our heroes are at sea, messing up the Navy with the same efficiency with which they screwed up the army. Read More

To Be or Not to Be

Actors: Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack, Felix Bressart, Lionel Atwill

Synopsis: Ernst Lubitsch directs the 1942 political satire classic To Be or Not to Be, which marked the final screen appearance of comedienne Carole Lombard. In Warsaw at the beginning of WWII, Maria Tura (Lombard) and husband Joseph (Jack Benny) perform anti-Nazi plays with their theater troupe until they Read More

One Night in Lisbon

Actors: Fred MacMurray, Madeleine Carroll, Patricia Morison, Billie Burke, John Loder

Synopsis: One Night in Lisbon is one of several pre-1942 films which used the screwball-comedy form to comment upon the raging war in Europe. While transporting American warplanes to the beleagured RAF, Texas flyboy Dwight Houston (Fred MacMurray) is caught in a London air raid. Scurrying to a shelter Read More

A Chump at Oxford

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, James Finlayson, Forrester Harvey, Wilfred Lucas, Forbes Murray, Peter Cushing

Synopsis: Back at Hal Roach Studios for the first time since 1938's Block-Heads, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy star in the uneven but generally rewarding A Chump at Oxford. The boys are cast as street-sweepers who hope to better their lot in life by attending night school. Fate intervenes when Stan and Ollie Read More

Foreign Correspondent

Actors: Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall, George Sanders, Albert Basserman

Synopsis: Fourteen scriptwriters spent five years toiling over a movie adaptation of war correspondent Vincent Sheehan's Personal History before producer Walter Wanger brought the property to the screen as Foreign Correspondent. What emerged was approximately 2 parts Sheehan and 8 parts director Alfred Hitchcock Read More

Saps at Sea

Actors: Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel, James Finlayson, Ben Turpin

Synopsis: In their last film for Hal Roach, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play employees at the Sharp and Pierce Horn Factory, where the workers tend to go beserk at a rate of one per hour. Driven crazy by the cacophonous G-minor horn, poor Ollie begins to tear the factory apart, screaming "Horns to the left Read More

Hollywood Cavalcade

Actors: Alice Faye, Don Ameche, J. Edward Bromberg, Alan Curtis, Stuart Erwin

Synopsis: Hollywood Cavalcade was a fictionalized history of silent films and the growth of the movie industry. Don Ameche portrays a character based on equal portions of Mack Sennett and D. W. Griffith, while Alice Faye's silent star is an amalgam of Mabel Normand and Gloria Swanson. Ameche breaks into Read More

Raffles

Actors: David Niven, Olivia de Havilland, Dame May Whitty, Dudley Digges, Douglas Walton

Synopsis: The fourth cinematic version of the novel Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman by E.W. Hornung, this romantic caper is a virtual remake of the 1930 version. David Niven stars as A.J. Raffles, a famed cricket player of English society's upper crust. Secretly, however, Raffles is a skilled cat burglar Read More

The Flying Deuces

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Jean Parker, Reginald Gardiner, Charles B. Middleton

Synopsis: In their first starring feature away from the Hal Roach studios, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play a couple of fish peddlers from Des Moines on a Cook's Tour of Paris. While stopping over at quaint suburban inn, Ollie falls in love with innkeeper's daughter Georgette (Jean Parker). At Stan's Read More

The Great Victor Herbert

Actors: Allan Jones, Mary Martin, Walter Connolly, Lee Bowman

Synopsis: In his last film assignment, portly Walter Connolly fills the title role (in more ways than one) in The Great Victor Herbert. Very little of Herbert's life story is incorporated in the screenplay (a closing title actually apologizes for the film's paucity of cold hard facts); instead, the writers Read More

False Roomers

Actors: Edgar Kennedy

Block-Heads

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Patricia Ellis, Billy Gilbert

Synopsis: Twenty years after the Armistice, doughboy Stan Laurel continues guarding a trench in France--simply because no one told him the war was over. His rescue coincides with the first wedding anniversary of his old pal Oliver Hardy. Heading to town to pick up a gift for his wife (Minna Gombell), Ollie Read More

Carefree

Actors: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Ralph Bellamy, Luella Gear, Jack Carson

Synopsis: It's more Ginger Rogers than Fred Astaire, and more comedy than singing and dancing in this Astaire-Rogers entry into the screwball comedy sweepstakes which features a top-of-the-line Irving Berlin score (Change Partners, I Used to be Color Blind, The Night is Filled with Music). Fred Astaire Read More

Angel

Actors: Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall, Melvyn Douglas, Edward Everett Horton, Herbert Mundin

Synopsis: Generally considered one of director Ernst Lubitsch's lesser works, Angel stars Marlene Dietrich as Maria, the neglected wife of Sir Frederick Barker (Herbert Marshall), a British diplomat who travels often and seems little concerned with his spouse. Maria has nearly reached her breaking point Read More

Wise Girl

Actors: Miriam Hopkins, Ray Milland, Walter Abel, Henry Stephenson, Alec Craig

Synopsis: Wise Girl is a medium-level screwball comedy with faintly serious undertones. Miriam Hopkins plays an heiress whose millions can't help her gain custody of her two nieces from their stubborn widowed father (Ray Milland), an impoverished Greenwich Village artist. Hoping to win the widower over Read More

All Over Town

Actors: Ole Olsen, Chic Johnson, Mary Howard, Harry Stockwell, Franklin Pangborn

Synopsis: Olsen and Johnson's second starring vehicle for Republic was better than their first (Country Gentlemen), but a Hellzapoppin' it wasn't. Ole and Chic play a couple of itinerant vaudevillians, teamed with Sally the Singing Seal ("the eighth wonder of the world"). Heroine Joan Eldredge (Mary Howard) Read More

Way Out West

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Sharon Lynne, James Finlayson, Stanley Fields, Rosina Lawrence

Synopsis: Prospectors Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy head to the western town of Brushwood Gulch, two men on a top-secret mission. The boys have been entrusted by their recently deceased partner Cy Roberts with a deed to a valuable gold mine, to be delivered in person to Roberts' daughter Mary (Rosina Lawrence Read More

The Toast of New York

Actors: Edward Arnold, Cary Grant, Frances Farmer, Jack Oakie, Donald Meek

Synopsis: Allegedly based on two factual works, Bouck White's The Book of Daniel Drew and Matthew Josephson's The Robber Barons, RKO's The Toast of New York is a largely fanciful account of the career of 1870s financier "Jubilee Jim" Fisk. As played by Edward Arnold in his usual "tycoon" mode, Fisk was a Read More

Pick a Star

Actors: Patsy Kelly, Jack Haley, Rosina Lawrence, Mischa Auer, Lyda Roberti

Synopsis: Film collectors take note: Hal Roach's Pick a Star is not a Laurel and Hardy picture, though the popular comic duo does make a brace of amusing cameo appearances halfway through the film. A remake of Buster Keaton's Free and Easy, this is the story of how small-town gas-station owner Joe Jenkins (Jack Haley Read More

The Bohemian Girl

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Thelma Todd, Antonio Moreno, Jacqueline Wells, Darla Hood

Synopsis: The excellent box-office returns for the previous Laurel & Hardy comic operas The Devil's Brother and Babes in Toyland encouraged Hal Roach to cast the team in still another operatic adaptation, a self-styled "comedy version" of William Balfe's The Bohemian Girl. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play Read More

Our Relations

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Betty Healy, Daphne Pollard, Sidney Toler

Synopsis: Working on the theory that the only thing funnier than Laurel and Hardy is two sets of Laurel and Hardys, Our Relations milks its central mistaken-identity situation for all it's worth. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are two solid citizens, happily married and highly respected in their community. Read More

Who's Your Father?

Bonnie Scotland

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, June Lang, William Janney, Anne Grey

Synopsis: Stanley MacLaurel (Stan Laurel), the American "black sheep" of the MacLaurel clan, stows away on a cattle boat to Scotland in the company of his pal Ollie (Oliver Hardy) so that he can claim his share of his late uncle Angus Ian MacLaurel's fortune. Alas, Stan's inheritance consists of a snuffbox Read More

Handle with Care

What Happened to Harkness

Synopsis: In this comedy mystery, the trouble begins when the town skinflint and his maid mysteriously disappear. Two rival cops begin an investigation; all the while they try to outdo each other. In the end, it turns out that the miser and the maid have only eloped. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Nine Forty Five

Synopsis: The corpse of a hated man is discovered in this mystery. The police inspector and investigating doctor found their work hindered by three people who confess to killing him. The trouble is, none of them did. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Father and Son

Synopsis: The father in Father and Son is played by Edmund Gwenn; the son is played by Esmond Knight. Dad is an ex-convict who, once sprung, seemingly can't shake his larcenous instincts. The son gallantly shoulders the blame for the father's latest misdeed. All is well when it turns out that Dad was Read More

Oh No Doctor!

Synopsis: In this haunted comedy, a psycho scientist takes his ward's money and uses it to pay for his inventions. When a playwright wants to marry the ward, the scientist decides to frighten him away. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Big Business

Clark and McCullough: Inspired Madness

Synopsis: Broadway comedians Bobby Clark and Paul McCullough were as popular as the Marx Brothers during the 1920s and 1930s. While mustachioed straight man McCullough was essentially a fur-coated nonentity, Clark was hailed as a comic genius, a master of the instant adlib and zany nonsequitur. Certainly no Read More

The Devil's Brother

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Dennis King, James Finlayson

Synopsis: Based on an 1830 opera entitled "Fra Diavolo" by Daniel F. Auber, the parts of two bit bandits were built up for Laurel and Hardy, but this was still just a minor effort--a few good laughs but nothing spectacular that wasn't done better elsewhere. Released later as Bogus Bandits and The Virtuous Read More

Me and My Pal

Synopsis: It is Oliver Hardy's triumphant wedding day -- he is marrying the boss's daughter and thus becoming general manager for the International Horsecollar Corporation. The so-called best man (Stan Laurel -- who else?) arrives with the ring and tickets to Chicago for the honeymoon (Ollie actually wanted Read More

Strictly in Confidence

Dick Turpin

Actors: Victor McLaglen, Jane Carr, Frank Vosper, Gillian Lind, Gibb McLaughlin

Synopsis: The exploits of 18th-century British highwayman Dick Turpin have been immortalized in scores of poems, ballads, novels, plays and films. This particular version was adapted from Rockwood, a novel by Harrison Ainsworth. Victor McLaglen stars as Turpin, and while he might be a bit thick of beam for Read More

Mush and Milk

Actors: George "Spanky" McFarland, Dickie Moore, Matthew "Stymie" Beard, Dorothy de Borba, John Collum

Synopsis: This time around, the Our Gang Kids are residents (or rather, inmates) of the Bleak Hill Boarding School, where the crabby old lady in charge forces them to do all the chores and feeds them a strict diet of mush. Fortunately, the kids have a strong ally in the form of lovable old Cap (Gus Read More

The Chimp

Synopsis: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy have been working for a circus as two halves of an ersatz horse. When the circus closes, in lieu of pay, each employee gets a portion of the show. Stan gets the flea circus and Ollie gets Ethel the chimp. They try to check into a boarding house, but the proprietor (Billy Gilbert Read More

Thunder Below

Actors: Tallulah Bankhead, Charles Bickford, Paul Lukas, Eugene Pallette, Ralph Forbes

Synopsis: Tallulah Bankhead's first Hollywood movie was this romantic-drama weepie, in which she plays Susan, the unhappy wife of oil rigger Walt (Charles Bickford), who labors in a Central American oil field. The bored Susan falls in love with Walt's good friend Ken (Paul Lukas) but keeps her husband in Read More

Pack up Your Troubles

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Donald Dillaway, Jacquie Lyn, Mary Carr

Synopsis: Drafted into the army during World War I, those muddled misfits Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy make a shambles of Training Camp before being shipped to France. When their best pal Eddie (Donald Dillaway) is killed in battle, Stan and Ollie vow to locate the grandparents of Eddie's orphaned little Read More

Chickens Come Home

Synopsis: Not only has Oliver Hardy established a successful business -- in fertilizer -- he has also decided to run for mayor. General manager Stan Laurel interrupts his duties (which involve a fly swatter) in the sample room to help Ollie with a speech. Ollie's old flame (Mae Busch) barges into the Read More

One Good Turn

Synopsis: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are victims of the depression in this tworeeler. They do have an old car, a tent and some clothes, though, so things could be worse. With Stan's help, things do get worse -- their tent goes up in flames and their laundry shrinks down to minuscule size. They are forced Read More

Our Wife

Synopsis: Oliver Hardy finds that getting married is more difficult than he had planned in this two-reeler. It starts off with partner and best man Stan Laurel's adventures with a container of fly spray. While Laurel is ruining the wedding breakfast and cake, Hardy's fiancée, Dulcy (Babe London), is having Read More

Pardon Us

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Walter Long, Wilfred Lucas, James Finlayson, June Marlowe

Synopsis: Two-reel comedy favorites Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy made their feature-film debut (excluding their guest appearances in Hollywood Revue of 1929 and Rogue Song) in the prison comedy Pardon Us. A spoof of MGM's The Big House, the story begins when erstwhile bootleggers Laurel and Hardy sell a Read More

Feet First

Actors: Harold Lloyd, Robert McWade, Lillian Leighton, Barbara Kent, Alec B. Francis

Synopsis: Harold Lloyd's second talkie finds The Bespectacled One playing a shoe clerk in Honolulu. Harboring dreams of becoming an executive, Lloyd passes himself off as a millionaire to heiress Barbara Kent. As the plot merrily rolls along, Harold stows away on a ship bound for the mainland, and ends up Read More

For the Defense

Actors: William Powell, Kay Francis, Scott Kolk, William B. Davidson

Synopsis: William Powell stars in this drama as William Foster, a gifted defense attorney with a gift for making cases go his way. Foster's winning record in the courtroom has earned him a colorful clientele, including several notorious criminals, but he doubts his abilities when his girlfriend Irene Read More

Another Fine Mess

Synopsis: The 1930 Laurel & Hardy 3-reeler Another Fine Mess is a remake of the team's 1927 effort Duck Soup--which, in turn, was based on "Home from the Honeymoon", a vaudeville sketch written in 1908 by Stan Laurel's father. Escaping from an angry cop, Stan and Ollie take refuge in a posh East Side Read More

Night Owls

Actors: Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel

Synopsis: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are supported by a couple of Hal Roach's best stock players in this comic two-reeler. The film opens at the police station, where the chief (Anders Randolph), fed up at the high number of burglaries and no arrests, threatens Officer Kennedy (Edgar Kennedy): Any more Read More

Young Eagles

Actors: Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Jean Arthur, Paul Lukas, Stuart Erwin, Frank Ross

Synopsis: Aerial photography highlights this early sound actioner, set during World War I. Lt. Robert Banks (Charles "Buddy" Rogers), an American flier on leave in Paris, meets fellow American Mary Gordon (Jean Arthur) and the two fall in love. In combat, Banks makes a captive of Von Baden (Paul Lukas), the Read More

The Dawn Patrol

Actors: Richard Barthelmess, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., James Finlayson, Neil Hamilton, Gardner James, William Janney, Edmund Breon, Clyde Cook

Synopsis: Set during World War I, The Dawn Patrol is a study of the pressures and pitfalls of authority. A British Royal Flying Corp squadron commander (Neil Hamilton) is compelled by the higher-ups to send his boys out in dangerous, rickety aircraft. He is tormented by the responsibility, but does his duty Read More

The Hoosegow

Actors: Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel

Hard to Get

Actors: Dorothy Mackaill, James Finlayson, Louise Fazenda, Jack Oakie, Edmund Burns

Synopsis: Edna Ferber's short story "Classified" was the source for the Dorothy Mackaill vehicle Hard to Get. Mackaill is cast as Bobby Martin, a dress-shop model with intellectual aspirations. Wealthy Dexter Courtland (Edmund Burns) rescues Bobby from a masher, whereupon romance blooms. Likewise smitten Read More

Liberty

Synopsis: This Laurel and Hardy short film has a thin plot but plenty of laughs. The two have escaped from prison, but the guards are hot on their tail. Some confederates pick them up, and Stan and Ollie change out of their prison uniforms in the car while a motorcycle policeman pursues them. In their Read More

Men O' War

Synopsis: In this early Laurel and Hardy sound short, Stan and Ollie are a pair of sailors on leave. They meet two girls at a park (Anne Cornwall and Gloria Greer). They have also found a pair of bloomers, which they assume belongs to one of the young ladies. Delicately, they try to discern if either of the Read More

Big Business

Actors: Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel, James Finlayson

Synopsis: Stan (Stan Laurel) and Ollie (Oliver Hardy) are selling Christmas trees door-to-door. Stan unintentionally insults their first customer (a single woman) when he asks, "If you had a husband, would he buy a tree?" The second house has a sign up that says "No Peddlers." Ollie rings the bell anyway Read More

Wall Street

Actors: Ralph Ince, Sam de Grasse, Philip Strange, Ernest Hilliard, James Finlayson

Synopsis: A very topical early talkie from low-budget companyColumbia Pictures, Wall Street starred Ralph Ince, brother of producer Thomas H. Ince, as Roller McCray, a steelworker turned ruthless tycoon whose tough business methods leads a rival (Philip Strange) to commit suicide. The widow (Aileen Read More

Two Weeks Off

Actors: Dorothy Mackaill, Jack Mulhall, Gertrude Astor, James Finlayson, Jed Prouty

Synopsis: Taking Two Weeks Off for the first time in his life, plumber Dave Pickett (Jack Mulhall) spends his savings on a posh hotel suite. During his vacation, he meets and falls in love with pretty Kitty Weaver (Dorothy Mackaill). Hoping to impress the girl, Dave poses as a famous movie star (Jack Mulhall Read More

Ladies' Night in a Turkish Bath

Actors: Dorothy Mackaill, Jack Mulhall, James Finlayson, Sylvia Ashton, Harvey Clark

Synopsis: Another of First National's successful Jack Mulhall-Dorothy Mackaill vehicles, Ladies' Night is a toned-down adaptation of the venerable stage farce Ladies Night in a Turkish Bath. Womanizing ironworker Speed Dawson (Mulhall) promises to change his roving ways when he falls in love with Read More

Bachelor's Paradise

Actors: Ralph Graves, Eddie Gribbon, James Finlayson

Synopsis: A seriously injured boxer seemingly falls for his pretty nurse, who begins arranging their wedding. In this drama, the trouble begins when the fighter chickens out and jilts her at the altar. Later he re-enters the ring, and when he is once again injured it is then that he sees the light and goes Read More

Show Girl

Actors: Alice White, Donald Reed, Lee Moran, Charles Delaney, Richard Tucker

Synopsis: Show Girl was based on a novel by J.P. McEvoy, which also inspired the long-running comic strip Dixie Dugan (Actress Louise Brooks was the model for Dixie, at least so far as the character's distinctive hairdo was concerned). Alice White and Gwen Lee star as Dixie and Nita, stagestruck daughters Read More

Lady Be Good

Actors: Jack Mulhall, Dorothy Mackaill, John Miljan, Dot Farley

Synopsis: Unable to utilize the original George Gershwin score, this silent version of the Broadway musical Lady Be Good concentrates on the "book" by Guy Bolton and Fred Thompson, which in itself was pretty good. Vaudeville magicians Jack (Jack Mulhall) and Mary (Dorothy Mackaill) split up, whereupon Mary Read More

With Love and Hisses

Synopsis: Hal Roach had put Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy together in five silent films prior to this one, but the teamwork between the two was still gelling, and they hadn't yet developed the characters that we now know as Laurel and Hardy. Here, the boys are part of an Army Reserve group, headed for a Read More

Sugar Daddies

Synopsis: Although they had appeared together in several films before this two-reeler was made, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were still a ways off from adopting the comic personas that made them famous. Here, the boys form a trio with James Finlayson, who lent them great support in later films. The picture Read More

The Second Hundred Years

Actors: Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel

Synopsis: Laurel and Hardy are stripe-suited convicts in a cramped penitentiary cell. Seemingly model prisoners, they actually spend every available moment in digging a secret tunnel to freedom. Unfortunately, this only brings them up in the warden's office and lands them back in their cell. Breaking rocks Read More

Call of the Cuckoo

Actors: Max Davidson, Lillian Elliott, Spec O'Donnell, Charley Chase, Stan Laurel

Synopsis: Jewish comic Max Davidson stars in this Hal Roach farce that would most likely have been completely forgotten had not Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, and Charley Chase turned up in cameo appearances. Davidson, wife Lillian Elliott, and son Spec O'Donnell are attempting to sell their house, which is Read More

No Man's Land

Actors: Rex the Wonder Horse, Barbara Kent, James Finlayson

Seeing the World

Actors: Joe Cobb, Farina Hoskins, Johnny Downs, Jackie Condon, Jay R. Smith

Synopsis: If not the funniest of the silent Our Gang comedies, Seeing the World is certainly one of the most famous. James Finlayson is cast as the gang's schoolteacher, who manages to win a trip to Europe in a local contest. Gathering the kids together, Finlayson leads them on a whirlwind tour of Naples Read More

Do Detectives Think?

Synopsis: Until the rediscovery of Duck Soup in the 1970s, this comic short was thought to be the first time that Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy appeared together in something akin to their now-familiar personas (before teaming up, Laurel and Hardy appeared in quite a few of the same films at the Hal Roach Read More

No Man's Law

Synopsis: A wild stallion becomes the protector of a prospector and his foster daughter in this fine Western adventure produced by comedy specialist Hal Roach. Several members of the Roach "all-star" comics played straight roles this time around, including Oliver Hardy, here appearing scruffy, unshaven, and Read More

Flying Elephants

Synopsis: In an ersatz Stone Age, the King orders all single males to marry or be banished -- or worse. A husky caveman known as the Mighty Giant (Oliver Hardy) and Twinkle Star (Stan Laurel), an effeminate warrior wannabe, compete for the hand of Blushing Rose (Viola Richard), daughter of Ye Aged Read More

Love 'em and Weep

Synopsis: Confronted by a blackmailing former girlfriend (Mae Busch), recently wed businessman Titus Tillsbury (James Finlayson) is forced to quickly cover up when his suspicious new bride visits the office. In order to keep the old flame away from his home and the society party he's hosting that night Read More

Hats Off

Synopsis: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy can't even tell whose hat is whose, so it's no surprise when they lose their jobs as dishwashers. But it isn't long before they once again obtain employment, this time selling washing machines. Their duties involve dragging a sample machine from door to door. One woman Read More

Madame Mystery

Synopsis: 1910s screen vamp Theda Bara ended her film career at Hal Roach studios. Originally she had been signed to do a number of comedies, but after making this two-reeler, Bara's husband, director Charles J. Brabin, asked her to quit. Bara looks good in this film, and she plays up the comedy for all Read More

Thundering Fleas

Actors: Mickey Daniels, Mary Kornman, Joe Cobb, Farina Hoskins, Johnny Downs

Synopsis: Easily one of the fastest and funniest of the silent Our Gang comedies, Thundering Fleas is set in motion with a sidewalk performance of Professor Clements' Trained Flea and Insect Circus. When the Professor's star attraction, Garfield the flea (depicted via animation) escapes, Clements offers to Read More

Yes, Yes, Nanette

Synopsis: This two-reel Hal Roach comedy was not one of James Finlayson's best starring efforts, but it's notable because it's the first film in which Stan Laurel directed his future comic partner, Oliver Hardy. Hardy just has a bit part, and according to Rob Stone's excellent book, Laurel or Hardy, he only Read More

The Caretaker's Daughter

Actors: Charley Chase, Katherine Grant

Synopsis: Charley Chase plays a young married man with a suspicious wife (Katherine Grant) in this Hal Roach silent. The couple's car finally bites the dust (and their garage along with it), so Charley take it to a secondhand sales lot. He gets a tough looking character (the imposing George Siegmann) to buy Read More

Un-friendly Enemies

Synopsis: In the mid-'20s Hal Roach gave James Finlayson his own starring series of one-reel comedies. They weren't very successful, mainly because funny as he was, Finlayson was strongest when he was reacting to someone else. This picture, directed by Stan Laurel (who had not yet teamed up with Oliver Hardy Read More

Rupert of Hee-Haw

Actors: Stan Laurel

Synopsis: Although this Stan Laurel two-reeler -- a parody of 1923's Rupert of Hentzau -- was handsomely produced, the jokes were slapstick at their crudest. There's a lot of kicking rear ends and slipping on banana peels. The King (Laurel) is constantly drunk, much to the disgust of the princess (Ena Gregory Read More

Official Officers

Actors: Mickey Daniels, Mary Kornman, Joe Cobb, Farina Hoskins, Johnny Downs

Synopsis: Living in a crowded tenement neighborhood, the Our Gang kids habitually run afoul of the nasty, ill-tempered cop on the beat, "Hard-Boiled" McManus. Upset at McManus' ill-treatment of the youngsters, Inspector Malone replaces him with the more likable Officer Mac. The kids take an immediate shine Read More

Mary, Queen of Tots

Actors: Mary Kornman, Mickey Daniels, Joe Cobb, Farina Hoskins, Jackie Condon

Synopsis: Ignored by her parents and browbeaten by her governess (May Beatty), poor little rich girl Mary Kornman finds comfort only in her collection of dolls, which bear a striking resemblance to the familiar Our Gang kids. And well they should: The dolls were carved by an Italian gardener who used the Read More

Near Dublin

Synopsis: In spite of its obvious production values, this Stan Laurel comedy (made before he teamed up with Oliver Hardy) is not one of his best. Con (Laurel) is the mailman for a little Irish village. Since he has a bad habit of reading everyone's letters, he discovers that the father (Dick Gilbert) of his Read More

Postage Due

Synopsis: In the days before he teamed up with Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel often did his best film work in burlesques of popular feature films. Many of his standard, situation-type comedies paled in comparison, and this particular picture is definitely one of Laurel's lesser efforts. Laurel plays a dimwitted Read More

Smithy

Actors: Stan Laurel

Synopsis: This is one of the more well-known Stan Laurel solo comedies, but in truncated form -- much of the Army footage is usually left out. It actually begins with Smithy (Laurel) as a private, making life miserable for his irascible sergeant (James Finlayson, who had a special talent for irascibility). Read More

Roughest Africa

Synopsis: Not one, but two epic documentaries about the wilds of Africa were released in 1923 (Hunting Big Game in Africa and Trailing African Wilds). It had been some months since Stan Laurel had made any parodies -- something he was famous for before he teamed up with Oliver Hardy -- and a safari seemed Read More

White Wings

Actors: Stan Laurel

Synopsis: This one-reel comedy was one of Stan Laurel's early films for the Hal Roach studios (it would be nearly four years before Laurel teamed up with fellow Hal Roach actor Oliver Hardy). Laurel plays a street sweeper who finds himself in deep trouble when he neglectfully grabs a baby stroller instead Read More

The Soilers

Synopsis: This two-reel travesty of Rex Beach's oft-filmed story The Spoilers was not appreciated in its day -- several critics noted that it was one of Stan Laurel's weaker films for Hal Roach. Modern-day audiences find it funnier, perhaps because a later sound version of The Spoilers starring John Wayne Read More

A Man About Town

Actors: Stan Laurel

Synopsis: Although this Stan Laurel one-reeler is based on a very simple premise, it's quite funny. Adding to the mirth is the presence of James Finlayson, who always worked well with Laurel, and became an even greater comic antagonist when Laurel teamed up with Oliver Hardy. Laurel plays a none-too-bright Read More

Pick and Shovel

Actors: Stan Laurel, James Finlayson

Synopsis: Although this Hal Roach one-reel comedy features two very funny men -- Stan Laurel and James Finlayson -- unfortunately, it's not very funny. Most of the gags had been used before, or would be used in the future more effectively. As they would often be in subsequent films, Laurel and Finlayson are Read More

The Noon Whistle

Actors: Stan Laurel

Synopsis: Early on in his new contact with producer Hal Roach, Stan Laurel shot a comic short that had much of the same material as a two-reeler he made the year before, The Egg. Since The Noon Whistle was only one reel, however, the superfluous subplot about the company president being blackmailed was Read More

Crossroads of New York

Actors: Ethel Grey Terry, Robert Cain, Kathryn McGuire, Herbert Standing

Synopsis: This feature-length comedy-melodrama was not one of the best from Mack Sennett, or his talented director, F. Richard Jones. Country boy Michael Flint (George O'Hara) arrives in the city to seek his fortune. He's a bit better off than your average naïve youth because he has a letter of introduction Read More

A Small Town Idol

Actors: Ben Turpin, Phyllis Haver, Charlie Murray, Marie Prevost, James Finlayson

Synopsis: This hilarious slapstick comedy from Mack Sennett finds Sam Smith (Ben Turpin), the resident of a small town, accused of stealing. The jealous villain J. Wellington Jones (James Finlayson) orchestrated Sam's frame-up to keep him from wooing Mary (Phyllis Haver), the prettiest single girl in town. Read More

Where Do You Work-A John?

Synopsis: This delightful collection of silent comedies come complete with a music score. Titles include "Prince Pistachio," "Sure-Mike" and "Take Next Car." ~ All Movie Guide Read More