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Two edited digests of Laurel & Hardy silent short The Finishing Touch from 1928.
Stan and Ollie are contracted by a homeowner to expedite the construction of his residence, with the promise of a $500 incentive for timely completion. Despite their earnest efforts, the duo encounters a series of mishaps, exacerbated by the interference of a nearby hospital's head nurse, who enlists a policeman to enforce noise regulations. The policeman inadvertently becomes the target of various misfortunes, including being struck by falling construction materials.
Upon completing the house, the homeowner initially expresses satisfaction and duly compensates Stan and Ollie. However, their triumph is short-lived when a minor incident involving a bird leads to the chimney's collapse, compromising the structural integrity of the entire dwelling. Infuriated, the homeowner demands the return of the $500 bonus. Stan and Ollie, unwilling to relinquish their earnings, engage in resourceful tactics to retain the disputed funds.
Version 1 Arrow Films 150ft B/W silent Colour Box called The Finishing Touch US version.
Version 2 Raising the Roof Collectors Club very full 200ft B/w silent reel UK version.
The Collector club version was bought recently with other titles. Initially, I thought it would be a duplicate of the Arrows film release just under a different name similar to Two Tars . However, on projecting the film it a much longer version and surprisingly a different edit of certain scenes in terms of footage used in the film. The subtitles are also different as well.
In terms of print quality both films are similar. Good to Very Good.
On researching The Finishing Touchon the web there are two different versions circulating around which have now been combined by Blackhawk for future Blu Ray release.
I presume this will follow on from their recent Year 1 1927 Blu Ray release last year.
Other interesting details in Wikipedia is that addition gags and storyline didn’t make the final footage.
They actually look l8ke good ideas from Stan. One of the best of he Boys silents alongside Big Business. Would have been great as a sound short.
I presume there is a 400ft Blackhawk out there and there could be a Collector Club 2x400 version.
Differing versions
Glenn Mitchell has noticed that The Finishing Touch is one of the few Laurel and Hardy silents with both British and American versions extant today. In the era when primitive film stocks did not permit many generations of copies to be made from a master, producers often set up multiple cameras when shooting so they would get more first-generation elements to work with — and those extra negatives often became foreign market prints. They would have slightly different angles and sometimes variations in action or cutting. Writes Mitchell: In The Finishing Touch, this is most obvious in the close-ups of the nurse, which in the British version are presented from a different perspective and with some dissimilar facial reactions to the American equivalent. An amendment in subtitling tells us that nine years of schooling took Laurel and Hardy to the 'First Reader' for American audiences, and the 'Infants' for the British.[1]
Today's American edition, he writes, originates from the Blackhawk Films master and combines footage from both films.
Script into film
L&H historian Randy Skretvedt unearthed the original action script for The Finishing Touch and discovered gags that were either unfilmed or unused in the finished picture. One gag finds Stan and Ollie in adjacent rooms: Ollie drives a nail in the wall to hang his coat on, but in the next room, the nail snags Stan's sleeve so he drives it back out. On his side of the wall, Ollie cannot figure why his coat is on the floor, but he has his suspicions; just as he steps into Stan's room to confront him, Stan has stepped into his through another door. The nail gets hammered back and forth, until it ultimately hits pay dirt — in the beleaguered hide of cop Kennedy.[2]
The script also provided additional backstory on how the duo came to be hired to work on the house to begin with: an unfilmed scene portrayed the original construction crew having the same difficulties with the same folks from the same nearby hospital and quitting in frustration. Another change from the script was definitely an improvement: by the time the cameras rolled, the stern male physician of the script had morphed into the petite but spicy nurse played by Dorothy Coburn. Her spirited domination of both The Boys and Kennedy is made all the funnier by her gender and small stature. She makes up in spunk what she lacks in body mass — Skretvedt calls her "the quintessential tough-cookie."[2]
The picture's finale also evolved between script and screen. In the final film, a dainty animated bird alights on the chimney, triggering a domino-effect collapse of the entire house. On the printed page, Stan himself was to be the catalyst for the implosion: he left his derby up on the roof and when he clambers up to get it, the catastrophic sequence commences. As different items tremble and fall, the homeowner takes back more of the money he has paid them, until he has taken all of it back.[2]
Stan and Ollie are contracted by a homeowner to expedite the construction of his residence, with the promise of a $500 incentive for timely completion. Despite their earnest efforts, the duo encounters a series of mishaps, exacerbated by the interference of a nearby hospital's head nurse, who enlists a policeman to enforce noise regulations. The policeman inadvertently becomes the target of various misfortunes, including being struck by falling construction materials.
Upon completing the house, the homeowner initially expresses satisfaction and duly compensates Stan and Ollie. However, their triumph is short-lived when a minor incident involving a bird leads to the chimney's collapse, compromising the structural integrity of the entire dwelling. Infuriated, the homeowner demands the return of the $500 bonus. Stan and Ollie, unwilling to relinquish their earnings, engage in resourceful tactics to retain the disputed funds.
Version 1 Arrow Films 150ft B/W silent Colour Box called The Finishing Touch US version.
Version 2 Raising the Roof Collectors Club very full 200ft B/w silent reel UK version.
The Collector club version was bought recently with other titles. Initially, I thought it would be a duplicate of the Arrows film release just under a different name similar to Two Tars . However, on projecting the film it a much longer version and surprisingly a different edit of certain scenes in terms of footage used in the film. The subtitles are also different as well.
In terms of print quality both films are similar. Good to Very Good.
On researching The Finishing Touchon the web there are two different versions circulating around which have now been combined by Blackhawk for future Blu Ray release.
I presume this will follow on from their recent Year 1 1927 Blu Ray release last year.
Other interesting details in Wikipedia is that addition gags and storyline didn’t make the final footage.
They actually look l8ke good ideas from Stan. One of the best of he Boys silents alongside Big Business. Would have been great as a sound short.
I presume there is a 400ft Blackhawk out there and there could be a Collector Club 2x400 version.
Differing versions
Glenn Mitchell has noticed that The Finishing Touch is one of the few Laurel and Hardy silents with both British and American versions extant today. In the era when primitive film stocks did not permit many generations of copies to be made from a master, producers often set up multiple cameras when shooting so they would get more first-generation elements to work with — and those extra negatives often became foreign market prints. They would have slightly different angles and sometimes variations in action or cutting. Writes Mitchell: In The Finishing Touch, this is most obvious in the close-ups of the nurse, which in the British version are presented from a different perspective and with some dissimilar facial reactions to the American equivalent. An amendment in subtitling tells us that nine years of schooling took Laurel and Hardy to the 'First Reader' for American audiences, and the 'Infants' for the British.[1]
Today's American edition, he writes, originates from the Blackhawk Films master and combines footage from both films.
Script into film
L&H historian Randy Skretvedt unearthed the original action script for The Finishing Touch and discovered gags that were either unfilmed or unused in the finished picture. One gag finds Stan and Ollie in adjacent rooms: Ollie drives a nail in the wall to hang his coat on, but in the next room, the nail snags Stan's sleeve so he drives it back out. On his side of the wall, Ollie cannot figure why his coat is on the floor, but he has his suspicions; just as he steps into Stan's room to confront him, Stan has stepped into his through another door. The nail gets hammered back and forth, until it ultimately hits pay dirt — in the beleaguered hide of cop Kennedy.[2]
The script also provided additional backstory on how the duo came to be hired to work on the house to begin with: an unfilmed scene portrayed the original construction crew having the same difficulties with the same folks from the same nearby hospital and quitting in frustration. Another change from the script was definitely an improvement: by the time the cameras rolled, the stern male physician of the script had morphed into the petite but spicy nurse played by Dorothy Coburn. Her spirited domination of both The Boys and Kennedy is made all the funnier by her gender and small stature. She makes up in spunk what she lacks in body mass — Skretvedt calls her "the quintessential tough-cookie."[2]
The picture's finale also evolved between script and screen. In the final film, a dainty animated bird alights on the chimney, triggering a domino-effect collapse of the entire house. On the printed page, Stan himself was to be the catalyst for the implosion: he left his derby up on the roof and when he clambers up to get it, the catastrophic sequence commences. As different items tremble and fall, the homeowner takes back more of the money he has paid them, until he has taken all of it back.[2]
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