Laurel and Hardy: Two rode into Texas

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Movie
German title Two rode into Texas
Original title Way out west
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1937
length 65 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director James W. Horne
script Jack Jeyne
Charley Rogers
Felix Adler
James Parrott
production Stan Laurel
Hal Roach
music Marvin Hatley
camera Kind of Lloyd
cut Bert Jordan
occupation

Zwei ritten nach Texas (Original title: Way Out West ) is a feature film by the famous comedian duo Laurel and Hardy from 1937. Laurel and Hardy can also be heard as singers. Many of the slapstick interludes parody clichés from western films .

Among other things, the film was nominated for an Oscar in the category of best film music. Way Out West was later often referred to as her favorite film by Laurel and Hardy.

content

Stan and Ollie are with the mule Else on their way to Brushwood Gulch, a town in Texas . Your mission, ie to a woman named Mary Roberts locate to her with a certificate that they after the death of her father in his will identifying them as heir of a gold mine. Ollie tries to flirt with the lady who is traveling with them in the city carriage, which causes problems for the two of them on arrival because she is the irascible sheriff's wife. He asks Stan and Ollie to leave town with the next carriage.

But the difficulties persist, because Stan clumsily chatters all the details of her assignment at the bar of the saloon . The greedy saloon owner Mickey Finn, Mary Roberts' guardian and employer, forges a sinister intrigue to get himself into possession of the valuable document. His wife Lola, the saloon singer, pretends to be Mary Roberts to Stan and Ollie, who then actually receives the certificate (along with a medallion that can only be removed from Ellie's neck with considerable difficulty). However, the two realize that they have been ripped off when they meet the real Mary. They then demand the certificate back, which leads to a wild slapstick fight for possession of the certificate, which Lola and her husband win. The rushed sheriff is no help either, but very angry that the two did not leave the city as ordered, and chases them away.

Nevertheless, they want to get the certificate back by all means, which finally culminates in a disastrous break-in for Mickey and Lola at midnight. One of the running gags of the film helps in the dark , as Stan often, and finally Ollie, uses her thumbs as lighters. In the end, despite many mishaps, the two manage to give Mary the certificate, and they travel with her back to the south (to Dixieland ). The last time Ollie got it in another running gag while crossing a ford, in which he sinks completely, although he chooses different paths.

background

The filming took place from August 31 to November 11, 1936, whereby it was not shot in Texas, but in California. The interior shots in Hal Roach Studios and the exterior shots in Santa Clarita Valley, among others, were made . The fictional village "Brushwood Gulch" was built about 55 kilometers from Los Angeles on the Monogram Ranch in Newhall , in the area of Placerita Canyon . Originally the script contained some scenes with Indians, but these were deleted later. With the film title Way Out West , the script parodies the title of the silent film drama Way Down East (1920) starring Lillian Gish . The fact that Stan shows his legs as a hitchhiker in a scene to attract the attention of the carriage is a parody of the comedy It Happened in One Night (1934): There the attractive Claudette Colbert does the same thing while hitchhiking , whereupon a car stops.

The role of Mary Roberts was initially to be played by Julie Bishop , who had played Laurel and Hardy's foundling in Das Mädel aus dem Böhmerwald the previous year . Eventually, however, the role was given to Rosina Lawrence, a regular actress in producer Hal Roach's films. The role of the sheriff experienced a change of actors during the filming, by replacing Tiny Sandford with Stanley Fields. In individual shots from behind, however, Sandford can be recognized as the sheriff.

One of the movie's comedic highlights is the scene in which Stan and Ollie sing the old 1913 western song The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine . After the second passage, Stan's voice suddenly turns into a bass , and then - after Ollie hit him with a hammer - becomes a high soprano voice . The singing scene arose spontaneously during a break in filming, when one of the Avalon Boys - they were a popular western band at the time and can also be seen in the film - was playing around on his guitar. All verses were recorded live, with the exception of the last, in which the mentioned gag occurs. The bass voice comes from Chill Wills , one of the Avalon Boys, who later became known as an actor; the soprano voice comes from Rosina Lawrence , who plays Mary Roberts. The text is as follows:

In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia,
On the trail of the lonesome pine
In the pale moonshine our hearts entwine,
Where she carved her name and I carved mine;
Oh, June, like the mountains I'm blue—
Like the pine I am lonesome for you,
In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia,
On the trail of the lonesome pine.

The film also includes the famous dance interlude Stans and Ollies just before they enter the saloon.

German versions

  • Walter Bluhm was cast as Stan Laurel for the first time for the German premiere on November 1, 1937 under the title Ritter ohne Furcht und Blame . Will Dohm took over Oliver Hardy. The German version was created in MGM's dubbing department, the book was written by Paul Mochmann and directed by Karl-Heinz Stroux. From October 1937 the film ran for months in Berlin. It was the last Laurel & Hardy film to be released in theaters in Germany by the end of the war.
  • For the re-performance on September 5, 1952, "Way Out West" got the title Dick and Doof in the wild west ; this version was created by the International Film Union . Eberhard Cronshagen wrote the book and directed the dialogue, while Catharina Gutjahr took care of the rough translation. Walter Bluhm was Stan Laurel's permanent German speaker and Ollie was voiced by Arno Paulsen . Mickey Finn's German voice belonged to Hans Timerding .
  • The third German dubbed version with the title Zwei ritten nach Texas , which was created on the occasion of a renewed performance on July 9, 1965, was created by Berliner Synchron . The script and dialogue direction were in the hands of Werner Schwier . Stan and Ollie were spoken to again by Bluhm and Paulsen. Alfred Balthoff spoke Mickey Finn, Agi Prandhoff could be heard as Lola. This version has been released on DVD.
  • Walter Bluhm spoke to Stan and Michael Habeck lent Ollie his voice in the fourth version, which was broadcast on May 12, 1976 under the title In the Far West in the ZDF series Laugh with Stan and Ollie . Leo Bardischewski spoke to Mickey Finn and Rose-Marie Kirstein gave Lola her voice. Wolfgang Schick , who directed the dialogue, largely took over the dialogue book for the third version by Werner Schwier. This version is also available on DVD.

Awards

At the Academy Awards in 1938 , Zwei ritten nach Texas was nominated for the Best Film Music category.

Reviews

The lexicon of international films judges the film to be “one of the best and most amusing feature films with Laurel and Hardy” , a “burlesque film classic, carefully staged and enriched with an abundance of gags”. Joe Hembus explains that the film follows the basic concept of all fun westerns in that it assigns heroes who are unsuitable for the western to a mission they are not up to. He belongs to "the best (...) that Laurel and Hardy have done." Rainer Dick explains : "Laurel & Hardy in Wild West: the pure-hearted fools who always want only the good, in an environment of meanness, machismo, harshness, Perfidy and addiction to profit ” , offered one “ of the most intelligent and poetic parodies of the genre ” Westerns, because “ striking action was dispensed with and instead the genre staff were caricatured ” , including the “ gruff [] [and trigger-happy] sheriff ” and the "Malicious [] host who appears to be in the world for no other reason than to bully and deceive others" .

swell

  • Laurel & Hardy. "Two rode to Texas". DVD 2005, production notes.
  • Norbert Aping: The Dick and Doof Book. The story of Laurel & Hardy in Germany. Digital attachments, file 15 (overview of Laurel and Hardy's German speakers) .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Norbert Aping: Das kleine Dick-und-Doof-Buch Schüren, Marburg 2014, p. 63
  2. ↑ a b c d Norbert Aping: Das kleine Dick-und-Doof-Buch Schüren, Marburg 2014, appendix p. 397ff.
  3. ↑ Laurel and Hardy: Two rode to Texas. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed January 21, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. ^ Joe Hembus: Western Lexicon - 1272 films from 1894-1975. Carl Hanser Verlag Munich Vienna 2nd edition 1977. ISBN 3-446-12189-7 . P. 733
  5. ↑ Rainer Dick: Knights without fear and reproach / Two rode to Texas / Dick & Doof in the Wild West / The withheld testament. In: Heinz-B. Heller, Matthias Steinle (ed.): Film genres. Comedy. Reclam, Stuttgart 2005 ( RUB ), ISBN 978-3-15-018407-3 , pp. 168-171, here 168f.