Laurel and Hardy: The Battle of the Century
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Laurel and Hardy - The Battle of the Century |
| Original title | The Battle of the Century |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1927 |
| length | 20 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK o. A. |
| Rod | |
| Director | Clyde Bruckman |
| script |
HM Walker Hal Roach |
| production | Hal Roach |
| camera | George Stevens |
| cut | Richard C. Currier |
| occupation | |
| |
The Battle of the Century (Laurel and Hardy - The Battle of the Century, also known as All in whipped cream , OT: The Battle of the Century ) is a slapstick - short film with Laurel and Hardy . The silent film is no longer completely available today. Directed by Clyde Bruckman .
action
Stan and Oliver try to make big money in the boxing ring. Slender Stan competes as a canvasback clump against professional Thunderclap Callahan. At the beginning it looks good for Stan. The professional has problems with his gloves, but Stan cannot hit the right punch. By chance he gets his opponent on the ropes with one random blow. But Stan can't keep still and keeps interrupting the counting of the referee who wants to send him into the neutral corner. Stan does not understand this and gets into a tangible argument with the referee, so that the break bell finally ends the round. In the second round, Callahan struck Stan with a single blow. Oliver can't believe it and faints. When he comes to, Stan is relaxed in the ring.
The next day, an insurance agent sells Stan a high accident insurance. This scene is considered lost . To get the money quickly, Oliver lays out a banana peel for Stan several times. But instead of this, a cake dealer slips on it, who then takes revenge on Oliver by pressing a cake in his face. After that, a cake battle of unprecedented proportions develops in a short time . At the end, a policeman appears on the scene and asks whoever was behind the chaos. However, Stan and Ollie pretend to be ignorant until the policeman gets a cake in his face and then follows the two protagonists. This scene was also thought to be lost so far.
background
The short film was filmed from October 5th to 13th, 1927 and was edited by November 12th. The cake battle, a classic motif in slapstick films, especially from the 1910s, holds the record for the most cakes used in film history and thus made it into the Guinness Book of Records . A total of 3,000 cakes are said to have been used. It was the total daily production of a large bakery of Los Angeles .
Anita Garvin , who plays a woman who slips on a cake, shot her part during a break in the film Never the Dames Shall Meet , which was filmed at the same time.
Lou Costello , who later became famous as part of the comedian duo Abbott and Costello , has a brief extra role in the boxing scene.
Current status of the film
For a long time the film was considered lost, later only the version of the cake fight that had been cut together for the compilation film The Golden Age of Comedy survived, until the beginning of the film with the complete boxing match was finally found. The sale of the insurance policy by Eugene Pallette and parts of the cake fight including the final gag with the police officer have not been seen since 1928 . In June 2015, however, it became public that the complete second role of the film was discovered in the estate of the film collector Gordon Berkow, who died in 2004. According to the finder Jon Mirsalis, it begins with unknown gags (“ a whole set of gags ”), which then lead to the well-known, but now completely preserved, cake battle.
publication
In the summer of 1988 the film was brought to the cinemas again by the Stuttgart film distributor Kinowelt , supplemented by a few still photos. Today he is on the DVD Dick and Doof make a country tour together with Dick and Doof make a country tour , In one bed , The big business and Only available with laughing gas .
Reviews
Hellmuth Karasek described the film in the Spiegel in 1988 as "the greatest cream cake film of all time".
“An avalanche was artfully set in motion, an orgy of destruction, childish destructiveness and childishly uninhibited glee driven to extremes. The fact that innocents were repeatedly caught, the man with the open mouth on the dentist's chair, for example, turning them into furious comrades-in-arms, constantly increased the gigantic growing pleasure. (...) A cream cake battle, as masterfully structured and intensified as this calorie chain reaction (Henry Miller: "The greatest grotesque film that has ever been made") is nothing less than a senseless blast. All rules of exact timing are strictly followed. "
Web links
- Laurel and Hardy - The Battle of the Century in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ A b The Battle Of The Century. (No longer available online.) Another Nice Mess, formerly the original ; Retrieved April 16, 2014 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c Hellmuth Karasek : The desire to cut everything short and sweet . In: Der Spiegel . No. 33 , August 15, 1988, pp. 142 ( spiegel.de ).
- ↑ Dick and Doof - The Battle of the Century in the online film database
