I only saw Atoll K once. It would break my heart to ever watch it again. Oddly enough, that film was also released under the title, Utopia. What if the Utopia version had gone like this, instead:

The off-screen Laurel and Hardy go in to see their boss, the movie producer, and state their case for having a single contract instead of two individual contracts which expire at different times, since they've been a team now for a long time. The producer denies their request because then they'd have more leverage to negotiate salaries, which would mean he might have to pay them what they're worth. And, what-the-hell, he's been locking horns with Stan ever since Babes In Toyland anyway, and the only reason he doesn't get rid of them both is because their movies are still making too much money. But I'm the boss and "no" means no, so get the hell out of my office.

Stan & Ollie go back to see the producer the following day, only this time with Luca Brasi, a public relations man with GENCO (importers of fine olive oil), recommended to them by Tom Hagen, a young legal protege of their own lawyer, Ben Shipman . Mr. Brasi asks the Boys to wait outside the office while he and the producer consult. Twenty minutes later, the producer emerges from his office and, with a complexion that is now the color of steam, he wonders if "his boys, and you are my boys" would be interested in a different arrangement. This one would be a joint contract giving them complete control of their films, 10% of gross and one which wouldn't expire until either a Republican took office, or television was invented, whichever came first.

The Boys (and they are "his boys") graciously accept and go on to make two pictures a year until Eisenhower takes office. Their last four are in color; one of them wins Best Picture; Stan picks up an Oscar for Best Director; Marvin Hatley gets one for Best Musical Score. Finlayson and Charlie Hall tie one year for Best Supporting Actor and Mae Busch picks one up for Best Supporting Actress. They are so popular that the Academy starts a Best Comedy Team award and Stan & Ollie dominate the category. At which point they decide to retire from pictures and are immediately picked up by one of the TV networks which gives them a half-hour show (in color) which they do for four years. By now, Ollie decides he wants to devote the rest of his years to putting golf balls, and tells Stan he wants to retire. Stan wants to keep his hand in, and asks Ollie to hang in one more year during which they are the sole hosts of the Colgate Comedy Hour, which they televise Live on Saturday Night. Their frequent guests are Martin & Lewis, a young comedy team that the Boys like and mentor. Through their work with Stan & Ollie and their exposure on the Comedy Hour, Martin & Lewis are hotter than ever but, unlike their mentors, they personally can't stand each other. Stan calls them together, explains (much to their amazement) that he and Ollie really didn't become close personal friends until after their movie days, and suggests they stay together because "It's business...not personal." M&L take the advice, do another 20 films together and can't stop winning the Best Comedy Team awards. One rainy Saturday afternoon, in Ollie's little theatre that he called Laurel and Hardy's Fun Factory which he had instead of a garage behind his home, the Boys were viewing A Chump At Oxford with their wives. A cozier Saturday you couldn't ask for (and my idea of Heaven). Right at the end, when "Lord Paddington" gets clunked on the head again and returns to being Stan, and the movie-Ollie is so glad to have him back he gives him a great bear-hug, Oliver Norval Hardy seems to doze. But when the film starts flapping on the take-up reel and the lights come up, Ollie never wakes: the easy, quiet transition that easy, quiet, gentle man deserves. Stan, the oldest juvenille delinquent in North America, dies not long after, making love to Ida, his fifth wife (or fourth, or sixth...Stan couldn't remember either). UTOPIA

Copyright © Andy Matura, 2000. All Rights Reserved

Andy Matura: the author was not quite 5 years old when his family bought their first television in the summer of 1950. In those early days, they frequently showed Laurel & Hardy in what they now call Prime Time. In the NY area, they never failed to show Babes In Toyland/The March of the Wooden Soldiers on both Thanksgiving and Christmas. As a lilttle boy with a new puppy, I roared at Stannie Dum's response to Ollie Dee's, "Why Stanley's so upset, he's not even going to the wedding. And you are upset, aren't you?' "Upset?!", replies Stan, "I'm HOUSEBROKEN!!" I loved them from the beginning and my essay is just a way of giving back some of the love they gave us. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was so right when, in his dedication to them in his book Slapstick, he referred to them as "...Two angels of (their) time."