Four stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were enormously popular film stars for roughly a decade starting in 1927, in great part because they were among the very few comedy actors who successfully navigated the transition from silent films to talkies.
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| Stan Laurel (Steve Coogan, left) and Oliver Hardy (John C. Reilly, right) are dismayed when their British manager/handler, Bernard Delfont (Rufus Jones), explains that they'll be stuck playing small, run-down theaters ... at least, for awhile. |
(Indeed, some of their later one-liners remain gems to this day. “You can lead a horse to water,” Stanley observes, in the 1930 short Brats, “but a pencil must be led.”)
Credit for teaming the slim Englishman (Laurel) with the corpulent American (Hardy) goes to early motion picture impresario Hal Roach, who made them an official double act with the 1927 silent short, Putting Pants on Philip. They became indefatigably busy thereafter, with a résumé that boasts 32 silent shorts, 40 sound shorts — including 1932’s Academy Award winner, The Music Box — and 23 features.
They never quite cracked the list of Top 10 American film stars — by box-office receipts — but they were among the Top 10 international film stars in 1936 and ’37. Their gentle brand of humor, and their films, were universal.
Director Jon S. Baird’s Stan & Ollie is a warm and deeply poignant tribute to what would become their swan song: an ambitious UK tour in 1953 and ’54, undertaken despite their declining health. After that final curtain, they never again appeared together; Hardy died in 1957, and Laurel survived him by another eight years.
Screenwriter Jeff Pope plays fast and loose with a few historical details, but the core narrative is reasonably faithful: most notably the bond between two men who had worked together for so long, that their relationship was far more deep than that with respective wives over the years. Pope’s tone is heartfelt, and Baird’s direction is impressively delicate; at no time does this often melancholy story become mawkish, nor is there any sense that the duo’s memory is being exploited unduly.
Mostly, though, the film is driven by superlative performances from Steve Coogan (Stan) and John C. Reilly (Ollie, more affectionately known as “Babe”).
Coogan is particularly impressive, clearly having studied Laurel meticulously enough to perfectly mimic his impeccably timed pantomime. It’s not merely a matter of reproducing the stage bits performed before an adoring public, but also mastering the doe-eyed, less-is-more dancer’s grace with which Stan carries himself, behind closed doors.
One of the key points of Pope’s script, however — adapted from A.J. Marriot’s 1993 book, Laurel & Hardy: The British Tours — is that Stan’s outwardly mild manner conceals a creative talent chafing at the contractual restraints imposed by Roach (Danny Huston, suitably imperious). As depicted here, Ollie is content and complacent, cheerfully willing to do as he’s told; Stan is ambitious, desiring the greater freedom that he knows will make them even more successful.
This dichotomy will resurface later, under less than ideal circumstances.
Baird and Pope begin their film with a lengthy prologue, set during the filming of 1937’s Way Out West. Stan and Ollie are at the height of their fame; Coogan and Reilly recreate the mincing dance with which the duo enters a saloon (likely) filled with all manner of tough customers.
Off camera, Stan urges Ollie to stand as a team before Roach, demanding better salaries (at the very least) and creative freedom (the cherry on top). Stan feels that he has room to argue, given that his contract is up for renewal; Ollie is less certain, given that he’s still in the middle of his contract. Roach, unimpressed, is immovable.
We then cut abruptly to 1953, as our two stars — now noticeably older and more frail, Ollie having gained an even more dangerous amount of weight — stand in the rain while contemplating the run-down English boarding house that marks the kick-off of a British tour orchestrated by theatrical manager Bernard Delfont (Rufus Jones).
Delfont is the epitome of faux charm and assurance: the sort of showbiz schmoozer who’d gleefully sell snow to Eskimos. Jones’ performance is sublime: We can’t help admiring the guy’s moxie and savoir faire, despite the blindingly obvious fact that he’s no better than a street hustler.
(“He’ll never stab you in the back,” observes Jones, in the press notes, “but he might deliver live acupuncture.”)
Ollie is worried, but Stan — although knowing better — serves encouraging platitudes.
And so begins a series of one-night stands at cheap-and-cheerful lidos (actually period-accurate houses such as Birmingham’s Old Rep and London’s Fortune Theatre, secured by production designer John Paul Kelly and location manager Camilla Stephenson).
The running gag is that these initial performances draw enthusiastic but woefully small crowds, in part because everybody — we hear several examples of this — believes that the duo “retired years ago,” an assumption this film encourages.
(That’s complete nonsense; Stan and Ollie made numerous films through 1945’s The Bullfighters, with a final late entry in 1951’s Atoll K, not released in the States until 1954, when it was re-titled Utopia. In between, they stayed in the public eye via several European tours and Hardy’s co-starring appearances in other (non-team) films. And their 1953 UK tour actually began in the Republic of Ireland, where they were mobbed when their boat docked.)
So, okay; Pope takes liberties. That doesn’t really damage this film’s heart and soul, which focuses on the duo’s desire for triumphant closure (which is accurate). Minor squabbling aside, we gradually realize that both men recognize this tour as their last shot at sharing a stage — many stages — and they embrace it with an enthusiasm that overcomes physical limitations.
And my goodness, such entertaining sketches. Coogan and Reilly perfectly recreate all manner of little bits and two classic routines: the dryly droll “hard-boiled eggs and nuts” hospital scene, and the hilariously well-timed “double doors” train station encounter (both of which Baird allows to run at full length).
Both showcase Reilly’s equally spot-on imitation of Ollie’s long-suffering exasperation, heavy sighs and heavenward, why-must-I-suffer-so gaze. But the depth of Reilly’s performance comes from what Ollie doesn’t say or do: the silent weariness, pain and even fear that radiate like a poisonous cloud. Coogan’s Stan perceives this, and puts considerable effort, at all times, into a bright optimism that he never quite pulls off.
The show, as they say, must go on.
Nina Arianda, a Tony Award-winning actress also recognized as Billy Bob Thornton’s scrappy associate in TV’s Goliath, is a stitch as Stan’s Eastern European wife, Ida. She’s brash, brassy and no-nonsense: barely able to tolerate Ollie’s mousy but imperious wife Lucille (Shirley Henderson). The two women are hilarious for their near inability to tolerate each other, despite the frequent public appearances that demand civility.
More to the point, each woman is ferociously protective of her respective husband: a dynamic that becomes more crucial as we enter the third act.
Stan has maintained Ollie’s exuberance with the dangled promise that this tour is but a prelude to a return to film stardom, with a comedic send-up of the Robin Hood legend. But Stan is increasingly rebuffed by this project’s British backer, and we can’t help worrying how this will shake out.
(Again, in reality this potentialRobin Hoodproject was discussed only briefly during an earlier European tour in 1947, with Stan and Ollie supposedly cast as Little John Laurel and Friar Hardy. Nothing ever came of it.)
Baird and Pope build their film to a poignant climax, which — in the great theatrical tradition — likely won’t leave a dry eye in the house. Archival photos and footage of the Way Out West dance scene play alongside the end credits, granting us a final chance to admire the fidelity with which Coogan and Reilly honored these comedic titans.
Stan & Ollie is a tender and impressively earnest tribute: a sentimental valentine that I fear will go unnoticed on our shores … and that’s not merely a shame, it’s a tragedy.
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