Marx brothers – Homeschool Mom Movie Mavin – Type "AUDIO" into the search box for AUDIO version. And remember…EDUCATION DOESN'T HAVE TO ALWAYS COME FROM A BOOK

SHORT TAKE:

A biographical look at the final reunion tour of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.

WHO SHOULD GO:

This is family friendly – anyone can watch who is interested in Laurel and Hardy or even just a behind the scenes look at a theatrical legend.

LONG TAKE:

Stan and Ollie is about an arranged marriage that goes well for quite some time until a betrayal derails the relationship for fully 16 years. The marriage to which I refer is the professional relationship between the two geniuses of comedy Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.

Starting at the turn of the century in vaudeville they knew more about how to make their audiences laugh than anyone in the business except perhaps the Marx Brothers. Their mismatched, on-screen combination of slapstick, malapropisms and good-natured hostilities set the format for bromance comedies for decades and generations to come.

Linked together by Hal Roach while independently under contract to his studio, they made hundreds of movies and shorts together over decades. The riff comes when the stronger willed Laurel fights the studio machine to get better terms for the team but Hardy does not have the courage to back him up. Though they continued to work together after the dust up there remains bitter baggage and a distance in their friendship. The arc of the movie picks up almost two decades later as their careers are waning and they embark on a European tour in hopes of rejuvenating their box office appeal as they wait anxiously for word from a producer on financing for a Robin Hood parody they are writing.

In the movies, Hardy played the blustering bully to Laurel’s shy sometimes weepy and conciliatory foil. However, contrary to their screen personas, Hardy was actually a meek and anxious-to-please gambling addict, while Laurel was the engine of the duo: ambitiously creative, insightful, and the lead writer.

The production values and rhythm of Stan and Ollie is a bit like a TV movie-of-the-week but the acting is excellent. Reilly and Coogan, respectively, get everything from accents to body language and singular physical quirks right as Misters Hardy and Laurel, both in their on and off screen personalities – which, admittedly, seemed to blur even for the real people involved.My dad, who was 40 years older than I was, loved Laurel and Hardy, having seen the original shorts in the movie theaters when they first came out. There were many a late TV night spent listening for the signature tune of Marvin Hatley’s “Dance of the Cuckoos” preceeding the ludicrous antics and long drawn-out sight gags which always had my father in stitches. Truth be told, with a few exceptions, I found their humor a bit dry and dated but loved watching my Dad enjoy them even more than I enjoyed watching the duo’s formulaic comic gags. As a result I can be pretty objective. And the evocations by John C. Reilly (Chicago and the voice of Wreck-it Ralph) and Steve Coogan, respectively, as Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel are spot on. It’s fascinating to watch their portrayal of the real men who could and would kindly switch their alter egos on for even the most transient and spontaneous audiences – at parties, for checking hotel clerks, at bars, at the race track, and for passing fans.

Shirley Henderson, most famously known as Moaning Myrtle from the Harry Potter series, sweetly plays the furrowed brow Mrs. Hardy, who fusses after “Babe,” as Hardy was known to his loved ones, like a mother hen. Nina Arianda, though born and raised in New York, taps into her Ukranian heritage for her Russian-accented portrayal of the tough but staunchly devoted Mrs. Laurel. And Rufus Jones plays Delfont, their manager during this, their last hurrah.

It’s a compelling story and I only wish they had presented the beginnings of these famous icons of comedy from their first meeting, much as Yankee Doodle Dandy followed the relationship of George M Cohan with his partner Sam Harris from first handshake to retirement.

Much like looking behind the magician’s curtain, while there is a sadness to be disabused of the mystery as well as a satisfaction of curiosity to see where the “magic” comes from, in exchange there is also the endearingness of intimacy which comes from a deeper understanding of the motives and methods of the men when we take — a peek behind the smiles. Find Stan and Ollie on Amazon.com.

You ever watch those old Marx Brothers movies? Groucho, Chico, Harpo. They’re wonderful. Slapstick and droll, filmed in black and white but technicolor in scintillating classic humor, these guys were friends, colleagues, costars, collaborators, comedians and — well, brothers. The family of five (Zeppo was a straight man in a few) and Gummo who worked with the others on stage but never made it to the movies, started together in vaudeville as the Singing Nightingales. Groucho actually aspired to be a doctor, but there was no money for that so became an entertainer. Known as Groucho throughout the world, instantly recognizable for his mustache and ever present cigar, his real name was Julius and he was the head, on screen and off, of this raucous bunch of never-aging hooligans. And, while Groucho’s on screen persona was not much of a sterling example of fatherhood in the conventional sense, Groucho did – much like Oddball’s modified tanks in the quirky World War II dramedy Kelly’s Heroes – manage to get them OUT of trouble at least as fast as he got them INto it.

Chico (whose real name, for the record, was Leonard), always featured in his pork pie hat, played the piano — astonishingly well, and humorously. He employed what I can only describe as finger gymnastics. He’d run his hand along the keys, then point and stab at another note, make his hands look all floppy. Yet the music came out beautifully. Chico played the piano by playing WITH the piano. It was almost like a one man musical comedy magic act. If a piano was a ventriloquist’s dummy, Chico was the ventriloquist.

But there was one scene in Animal Crackers that I always found especially charming, and unusually subdued, for a Marx Brothers’ routine. Chico performs a party recital of “Catch a Falling Star” wherein he interjects an interlude after the first line which comes back around to the initial musical line – so he plays it in a loop. It’s a very funny scene as you watch the audience – primarily consisting of Groucho front and center with the indomitable and ubiquitous Margaret Dumont (who, it was said, rarely understood Groucho’s jokes) at his side – become progressively more bored and annoyed at the seemingly endless cycle of this repeating banal ditty.

GROUCHO: Say — if you get near a song, play it.

CHICO: I can’t think of the finish.

GROUCHO: That’s strange – and I can’t think of anything else. (Even Margaret Dumont grinned at that one.)

CHICO: You know what I think – I think I went past it.

GROUCHO: Well if you come around again, jump off.

CHICO: I once kept this up for three days.

Which brings me to the point of this post. I’ve kept the series I entitled Back to the Father running for exactly ten times the time Chico claimed to have once been stuck on that musical phrase — one month today – kind of an anniversary.

Well, I know how Chico felt. I started the Back to the Father series thinking it would be a one or two part series, but cannot think of a way to finish it. Thing is – there are more examples of Hollywood’s instinctive, though denied, avowal of the irreplaceability of the father or strong father-figure in the home than even I thought there were. And I enjoy finding them. So I have decided to randomly just continue on that theme and point them up when I find ones that I find particularly appealing.

So in keeping with that promise I bring you —- SUPERMAN! Remade about a gazillion times, from its inception as a comic book to novels, movies, cartoons, this Man of Steel has been an American iconic since the publication of the first comic book in June 1938. And in all of the manifestations of Superman, from print to film, from the stories starring TVs George Reeves to film’s Chris Reeves (the BEST!!!) to the most recent inception of Henry Cavill, these Supermen’s father, Jor-el, is the one who must make the decision to send Kal-el (Superman) off to Earth. It is Jor-el who the one who makes the hard choice to send his son away to save his life and does so, not only for his son’s sake, but for the betterment of a lesser culture – mankind.

The mother, understandably, does not want to let her child go but concedes to her husband’s wisdom: to sacrifice their lives to protect the life of their son. In addition, it is not the mother’s consciousness which is sent to teach, guard and mentor the famous Kryptonian survivor, it is the father’s. Granted this is recognized in the funny animated How Man of Steel Should Have Ended – but it’s never really questioned. Again, for a good reason. because, while a mom is nice to have around – a son needs a father to become a Superman.

I’ll randomly throw in more from time to time, because, unlike Chico, I don’t WANT to think of a finish.

Tag: Marx brothers

STAN AND OLLIE – A PEEK BEHIND THE SMILES

From Marx Brothers to Superman