FRA DIAVOLO
(1933) |
When Hal Roach saw how well Laurel and Hardy had supported opera star Lawrence Tibbett in THE ROGUE SONG, he determined to star his top comics in their own operetta. Though L&H themselves were initially skeptical about the project, this eventually became one of their favorite films. All American prints carry the title THE DEVIL'S BROTHER, while European audiences, more familiar with the 1812 Auber operetta, saw it under its original title of FRA DIAVOLO. |
JB:
FRA DIAVOLO seems to be beloved and admired by most Laurel and Hardy
scholars, so I go into this review knowing I am a minority of
one. Let me say at the outset that I do like this film, I just
don't like it as much as some other Laurel and Hardy features,
including several that I know in my heart are lesser films overall.
My main problem is that for the first half of
the film, I don't connect with many of the comedy scenes. I do
laugh when Stan is yelling into the deaf man's ear "We're a couple of
BANDITS!" but the hanging scene leaves me cold. The idea of Stan
being forced to hang Ollie is something the writers thought would be
clever, and that's the main problem with it. Every line Stan
utters to Ollie seems like something the writers are making him say
rather than something that would naturally spring from Stanley's
mind. Stan's trademark crying loses much of its comic value when
it is extended over an entire scene as it is here. And the
routine's payoff - the branch breaking under Ollie's weight - is weak
and not filmed in any way that would enhance what little comic value it
had. The only moment here that I find mildly amusing is when an
annoyed Ollie has had enough of Stan's nonsense and disgustedly tells
him to hurry up and get on with the hanging: "Stop wasting my
time!"
Stan and Ollie's arrival at Castle Finlayson
suffers from the opposite problem - instead of being too clever, it is
not clever enough. (Yeah, I know, I'm fussy sometimes.)
They could have thought of far funnier ways to create havoc than fall
over each other and be chased by a bull. Again, I don't laugh
much at this scene, and so, the first twenty minutes of the film are a
washout for me.
The plot scenes are made a little palatable by
the presence of Dennis King, Thelma Todd and James Finlayson, but these
scenes do go on beyond their value to the story, and the music does not
help either. I enjoy almost every song in BABES IN TOYLAND, and
at least two songs from THE BOHEMIAN GIRL, but I just finished watching
FRA DIAVOLO and I'll be damned if I can recall one melody beyond "On
younder rock reclining...".
But enough grumbling. The moment Stan
starts playing finger games in the pub, subsequently frustrating Ollie
and Innkeeper Henry Armetta, FRA DIAVOLO suddenly becomes a wonderful
film. This film needed a scene that allowed the Boys to be
themselves for a few minutes, without anybody bursting into song,
worrying about Finn's fifty thousand francs or scheming to capture
Diavolo. Dennis King works well enough with Laurel and Hardy that
I wish he had done a few more films with them. Even when he is
telling them that he will cut out their tongues or slit their throats,
he remains a charming rogue. Employing two bumbling overgrown
children around as his henchman is a bad idea, like Goldfinger keeping
James Bond around even after he discovers Bond is a secret agent, but,
as in GOLDFINGER, had the villain killed the heroes when he had the
chance, there would be no movie. So we can be thankful that
Diavolo is all bark and no bite.
Stanlio is incapacitated for most of the
second half of the film, first from sleeping powders and then from
wine. Since Stan's decision-making faculties are suspect to begin
with, a Stan whose mind is even more dulled by drugs and alcohol makes
him all the more funnier. The Boys are at their most childlike at
times in FRA DIAVOLO, fighting with each other when they should be
carrying out Diavolo's plans. When Ollie pushes Stan
offscreen, Stan retaliates by thwapping Ollie over the head with a
metal tray, leading to one of Ollie's funniest and most violent takes,
one where for he looks like a two year old child about to throw a
temper tantrum because some other kid just knocked over his
blocks. It's a delightful and surprising moment, one of my
favorite moments in any Laurel and Hardy film. The rest of the film
moves along nicely (with the occasional intrusion of a song or two) and
it would be hard to complain about a climax that features Stan and
Ollie recreating their laughing scene from Blotto.
FRA DIAVOLO was the one Laurel and Hardy
feature that I hadn't seen until well into my adult years. After
all the praise that had been given to it over the years, I was looking
forward to finally seeing one of The Boys' best films. My
subsequent disappointment, finding it far less funny and a bit more
dull than I had anticipated, is something that has not worn off on
repeated viewings. I enjoy the isolated routines of THE BOHEMIAN
GIRL and the gentle comic business of BABES IN TOYLAND much more.
I may be nuts, but sometimes I even prefer a scrappy retread like THE
FLYING DEUCES
over the splendidly produced FRA DIAVOLO, not because it is a better
film (it isn't) but because it flows better and Laurel and Hardy's
antics are interrupted by song and plot every ten minutes.
DIAVOLO
is a good film, with an excellent cast and some very funny scenes
by
Laurel and Hardy. But it is not one of my favorite features.
JL:
Sez you! I find little not to like in this film, even the
non-Laurel & Hardy moments. I enjoy all of L&H's
operettas (with some reservations about the other two), but I find FRA
DIAVOLO to be their most successful attempt at the genre. The
film boasts some classic comedy routines; a leading man (Dennis King)
who, for once, isn't an insult to his gender; memorable supporting
performances by Fin and others; and a somewhat racy pre-Production Code
subplot featuring Thelma Todd, who was never lovelier. I even
like the songs.
Some may regard Laurel and Hardy's
opening scene to be a bit pat and "written," but I regard it as one of
their better entrances, in keeping with the more formal tone of this
picture. It also has one of those "instant disaster" moments that
the Boys did so well. One of their standard devices was that the
catastrophes in their lives (losing their boat, blowing up a stove,
dropping a platter of sandwiches, etc.) tend to happen with little or
no warning, and their usual response to such moments was nonchalance or
a resigned shrug. In FRA DIAVOLO, no sooner do we learn that the
Boys have scrimped and saved to build themselves a little nest egg (two
bags of gold that Ollio displays proudly) when they are robbed of their
life savings by a gang of Diavolo's bandits. The setup has been
carefully developed, and suddenly it's all over. The absurdly
fast turn of events was L&H's method of generating laughs in
moments of calamity. Stanlio's reaction to it is typical: "Oh,
well. Come easy, go easy."
The Boys try to recapture their wealth by
becoming bandits themselves, a task that, despite Ollio's reassurances
of "Why, there's nothing to it," proves to be both beyond their
abilities and ill-suited to their temperaments. They attempt to
rob a hard-of-hearing woodchopper, whose pathetically over-the-top sob
story (he's destitute, has more children and grandchildren than one of
the Kennedys, his wife is sick, "and Grandma don't feel so good
neither!") results in the Boys offering him a handout. The scene
ends on another sudden turn, as we learn that the woodchopper was
himself a con man, who empties the Boys' meager offering into his
bulging bag of coins. A nice, self-contained little scene that
would almost play well as a five-minute "half-reeler."
One scene about which we may be in agreement
is the hanging scene, which strikes me as about the strangest scene
they ever did. It has a morbid undertone (Diavolo has forced
Stanlio to hang Ollio), and Stanlio's fib about being Ollio's
illegitimate son reveals more about their past relationship than I care
to know. The scene does set up an amusing running-gag rejoinder
for Ollio ("Your son! Mm!"), but it is a scene with a bizarre and
unpleasant tone. It's nice that they tried something a bit out of
the ordinary, but it looks like they tried too hard. L&H's
best comic moments tend to appear spontaneous and unrehearsed, but this
scene suffers from too much effort. Nevertheless, it seems to be
a favorite among many fans, as it's one of the most-quoted scenes in
the film, and it's not so off-putting as to destroy the momentum of the
picture.
The best-known comic highlights of FRA
DIAVOLO include Stan's feats of manual dexterity ("earsy-kneesy-nosey"
and "finger wiggle"), the drunk scene and the laughing scene that
follows. The next two L&H operettas also feature moments of
Stan's dexterity, but they inevitably seem weak imitations of the
business in FRA DIAVOLO -- as if they're saying to their fans,
"Remember how funny this was when we did it the first time?".
Earsy-kneesy-nosie is probably the most inspired of these bits, if only
because Stan is actually able to perform a difficult coordination
trick. (For the uninitiated, it consists of slapping both knees,
crossing your arms to grab an ear with one hand and your nose with the
other, then slapping your knees again and grabbing your nose and other
ear with opposite hands.) It's a surefire trick to impress the
kids at school, as I learned when I was a young'un. I spent many
an hour mastering earsy-kneesy-nosey rather than studying my algebra,
and I know which one has better served me in life.
"Laughing scenes" were a part of
L&H's repertoire -- they had done such scenes in Blotto and Scram!
-- as they were a part of the comedy repertoire of the 1930s. It
was the era of the "laugh record" -- phonograph records that featured
someone gradually building to helpless, hysterical laughter as a band
played a silly song in the background. (The folks at MAD magazine
were issuing records like this as late as the '60s.) Built on the
notion that laughter is infectious, Laurel and Hardy's laughing scene
in FRA DIAVOLO works best with a full, cooperative audience. As
such, it's an "iffy" scene, but performed wonderfully well by the Boys,
who never considered, "Gee, this might not play so well on home video
in another 50 years."
As stated, the non-L&H scenes in FRA DIAVOLO
work fine for me. Yes, the young lovers are revoltingly sappy,
but their scenes are brief enough to render them inconsequential.
Dennis King is probably the best straight man they ever had, as well as
the only one that could retain his masculinity while dressed in tights
and a powdered wig. His scenes with Thelma Todd are loaded with
sexual tension that goes beyond mere innuendo (it spilled over into
real life as well, according to the gossip of the time). We don't
often hear men and women discussing petticoats and undressing in a
Laurel & Hardy film, but it's an example of the sort of
suggestiveness that appeared in pre-code films. It was also a
time when such humor was "naughty" rather than "dirty," and the
bawdiness is certainly suited to the 18th-century context. Thelma
Todd had greater comic opportunities in her two appearances with the
Marx Brothers, but FRA DIAVOLO features her best role in a Laurel &
Hardy film. It shows she had some acting range beyond her usual
sassy-but-sweet persona, as she intones such lines as "Oh, no, my
Lord!" with all the propriety required by the formal setting, but with
just a hint of self-awareness to let us know she didn't take things all
that seriously.
In all, FRA DIAVOLO is one of my favorite
L&H films, and certainly my favorite of their
operettas. Ask for it under the title THE DEVIL'S
BROTHER. We call it FRA DIAVOLO because we're a couple of
nauseating purists.
Thanks to Dave Heath, of Another Nice Mess: The Films of Laurel and Hardy (http://lordheath.com) for the use of this picture.