We Faw Down

We Faw Down

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Leo McCarey
Produced by Hal Roach
Written by H.M. Walker
Starring Stan Laurel
Oliver Hardy
Vivien Oakland
Bess Flowers
Kay Deslys
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release dates
  • December 29, 1928 (1928-12-29)
Running time
 20 minutes; 2 reels
Country United States
Language Silent film
English (Original intertitles)

We Faw Down is a 1928 two-reel silent comedy starring Laurel and Hardy and directed by Leo McCarey. It was shot in August and September 1928, and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on December 29 of that year, with synchronized music and sound effects in theaters wired for sound.

The plot line was later reworked into one of Laurel and Hardy's most celebrated films, Sons of the Desert (1933).

Plot

The Boys tell their wives they have a business engagement, then sneak off to a poker game. En route, they stop to help two young ladies with a flat tire, and wind up splattered with mud. The girls invite them up to their apartment while their clothes dry, and all proceed to get roaring drunk. A boyfriend appears, sending the duo scrambling out the back window, in full view of their wives.

Production and exhibition

This is the first Laurel and Hardy film with Leo McCarey in the director's chair after more than a year guiding the team's characters' development as "Supervisor." He would go on to direct their best silents, and eventually to win Best Director Oscars for the feature films The Awful Truth (1937) and Going My Way (1944).

A contemporary account says that the basic story was contributed, unusually, by Oliver Hardy, who had heard similar gossip from his laundress.[1] Critic/historian William K. Everson makes a different contention, tracing the story back to the Mack Sennett comedy Ambrose's First Falsehood.[2]

Interior shooting took place at the Hal Roach studio; exteriors were shot both on the Roach back lot and on several locations in Culver City.

The original Victor sound discs for We Faw Down were thought lost until the 1990s, when a set was discovered. Certain European DVD editions feature this original synchronized score, but American DVDs (Region 1) still have music cannibalized from other Laurel and Hardy Victor soundtracks.

This short is better known for what got cut out of it than for what remained in it. As originally scripted and shot, the team flee the girls' apartment having pulled on each other's pants, then dart from spot to spot in town trying to find a private place to rectify the situation. An irate husband, a suspicious cop — even a belligerent king crab — all conspire to thwart the swapping of the pants.[3] Thoough excised from We Faw Down, the footage would be used for their next film Liberty.

Ten years later, Stan Laurel would dust off his final shot concept from We Faw Down to end the feature film Block-Heads (1938).

Cast

Critical reception

Critic Leslie Halliwell is terse, even by his own standards of brevity: "Moderate star comedy, later elaborated in Sons of the Desert."[4] Laurel and Hardy Encyclopedia author Glenn Mitchell is likewise succinct: "Typical of their matrimonial comedies,"[1] he writes. Bruce Calvert is a silent film expert and a film-still guru. Writing at Allmovie.com, Calvert says of We Faw Down: "While this film is only an average comedy, it is still worth a look. Laurel and Hardy's explanation of the "show" and why they didn't know about the fire, is priceless."[5] Laurel and Hardy scholar Randy Skretvedt unearthed the scripts for many L&H shorts, and the promise of some of the unfilmed gags in the We Faw Down script left him a less than ardent supporter of the final film. "All that We Faw Down proves is that even [Leo] McCarey could not always save a film from mediocrity.... [it's] amusing but nothing to rave about." [3] William K. Everson was the first to deconstruct the L&H canon, and his 1967 essay delivered a split-decision: "We Faw Down is, on the whole, rather draggy and pedestrian, though it has isolated gags that are among their best. Particularly amusing are the two flirts' attempts to inject some life into their two pickups.... The best gag of all, however, is the.... brilliant and untoppable climactic gag."[2]

References

  1. 1 2 Mitchell, Glenn, (1995). The Laurel & Hardy Encyclopedia. London: Batsford, Ltd.. ISBN 0-7134-7711-3, p. 286.
  2. 1 2 Everson, William K. (1967). The Films of Laurel and Hardy. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press. ISBN 0-8065-0146-4, p. 73
  3. 1 2 Skretvedt, Randy, (1996). Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies. Beverly Hills, CA: Past Times Publishing. ISBN 0-940410-29-X, p. 133.
  4. ↑ Walker, John, ed. (1994). Halliwell's Film Guide. New York: HarperPerennials. ISBN 0-06-273241-2, p.1287
  5. ↑ Calvert, Bruce at Allmovie.com http://www.allmovie.com/work/152803
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