8mm Forum: SON'S OF THE DESERT!!! (SUPER 8)

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Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on June 05, 2006, 12:08 PM:

I hope I do justice to this film, as I know that this is a beloved Laurel and hardy feature. This is my personal pick for the duo's best film, (I wasn't as impressed with Way out West), followed by Blockheads and then Way Out West.

One of the reasons for this assessment is that the pacing of this film is perfect. There is literally little or no "padding" in this feature, (needless musical numbers ect.), except for the case of the lady dancers at the convention. It's suprising that this film runs so quickly!

We begin with Laurel and Hardy late to thier Lodge meeting, the "Sons of the Desert," squeezing thier way past thier fellow lodge members to sit down. They are there long enough to hear of the coming yearly meeting to take place in california, (I believe). They are all asked to come and represent thier lodge, and they all take an oath to be there, (Stan takes it unwillingly, sobbing all the way).

In the car going home, Ollie asks Stan why he didn't want to take the oath. Stan is afraid that his wife wouldn't understand and let him go. Ollie then boastfully proclaims that HE'S the one who wears the pants in the family and his word goes!

They get home, (with Stan having problems getting into his apartment.) Stan is invited into Ollies house and proceeds to unwittingly eat the plastic fruit!

Ollie proves his manhood by sheepishly asking his wife is he can go to the convention. Nothing doing, as he was supposed to take his wife to the mountians!

Stan and Ollie then work up a scheme to get them to the convention, by Ollie faking an illness with hilarious results. The professional (horse) doctor exclaims that the only thing that will cure Ollie is a sea voyage, as the sea air will cure him. Well, he's not going alone and insists upon Stan going with him, like a good friend. Ollies wife agrees.

They head to the convention for a rollicking good time! One of the convetioneers (Charely Chase, in what I think is one of his best scenes in the sound era) boasts about making crank calls. he calls his sister, being silly. Ollie and Stan have boasted to him that they faked the illness to be there. While on the phone with his sister, the conventioneer invites Ollie to flirt with his sister on the phone. Little does Ollie know that it is his wife!!

While at the convention, the wives are at home, and Ollies wife is terrified to find out that the ship (that Stan and Ollie are supposedly on) has went down in a storm, and they are pulling survivers out of the water! Distraut, the wives go down to the docks and do not find Stan or Ollie on the survivors list!!

They then go to the movies to calm down and see, up on the big a newsreel, concerning the Sons of the Desert convention, and who do they happen to see in the parade? Why Stan and Ollie, making a nuisciance of themselves! In fact even flirting with ladies while in the parade. Needless to say, they are blowing thier top!!! They talk with each other and Stan's wife says, "My Stanley could never lie to me!"

Unbeknownst to them. Ollie and Stan come back home, (pineapples in hand) and this gives us a wonderful rendition of "Honolulu baby" with Ollie on ukelele and Stan happily dancing with the pineapples. No ones home at the moment.

Confused, they go into Ollies apartment, only to find the paper article that they went down with the ship. They hurriedly go into the attic, as the wives have come home. The wives think that there are burglers in the attis, and so Stan's wife gets her gun. Trapped, they decide to go to sleep on the roof, with disastrous results.

They go up on the roof, and Stan is ready to confess, but Ollie says, "If you do, and tell your wife your smoking"

Stan (crying) You'd do that.
Ollie "I certianly would!"

It's raining in buckets and they try to shimmy down the drainpipe, much to a cops lack of amusement.

They are trapped! They humbly go to Ollies apartment. They sit on the couch and ollie gives them his outlandish excuse for how they made it out alive. After this fish story. Stan's wife looks straight into Stanly eyes and asks:

"Is that what really happened?"

Stan looks over at ollie, who's threatening to tell about his smoking.

It does no good.

Stan completely tells all, much to Ollies annoyance. Stan's wife tells Stan to go back to thier apartment, gun in hand. Stan cries more profusely.

What follows is one of the greatest lead up to disaster. Ollie tries to calm down his wife with cute little sayings.

She's REALLY PISSED!!!!

She starts stacking up all the pots and pans, ALL OF THEM.
Ollie asks her something, (forgot what he said). This makes her run all through the house finding more things to throw.

We now cut to Stan, WHO IS BEING PAMPERED for telling the truth, and his wife even lets him smoke! We then hear a terrible smashing coming from Ollies apartment, with Ollie crying for dear life, (making the walls even shake!)

We see Ollie, with a pot on his head, still being hit with stuff. he now has a black eye as well.

Stan comes in. Ollie asks, "How did it go?"

Stan ; She said honestly is the best policy," and to show up Ollie, he takes a happy puff on his cigarette. He then begins to strust out the door singing "Honolulu Baby" before getting a dish thrown at the back of his head. Fade out for credits!

This an absolutely hilarious L&H and the team are in excellent form. The wives are excellent as well! This is one time where the Super 8 is definitely preferrable over even the DVD, as the copy for the DVD was taken from a somewhat inferior print, (looking like a slightly cloudy 16MM), and not only this, it has inappropriate fadeouts, (as this was a TV print of the film), which means that you are losing little snippets of scenes through out. The sound, however, is excellent on the DVD and you may want to re-record your soundtrack on your super 8 with most of this DVD print, (I suggest the mock Stereo setting if you have a surround sound unit, as it does sound excellent when played back on a stereo super 8 unit.)

The super 8 print is excellent. As with nearly all Blackhawks, the gain is more than acceptable. The sharpness is fine! As a super 8 collector, one doesn't expect the pristine 35MM look that you sometimes find on L&H DVD and laserdiscs, but that's not why we collect it anyway, eh?

The lads are in top form, which would, of-course, last thru-out thier Hal Roach stay, all the way thru thier last feature for Hal Roach (Blockheads 1938), and this was earlier in thier feature career, (1933), we still have the not so aged Stan and Ollie, but young or old, they are always watchable.

I have not seen any of the prints of Sons of the Desert that were manufactured overseas, so I would love to hear of the quality of those prints.

Long live Super 8!!!

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on June 05, 2006, 09:46 PM:

Wonderful, wonderful! [Smile]

A fun review to read... I have the movie on super-8 myself (same with Way Out West) but haven't actually watched it yet - since I bought it! Well, I'm going to have to soon, don't I [Smile]

Again, that was a great review... thanks for sharing [Smile]

Posted by Andrew Wilson (Member # 538) on June 06, 2006, 10:41 AM:

once again osi,a great review of the definative l&h feature.andy.

Posted by Michael De Angelis (Member # 91) on June 06, 2006, 07:11 PM:

Osi,

That was a fine job.

According to Stan, the Exhausted ruler
said that no one has ever broken
the oath, and "expect all members to
meet the situation, with determination."

"There must not be any weaklings in our midst.
The weak must be helped by the strong!"
(Ollie gives Stan a look of his stature of friendship)
.....This the oldest lodge in the great order of
"The Sons of the Desert must be represented
100 percent in our annual convention in
Chicago next week!"
".....Prepare to take the oath, an oath once taken
has not been broken by any man down through
the centuries of time."

Well the pressure makes Stan crack, and he sits down.
Everyone is aghast, and Ollie Helps him to his feet.
Then they sing:
We are the Sons of the Des- ert,
Hav-ing the time of our lives........
-Marchin' along,-
-2,000 strong,-
Far from our sweet-hearts and our wives,
Goddddd, - Blesssssss, -Themmm,

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp,
The boys are Marching,
....and da-nc-ing to this mel-o-dy.
-(mystical arabian beat)-
hmmm, hmmmm, hmm, hmm
hmm, hmmum hm, hmm, him,
-Sons of, -the Desert, -are - we.

Indeed, this is a fun picture and I could also
go on forever.

But as Stan mentioned
...Honesty is the best politics!

Stan's excuse to his wife:
... they ship-hiked to get home.

The Film Classics negs that Blackhawk
used were satisfactory.

My only issue, was that some prints from batches
were sharp, but the contrast was gray.
Others were rich in contrast, but the image
was slightly soft.

As you already realize,this was released
in England as Fraternally Yours.

I have only seen one English 16mm print
on eBay of the British release.

Michael

Posted by Mal Brake (Member # 14) on June 07, 2006, 01:33 PM:

This is my favourite L&H feature,just watched it a couple of hours ago.
Osi, Ollie sends his wife into destruction mode by suggesting "they go to the mountains" which is what the good lady wanted in the first instance.
Mal

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on June 07, 2006, 04:36 PM:

Hah!! I had forgotten about that! Thanks Mal Drake.

I think the difference in the prints on this feature was due to Blackhawk changing film labs somewhere along the line (I don't remember the exact year.

From what I understand, the prints from thier original labs were better than the later prints.

All the best!!

and

Fraternally yours!

Posted by Joe Caruso (Member # 11) on June 08, 2006, 02:01 PM:

Mike, please answer me soon - Fraternally, Shorty

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