Topic: We Faw Down (1928) - Laurel and Hardy

[metaldams]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019556/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
http://www.lordheath.com/index.php?p=1_163_We-Faw-Down
http://www.laurelandhardycentral.com/fawdown.html

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NfgrYGVHICo

Watch WE FAW DOWN in the link above



      Another domestic comedy, the kind of somewhat serious look at marriage you'd never see in a Stooge short.  The characters in this one are not as fleshed out as they are in THEIR PURPLE MOMENT.  In that film, the wives are portrayed as lusting money, the boys as lusting the flesh, and you feel all the characters delightfully get their just deserts.  Here, the wives are simply characters who are lied to, and the boys have to expand on a lie because they are victims of circumstance.  I guess the wives would not have believed the truth. Truthfully, this comedy could have been done by any run of the mill silent comedian and this style usually is better suited to talkies.  Tons of domestic silent comedy shorts have been made with plots like this, and I'd normally rate them a five or six, but this gets elevated because of the actors involved.

      The joy of this short is simply watching the faces of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy and the way the try to explain to their wives where they've been.  Watching Stan crack up in laughter when he realizes their plight is lost and watching an embarrassed Oliver Hardy sheepishly sit down and do whatever finger gestures his nervous system can't control is a pure pleasure.  Oh, and speaking of faces, some of those close ups of Ollie's wife, played by Vivien Oakland, are also great. What an angry expression, I wouldn't piss her off if she were my wife.  Oh, and Stooge fans, the wife of Stan is played by Bess Flowers!

      The other thing about WE FAW DOWN is it kind of plays like a warm up for SONS OF THE DESERT, namely the already mentioned part where the boys have to explain where they are when unbeknownst to them, they've already been caught in a lie.  This kind of humor works better with sound and the more developed build up in the more famous feature, but like I said, those wonderful comic faces do make this enjoyable on its own.  Also want to throw in randomly the business with Stan and Kay Deslys at the kitchen table is a fun throwaway bit.  The tongue and eyebrows twitches give Stan a fun, otherworldly quality, and I like the way Ollie looks on as an amused audience member, just like us.

      One final thing, since this is a Stooge board.  The boys help a girl pick up a hat and get their clothes drenched in the process.  The girls, who are the girlfriends of gangsters, invite the boys to their apartment to change their clothes.  The gangsters catch the boys in the apartment.  Sounds like THREE LITTLE PIGSKINS.

8/10

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Good catch about Three Little Pigskins.

[Paul Pain]

Boooooo!  Just about the dumbest plot ever... 4/10

[Umbrella Sam]

The first part of this short is pretty bad. Laurel and Hardy's attempt to sneak past their wives seems painfully obvious considering that they are plotting directly within their views. To THEIR PURPLE MOMENT's credit, it did make it clear that the wife was hiding while Stan was putting away the money, so he had no way of knowing he was being watched. It also seems odd that the wives don't appear to buy the Orpheum story one bit, yet they get so concerned about their husbands when the Orpheum burns down.

The scene at the apartment mainly consists of Laurel and one of the women constantly messing with each other's hair and faces. It's not particularly funny at first and it continues to drag along. The only other thing of note during this is the brief chase after Laurel calls her fat, which goes to show how dragged out this particular scene is.

Thankfully, the second half of this short is somewhat good. Vivian Oakland's constantly angry face is really good and the boy's usage of charades as a way of explaining their story makes for a funny scene. It's a very good use of the silent medium and is definitely the highlight for me. That final shot of all the men jumping out the window is also noteworthy and was later used in BLOCK-HEADS. Still, the second half is not great and doesn't entirely make up for the weak first half.

Overall, describing this as a prototype version of SONS OF THE DESERT seems like a perfect fit. There are some really good ideas with this plot line, but it's flawed and bogged down by an incredibly boring first half. If anything, this is really just for Laurel and Hardy completionists.

5 out of 10

[HomokHarcos]

This one is pretty similar to Their Purple Moment, and also their later feature Sons of the Desert. The main difference here is that Stan and Ollie don't know the Orpheum has been destroyed, and probably just realize they are caught in a lie because the story is unrealistic. Stan and Ollie seem to not want to do anything with their wives and when they go out they end up with other women. I could see why they would be angry. As somebody who is into vaudeville, I did like the part when they were explaining the acts on the card.

Laurel and Hardy were great without sound, I could tell how they were feeling and what situation they were in just by looking at them.

[metaldams]

Just rewatched this one and was going to post my thoughts.  Then I realized every thought I just had I wrote seven years (!) ago.  Crazy how that works.  Occasionally I’ll write a review and years later not agree with it, but here - I stand by what I said.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

That's his story and he's stickin' to it

[NoahYoung]

I just watched this one again. This is not one of their shorts that I revisit very often because I was never that fond of it.

I do think this one would have worked better with sound, and is probably their only silent that seems to me like I'm watching a talkie that was adapted for theaters not yet equipped for sound, which was the case for a few of their early talkies. I know that this isn't true, however, but it was released with a music and effects disc.

This was the most disappointing silent short of theirs for me when I first saw it complete. For years, I had only seen the excerpts from one of the Youngson compilations -- THE GOLDEN AGE OF COMEDY. I believe I've mentioned this before on the forum, but Youngson's editing made it look like one of their very best. It is, however, just a 2 and a half minute clip. Starts with the boys leaving their house, they meet the girls, etc., they escape out the window, and the wives see them and immediately have their rifles, shoot, and we see the other cheating husbands jumping out the windows. It's a great condensation, and one viewing will convince you how dragged out the entire short actually is.

In many of their films, they try to outsmart their wives, but this short is usually singled out as the precursor to SONS OF THE DESERT. I imagine that is because of the disaster that the boys would have been caught in had they actually done what they had told their wives they were going to do. Other than that aspect, we can also point to THEIR PURPLE MOMENT, BLOTTO, and BE BIG as inspirations for SONS OF THE DESERT. Interestingly enough, the McCabe/Bann/Kilgore book states that THEIR PURPLE MOMENT was "reworked" as BLOTTO, but makes no mention of WE FAW DOWN being "reworked" as SONS OF THE DESERT.

I find it interesting that the boys are involved in a double-lie of sorts -- they tell their wives that they are going to the theater with their boss, but they are really going to a poker game. But instead of going to the poker game, they go to the girls' apartment. Then, once in the apartment, Ollie does enjoy what I assume is a bottle of beer, but is generally disinterested in either of the girls, while Stan just seems miserable altogether. It is implied that when they meet the girls they are still very close to home, so why not have just gone home to change their clothes instead of having a clandestine meeting with girls they aren't really interested in? Then throw in the fact that their wives are approximately 10x more attractive than these floozies -- well, there you have it!

All that aside, what should be the funniest scene -- in the girls' apartment -- sort of falls flat, though the business with Kay Deslys triggering Stan's eyebrows and tongue is quite good. The final scene, repeated in BLOCK-HEADS, is hilarious, and is funnier than any scene that precedes it.

The setup of the short, with Ollie pretending he is talking to his boss on the phone, is repeated in THEIR FIRST MISTAKE. Why in this film he actually calls his boss "boss" instead of something like "Mr. Jones" in the later film, has always left me scratching my head.

Now onto their wives, or should I say the actresses portraying their wives. As I was watching, I said to myself, "I think that's Bess Flowers," and I of course was right. Not that it was the first time I've seen this short, but in previous viewings I just never made the connection. As for Vivien Oakland, she was the perennial wife in numerous comedy shorts, having been married (fictionally) to Oliver Hardy, Charley Chase, Edgar Kennedy, Leon Errol, Richard Cramer, Andy Clyde, and many others. Sleek and very attractive in this short, she didn't age very well IMO, looking a bit drab by 1932 in SCRAM, a bit heavier and matronly in 1934's IN THE DOGHOUSE as Mrs. Andy Clyde, and totally having jumped the shark in 1937's WAY OUT WEST as the Sheriff's wife. She was born in 1895, and people in general during the first half of the 20th Century didn't seem to age very well, as today we have people like Christie Brinkley at 70 still looking stunning!

I've always felt that Oakland bore more than just a passing resemblance to the singer Peggy Lee, and via Wikipedia I've discovered that both are of Norwegian descent. I might be the only person left on the planet, however, that still knows who both Peggy Lee and Vivien Oakland are!

[metaldams]

Yes, definitely Bess Flowers!  I watched this one recently and she is quite attractive here - and you do make a good case for the relationship dynamic.  As far as acting goes, I did notice Ms. Oakland got way more to do and agreed the boys did seem disinterested while at the apartment in the first place.

This is actually a remake of the 1914 Mack Sennett/Swain short, AMBROSE’S FIRST FALSEHOOD (1914), so the seeds of the SONS OF THE DESERT story goes back even further.

[NoahYoung]

This is actually a remake of the 1914 Mack Sennett/Swain short, AMBROSE’S FIRST FALSEHOOD (1914), so the seeds of the SONS OF THE DESERT story goes back even further.

Wasn't just about every Leon Errol short of variation of the theme as well?
 

I guess the key is when there is some kind of disaster at the place the husband claims he's at.

My favorite theme for L&H is "L&H vs. the wives." I'd say that was true even when I was a small kid before I had any experience with marriage! I was so drawn to SONS OF THE DESERT at 9 years old that I was gifted a Blackhawk copy on Super 8  -- full-length in sound!

I forgot to include some other points ---

Many may know, though some may not, that the whole "pants mix-up" sequence from LIBERTY was conceived and filmed for WE FAW DOWN. It's not clear from the first edition of the Skretvedt book if all the footage we now see in LIBERTY was from WE FAW DOWN out-takes, or if some of it was re-filmed. It's strange that all involved at the Roach studio, including Laurel, felt that the footage left in WE FAWN DOWN should be left in, while the pants gag was jettisoned. Had they left the pants-gags in, they could have released it as a 3-reeler, or they could have eliminated most of the final scene, which I've always thought was fairly poor. I personally think that had it been left in that it would have been one of their more memorable silent shorts.

Regarding LIBERTY, it is famous for the skyscaper scene, and its reputation most likely would not have suffered had the pants gag been replaced with something else. Personally, I feel the skyscraper scene goes on a bit too long. I must admit that it was only after approx. 100 viewings that I started to get bored with the skyscaper scene. 

On youtube, someone has pieced together a 4-reeler that combines WE FAW DOWN with LIBERTY (minus the initial footage where it is established that they are convicts.) It's about 14 years old, and was actually something I myself had thought of doing, though my plan was to do it with 8mm film.  I actually have 2 copies of each short, so I might just do something similar one day if I'm bored. I wouldn't use the the skyscraper scene, however. My intent would be to create a "better" version of WE FAW DOWN as it was originally conceived -- which would make it a 3-reeler. Including the skyscraper scene makes no sense. The only reason to partially combine the two shorts is the fact that we know the pants-changing gag was supposed to have been in WE FAW DOWN.