Topic: The Bohemian Girl (1936) - Laurel and Hardy

[metaldams]

http://www.laurelandhardycentral.com/bohemian.html
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      THE BOHEMIAN GIRL would be the third and final operettta Laurel and Hardy would make.  In addition to being a major step up from previous feature BONNIE SCOTLAND, it is the operetta that feels the most like a Laurel and Hardy film.  Sure, there are musical numbers that don't involve the boys, but they tend to go by pretty fast and there are a lot of comedy routines to cherish.  The plot that is in the film very heavily integrates Laurel and Hardy, no case like in BONNIE SCOTLAND where the leading lady never gets to meet them, in film AND reality.  I can't say it's my favorite or least favorite of the operettas, I enjoy them all for different reasons, but again, certainly the most Laurel and Hardy like.  It also bears mentioning the laurelandhardycentral.com guys did a wonderful job discussing this one and since I thought of on my own and agree with a lot of their points, you will hear plenty of repeats out of me.

      I will address one bit of tragedy in stating this would be Thelma Todd's last film.  We've discussed a lot of her work with Laurel and Hardy, The Marx Brothers and Buster Keaton.  Looking at the schedule of films ahead, this may be the last time we discuss her.  She passed away a few weeks after filming wrapped up and had her scenes severely cut so her tragedy, fresh in the public's mind, would not overtake the film.  All we have left is her, as a brunette, doing a musical number in the beginning of the film.  Really a sad way to go but in her short life she left a heck of a lot of good comedy roles.  A talented lady for sure and if we ever meet someday, I hope she vamps me like she did all the other comic legends she worked with.

      From a character point of view, this one is interesting.  Oliver Hardy in the first half plays child like innocent more than any other occasion I can think of.  Mrs. Hardy, played by Mae Busch - yay! - cheats on Ollie right in front of him and he's too naive to realize it.  At another point, she hands Oliver a child, played by Darla Hood of Our Gang and Campbell's Soup fame, tells him it's his daughter and he accepts the news with joy.  If my wife or any woman were to hand me a child, I would question it first, wonder who the mother is, and raise Hell.  Ollie just accepts it like it's nothing, gotta wonder if his marriage was consummated.  Incredibly innocent.

      Then there is the pickpocket scene.  On surface, Stan and Ollie don't usually play so unlikeable a profession, but considering they're gypsies and the theft is established as a way of life for all of them in the film, I get the sense they're just following the culture they live in rather than stealing out of any malice.  Still, notice how crafty Stan is in this scene.  He is confident and competent in a way you rarely see Stan and the way he bails Ollie out of trouble and gets the police officer (played by James C. Morton!) to get the guy being robbed to appear as the robber is brilliant.  Fantastic scene overall and also dig the little gestures Stan and Ollie make to each other as they are sneaking around the town (which is built wonderfully, great set designs in this film), they really were great actors.

      The other hysterical scene is Stan trying to save the wine from guzzling out into the room so he guzzles it into himself, getting sloppy drunk in the process.  A pure masterpiece of a performance, I was doing a lot of laughing here.  The way his drunkenness progresses really showagain what a fine actor he was.

      I also want to bring up the father identifying the long missing and now grown daughter (played by Jacquline Wells from ANY OLD PORT and THE BLACK CAT) by the jewlery and tattoo on her shoulder.  Charlie Chaplin used a similar device in THE VAGABOND (1916).  There the leading lady was also taken away from her noble childhood to a band of gypsies and the mother recognized the grown daughter years later by a birthmark.  I have no idea if this device shows up in the original operetta and perhaps inspired Chaplin or if it is not in the operetta and Chaplin was the inspiration, but again, similar plot devices.

      Other honorable mentions go to James Finlayson getting an eye poke and complaining his good eye got hit and the great sight gag of an ending of a stretched and tall Ollie and a squashed and small Stan.  The great camera angle of Ollie looking down on Stan says it all.  A really fun film, nice production values, the music doesn't overstay it's welcome and is pleasant in the dosage we get and there's a of comedy where the comics are in the story.  What a concept!  Thumbs up.
     

[Tony Bensley]

THE BOHEMIAN GIRL (1936) was actually the first of the Laurel and Hardy featured operettas that I got to see, in the summer of 1976 when I was 12.  My debut viewings of BABES IN TOYLAND (In December, 1984), and THE DEVIL'S BROTHER (As BOGUS BANDITS in 1997), both came much later.

I do agree that all three L&H featured operettas are very good in different aspects, and TBG is the most L&H like of the three. It might be fun to view them consecutively some time! 

CHEERS! 

[Umbrella Sam]

This film has grown on me quite a bit. I wasn’t particularly fond of it at first and I still think it has a few problems, but looking back it does indeed feel the most Laurel and Hardy like of all the operettas and I prefer it to FRA DIAVOLO.

Let’s start with the problems. From a story perspective, this is paced pretty weird, and I’m led to believe that Thelma Todd’s death may have had something to do with it, even though from what I’ve heard it really didn’t. This film is heavily focused on backstory. Jacqueline Wells doesn’t even appear until 2/3 of the way in.

I’m also not fond of the ending gag. If there’s one thing I think Roach was right about when it came to editing these films, it was getting rid of Stan’s cartoon-like endings. I’m fine with these in the shorts, but in a more serious feature like this, it just leaves a bad taste to see Laurel and Hardy’s characters live the rest of their days suffering from the trauma of a torture chamber.

Like John Brennan at Laurel and Hardy Central, I also quite like “I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls,” so that already makes the music better than FRA DIAVOLO, and it also has the benefit of cutaways to Stan during the song. Also, yes, it is refreshing after BONNIE SCOTLAND to again see Laurel and Hardy actually interact with the leading lady, though again, I do have to wonder if Todd’s death explains why they didn’t interact with many of the other gypsies.

It’s weird how competent Stan comes across early on in the film, especially with the pickpocket scenes, but surprisingly it still does work quite well. He still has the mannerisms and still does them just as well as he did anywhere else.

It is also surprisingly funny just how mean Mae Busch’s character is here. Busch generally played Mrs. Hardy as someone who could be mean, but deep down did seem to actually care about her husband. Here, she’s just stone cold, to the point where she’s willing to kiss another man in front of him. I think the fact that this is so atypical for Busch is what makes it so funny, even though I do prefer her other portrayals.

Like metaldams mentioned, the other big comedy scene is the one with Stan and the wine, another one of those scenes with just him that you wouldn’t think would work, but Stan somehow made it work.

I do think THE BOHEMIAN GIRL is better than its reputation. Yeah, there’s some pacing problems, but I do still think the characters are interesting and the supporting cast do well playing them. Plus, we even get James Finlayson in one of his better roles as the guard. Not BABES IN TOYLAND, but still an interesting film on its own.

9 out of 10

[Freddie Sanborn]

Chiming in late on this because I just watched it yesterday. Agree that it’s a fine comedy and in the upper half of the L&H feature film canon.

There is an overtone of sadness that I can’t entirely attribute to Thelma Todd’s death. Never before have we seen Ollie so entirely stripped of his dignity. Mae Busch doesn’t even bother to hide her cuckolding and her parting, “and she’s not your child!” moves the film into “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe” territory. Finally, while I know these are comic book Gypsies, the persecution they endure mirrors the real-life genocide that would begin just a few years after filming.

But both Laurel & Hardy are at the peak of their comedic powers here and Hardy is still a year away from the weight gain that would obscure his boyish facial expressions. Every L&H bit is a gem and the scene were they’re sitting at a table and Stan confounds Ollie with a simple finger game shows that all you needed for great comedy were Laurel, Hardy, a good premise and a camera setup.

[Dr. Mabuse]

A dour comic opera with few L&H highlights. What worked so beautifully in "Fra Diavolo" falls flat this time around. The Stan and Ollie characters remain submerged in the operetta's unrelenting heaviness. Thelma Todd's severely truncated final role didn't help matters.

6/10

[HomokHarcos]

This felt like a Laurel and Hardy movie where they were the heroes. It's sad that Thelma's scenes were cut, she was supposed to be involved with the storyline. I assume that it was because Roach didn't want people to think about the scandal. Unfortunately, we are left with only one scene of her. Mae is nastier than ever here, and doesn't seem to care. It's funny that Ollie founds out he has a child and thinks nothing of it, he just wants to raise it. Darla is more memorable than the older version. The drunk scene is awesome when Stan has to drink it all, and it was nice to see Finlayson show up a villain.

[Tony Bensley]

This felt like a Laurel and Hardy movie where they were the heroes. It's sad that Thelma's scenes were cut, she was supposed to be involved with the storyline. I assume that it was because Roach didn't want people to think about the scandal. Unfortunately, we are left with only one scene of her. Mae is nastier than ever here, and doesn't seem to care. It's funny that Ollie founds out he has a child and thinks nothing of it, he just wants to raise it. Darla is more memorable than the older version. The drunk scene is awesome when Stan has to drink it all, and it was nice to see Finlayson show up a villain.

Mae Busch's nastiest and also final Laurel & Hardy film appearance!

CHEERS! 

[NoahYoung]

THE BOHEMIAN GIRL (1936) was actually the first of the Laurel and Hardy featured operettas that I got to see, in the summer of 1976 when I was 12.  My debut viewings of BABES IN TOYLAND (In December, 1984), and THE DEVIL'S BROTHER (As BOGUS BANDITS in 1997), both came much later.

I do agree that all three L&H featured operettas are very good in different aspects, and TBG is the most L&H like of the three. It might be fun to view them consecutively some time! 

CHEERS! 

Didn't see BABES until 1984? I'm curious in what part of the country you lived, because in the NY/NJ area, it is still shown on TV at least once a year, and has been since the early 70s, and perhaps earlier than that.

[NoahYoung]

THE BOHEMIAN GIRL is a frustrating film for me, since it contains one of my favorites series of scenes in all of Laurel and Hardy -- the pickpocket scene followed by the scene at the tavern where they play "fingers" in order to divvy up their loot. This could stand on it's own as a nice two-reeler, and it almost was as GYP THE GYPSY, the TV cutdown done by Regal Films. They left out the scene at the tavern, however, and included some scenes before and after that.

The other great scene is Stan getting drunk on the wine, although it is derivative of a similar scene in FRA DIAVOLO. The boys were certainly not averse to reusing material, but repeating it in another operetta is questionable. You do need to keep in mind that audiences back in the 30s, however, were not overly-familiar with every L&H routine via numerous viewings as we are today. So to many audiences, the scene probably seemed fresh.

I'm not very fond of the rest of the film, though the scenes I just described are enough to make the film worth seeing, especially in an age where it is extremely easy to view these pictures for free!

https://archive.org/details/swiss-miss-1938/THE_BOHEMIAN_GIRL+(1936).avi

Of their 3 operetta spoofs, this is the weakest. It also has the least memorable score of the 3, though "I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls" is excellent and probably more familiar to modern audiences than any of the music in their other 2 operettas. Keep in mind that when the competition is FRA DIAVOLO and BABES IN TOYLAND, it is tough to beat them.

Mae Busch is wasted in this film. As others have pointed out, she is much more mean-spirited than usual here, and the idea of her cuckolding Ollie is a rather odd plot device for a comedy team whose audience had a large percentage of children. I didn't like the fact that they wrote Ollie's character to be so child-like in his reaction; to me they made him look like a buffoon.

The rest of the plot is ridiculous too -- when Arline is kidnapped, she is old enough to realize it, so why doesn't she put up a fuss? She knows who her real father is, but somehow accepts that it is now Ollie since Mae Busch told her so. In the original opera (not operetta), she is kidnapped as an infant, which makes more sense, but then they couldn't have used Darla Hood! (There is a difference between an opera and an operetta, if you google it. I always refer to the L&Hs as operettas, since that is what William K. Everson called them in THE FILMS OF LAUREL AND HARDY. He also refers to them as "operatic" spoofs and lampoons. https://www.eno.org/discover-opera/beginners-guide-operetta/)

The original opera plot is loosely based on a Miguel de Cervantes' tale, "La gitanilla" ("The Little Gypsy Girl").  I noticed that it is contained in a book on my shelf titled CERVANTES: SIX EXEMPLARY NOVELS. Here it is titled "The Gipsy Maid", since that's how it was decided to be translated in "Barron's Educational Series" in 1961. I might have read the story before, since the book is from a course I took in college (long after 1961, I might add!). That being said, I wish I had a nickel for every book I was supposed to read in college but didn't! (I was an engineer; this was from one of the "non-technical elective" courses I had to take every semester.  ) It's funny, but as I was watching this the other night, I was getting a Cervantes-like feel during the pickpocket scene. I just might finally read the story -- it's only 71 pages.

When Arline grows older, she would surely recognize the castle where she was born and spent her early years, yet she doesn't. I'm totally confused by all this -- did Mae Busch slip her a Mickey that erased her memory?

We are supposed to have some empathy for Count Arnheim when is daughter is kidnapped, even though he callously had Antonio Moreno whipped for trespassing. (I guess this was allowed in the time in history that this film takes place -- whenever that is.) Any empathy we still might have is totally erased when he has Stan and Ollie sent to a torture chamber!

I see there is a silent(!) version of this operetta on archive.org. I don't have the patience to sit through it and compare.

Finlayson shows up way too late in the film to make much of a mark, though what little he is given to do is funny. I would have preferred that he was one of the people that the boys had pickpocketed, rather than the guy who calls Ollie a "scurvy knave." Doh!!!

BTW, Thelma Todd looks great at the end of her song, when she is walking away from us, if you get my drift!
 

Does anyone know who dubbed the singing for Thelma? Randy's book doesn't say.

[Tony Bensley]

BTW, Thelma Todd looks great at the end of her song, when she is walking away from us, if you get my drift!
 

Does anyone know who dubbed the singing for Thelma? Randy's book doesn't say.

Any online references note that Thelma Todd sings "Heart of a Gypsy," which I take it to be Thelma wasn't dubbed.

CHEERS! 

[NoahYoung]

Any online references note that Thelma Todd sings "Heart of a Gypsy," which I take it to be Thelma wasn't dubbed.

CHEERS! 

Glenn Mitchell's LAUREL & HARDY ENCYCLOPEDIA says she was dubbed, but does not identify who actually sang.

I found a clip of her singing in another film -- she didn't have a good voice, IMO. She had a good everything else, though!

[Tony Bensley]

Glenn Mitchell's LAUREL & HARDY ENCYCLOPEDIA says she was dubbed, but does not identify who actually sang.

I found a clip of her singing in another film -- she didn't have a good voice, IMO. She had a good everything else, though!

Oh, I don't doubt Thelma Todd was dubbed. I should have said the online descriptions seemed to imply Thelma wasn't dubbed, as they credit her with the singing. Poor wording, on my part! I do find it a bit curious that we know Jacqueline Wells' "I Dreamt I Dwelt In Marble Halls" was dubbed by Rosina Lawrence, but not so much as crumbs regarding who did the dub job for Thelma Todd? Weird. She did have a good everything else, for sure!

Maybe I'll play THE BOHEMIAN GIRL (1936) DVD, or at least seek out a clip of Thelma's scene on YouTube and see whether I can discern who might have provided Thelma Todd's "singing" voice?

CHEERS!

EDIT: Maybe it's just me, but I played Thelma singing on a YouTube posting of the movie, and it just sounded kind of weird! I've recently been diagnosed with some hearing loss on the top end, but I don't think it's THAT bad! (At least, I hope not, LOL!)

OK, I switched from the Blackhawk transfer to a different, better sounding one! Still can't tell who dubbed Thelma Todd, though! 

[Freddie Sanborn]

Noah, do you consider Swiss Miss to be a fourth operetta, even tho it isn’t derived from a classic work?

THE BOHEMIAN GIRL is a frustrating film for me, since it contains one of my favorites series of scenes in all of Laurel and Hardy -- the pickpocket scene followed by the scene at the tavern where they play "fingers" in order to divvy up their loot. This could stand on it's own as a nice two-reeler, and it almost was as GYP THE GYPSY, the TV cutdown done by Regal Films. They left out the scene at the tavern, however, and included some scenes before and after that.

The other great scene is Stan getting drunk on the wine, although it is derivative of a similar scene in FRA DIAVOLO. The boys were certainly not averse to reusing material, but repeating it in another operetta is questionable. You do need to keep in mind that audiences back in the 30s, however, were not overly-familiar with every L&H routine via numerous viewings as we are today. So to many audiences, the scene probably seemed fresh.

I'm not very fond of the rest of the film, though the scenes I just described are enough to make the film worth seeing, especially in an age where it is extremely easy to view these pictures for free!

https://archive.org/details/swiss-miss-1938/THE_BOHEMIAN_GIRL+(1936).avi

Of their 3 operetta spoofs, this is the weakest. It also has the least memorable score of the 3, though "I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls" is excellent and probably more familiar to modern audiences than any of the music in their other 2 operettas. Keep in mind that when the competition is FRA DIAVOLO and BABES IN TOYLAND, it is tough to beat them.

Mae Busch is wasted in this film. As others have pointed out, she is much more mean-spirited than usual here, and the idea of her cuckolding Ollie is a rather odd plot device for a comedy team whose audience had a large percentage of children. I didn't like the fact that they wrote Ollie's character to be so child-like in his reaction; to me they made him look like a buffoon.

The rest of the plot is ridiculous too -- when Arline is kidnapped, she is old enough to realize it, so why doesn't she put up a fuss? She knows who her real father is, but somehow accepts that it is now Ollie since Mae Busch told her so. In the original opera (not operetta), she is kidnapped as an infant, which makes more sense, but then they couldn't have used Darla Hood! (There is a difference between an opera and an operetta, if you google it. I always refer to the L&Hs as operettas, since that is what William K. Everson called them in THE FILMS OF LAUREL AND HARDY. He also refers to them as "operatic" spoofs and lampoons. https://www.eno.org/discover-opera/beginners-guide-operetta/)

The original opera plot is loosely based on a Miguel de Cervantes' tale, "La gitanilla" ("The Little Gypsy Girl").  I noticed that it is contained in a book on my shelf titled CERVANTES: SIX EXEMPLARY NOVELS. Here it is titled "The Gipsy Maid", since that's how it was decided to be translated in "Barron's Educational Series" in 1961. I might have read the story before, since the book is from a course I took in college (long after 1961, I might add!). That being said, I wish I had a nickel for every book I was supposed to read in college but didn't! (I was an engineer; this was from one of the "non-technical elective" courses I had to take every semester.  ) It's funny, but as I was watching this the other night, I was getting a Cervantes-like feel during the pickpocket scene. I just might finally read the story -- it's only 71 pages.

When Arline grows older, she would surely recognize the castle where she was born and spent her early years, yet she doesn't. I'm totally confused by all this -- did Mae Busch slip her a Mickey that erased her memory?

We are supposed to have some empathy for Count Arnheim when is daughter is kidnapped, even though he callously had Antonio Moreno whipped for trespassing. (I guess this was allowed in the time in history that this film takes place -- whenever that is.) Any empathy we still might have is totally erased when he has Stan and Ollie sent to a torture chamber!

I see there is a silent(!) version of this operetta on archive.org. I don't have the patience to sit through it and compare.

Finlayson shows up way too late in the film to make much of a mark, though what little he is given to do is funny. I would have preferred that he was one of the people that the boys had pickpocketed, rather than the guy who calls Ollie a "scurvy knave." Doh!!!

BTW, Thelma Todd looks great at the end of her song, when she is walking away from us, if you get my drift!
 

Does anyone know who dubbed the singing for Thelma? Randy's book doesn't say.

[NoahYoung]

Oh, I don't doubt Thelma Todd was dubbed. I should have said the online descriptions seemed to imply Thelma wasn't dubbed, as they credit her with the singing. Poor wording, on my part! I do find it a bit curious that we know Jacqueline Wells' "I Dreamt I Dwelt In Marble Halls" was dubbed by Rosina Lawrence, but not so much as crumbs regarding who did the dub job for Thelma Todd? Weird. She did have a good everything else, for sure!

Maybe I'll play THE BOHEMIAN GIRL (1936) DVD, or at least seek out a clip of Thelma's scene on YouTube and see whether I can discern who might have provided Thelma Todd's "singing" voice?

CHEERS!

EDIT: Maybe it's just me, but I played Thelma singing on a YouTube posting of the movie, and it just sounded kind of weird! I've recently been diagnosed with some hearing loss on the top end, but I don't think it's THAT bad! (At least, I hope not, LOL!)

OK, I switched from the Blackhawk transfer to a different, better sounding one! Still can't tell who dubbed Thelma Todd, though! 

The bad sounding clip of Thelma singing I was referring to was actually Thelma singing, but not from THE BOHEMIAN GIRL:

Whoever dubbed her on THE BOHEMIAN GIRL had a good voice. Glenn Mitchell says that the reason she was dubbed had nothing to do with her death.

Charlie Hall actually dubbed the voice of someone congratulating Ollie when he introduced Arline as his daughter. I've never noticed it, but the McCabe/Bann/Kilgore book claimed it. The only reason I can think of is that there was an issue when recording and they needed someone quick to loop the dialog.

[NoahYoung]

Noah, do you consider Swiss Miss to be a fourth operetta, even tho it isn’t derived from a classic work?

I actually addressed that here: https://threestooges.net/forums/index.php/topic,6469.msg64742.html#msg64742

SWISS MISS is usually grouped with L&H's 3 operetta spoofs, although it is not an operetta. In the film, however, King's character is actually trying to compose an operetta. It seems as though Roach was also trying to produce another operetta spoof without having to acquire the rights to one.

Although I do like the operetta spoof as a theme for L&H, I question the choice of THE BOHEMIAN GIRL, or at least the way they translated it for the boys. From what I've read, the operettas were Roach's idea, and Stan felt that they should make comedies where Stan and Ollie carry the plot -- hence the next 2 films were OUR RELATIONS and WAY OUT WEST,  which were "Stan Laurel Productions." They followed those 2 films by SWISS MISS. So it was like a "you do some pictures your way, and I'll do some mine" compromise between Roach and Laurel. Hardy just played golf and showed up to film the movies when the Roach/Laurel fights were over -- or so he thought! I don't think that it is a coincidence that the 2 biggest documented arguments Roach and Laurel had were on BABES IN TOYLAND and SWISS MISS.

I'm not an expert on operettas or operas -- I've only attended one opera in my life. My limited knowledge comes from L&H and the Marx Brothers! Nevertheless, I don't think we can call SWISS MISS an operetta, since that would be an insult to all the other operettas that were produced on stage and elsewhere.

Of the 3 operetta spoofs, the only singing done by the boys is in FRA DIAVOLO, one by Stan, and one by Ollie, and each is a snippet where they are mimicking a song we've previously heard, but sung by someone else. This is a shame, since Babe had a nice singing voice (c.f. WAY OUT WEST and PARDON US.) I don't count THE BOHEMIAN GIRL, since Stan's voice is dubbed for comic effect. I mean, if you're going to make an operetta, why not have the stars of the picture sing???

If I had my druthers, I would have put L&H in a musical/comedy using what had become the popular music of the day:  Swing. The Swing age is generally accepted to be from about 1936 to 1945, although it obviously existed before and after those years.  The Stooges were in THE SWING PARADE OF 1946. So rather than the abysmal music given to us in SWISS MISS, why not pair Benny Goodman with the boys? Or Count Basie? Or Duke Ellington? Univeral only managed to get Ted Lewis for HOLD THAT GHOST. Who the heck llikes Ted Lewis -- then or now? I'm not even sure it was Swing -- certainly not the drivel he played in HOLD THAT GHOST!

[Tony Bensley]

The bad sounding clip of Thelma singing I was referring to was actually Thelma singing, but not from THE BOHEMIAN GIRL:

Whoever dubbed her on THE BOHEMIAN GIRL had a good voice. Glenn Mitchell says that the reason she was dubbed had nothing to do with her death.

Charlie Hall actually dubbed the voice of someone congratulating Ollie when he introduced Arline as his daughter. I've never noticed it, but the McCabe/Bann/Kilgore book claimed it. The only reason I can think of is that there was an issue when recording and they needed someone quick to loop the dialog.

Thelma's singing voice was certainly nothing to write home about, at least based on her above performance. The Butterfly costume also seems a bit ill advised, in my opinion.

It would definitely be nice to know who provided Thelma' Todd's "singing" voice (It obviously wasn't Rosina Lawrence, as her voice was higher pitched!) in THE BOHEMIAN GIRL (1936). How many female singers were under contract to Roach in mid to late 1935, and who were they?

CHEERS!

[NoahYoung]

Thelma's singing voice was certainly nothing to write home about, at least based on her above performance. The Butterfly costume also seems a bit ill advised, in my opinion.

It would definitely be nice to know who provided Thelma' Todd's "singing" voice (It obviously wasn't Rosina Lawrence, as her voice was higher pitched!) in THE BOHEMIAN GIRL (1936). How many female singers were under contract to Roach in mid to late 1935, and who were they?

CHEERS!

I had no idea Thelma sung on film until I ferreted out that clip. Since Roach mainly produced comedies, I doubt he had any singers under contract, unless they just happened to be able to sing. Maybe Roach just outsourced it.

I fully expected my old books to say who it was, and that I had just forgotten -- but nope!

I agree about the costume -- if I had been the director, I would have told her to take it off!
 

[Tony Bensley]

I had no idea Thelma sung on film until I ferreted out that clip. Since Roach mainly produced comedies, I doubt he had any singers under contract, unless they just happened to be able to sing. Maybe Roach just outsourced it.

I fully expected my old books to say who it was, and that I had just forgotten -- but nope!

I agree about the costume -- if I had been the director, I would have told her to take it off!
 

I just finished rereading THE BOHEMIAN GIRL entry in Randy Skretvedt's "Magic Behind The Movies" 3rd Edition. Again, there is confirmation of Thelma Todd's singing voice being dubbed, without the name of the singer being revealed! I fear this singer's identity may be forever lost to history, at this stage!

Taking off that garish costume would have been a definite improvement, LOL! 

CHEERS!

[NoahYoung]

I just finished rereading THE BOHEMIAN GIRL entry in Randy Skretvedt's "Magic Behind The Movies" 3rd Edition. Again, there is confirmation of Thelma Todd's singing voice being dubbed, without the name of the singer being revealed! I fear this singer's identity may be forever lost to history, at this stage!

Taking off that garish costume would have been a definite improvement, LOL! 

CHEERS!

Her costume in THE BOHEMIAN GIRL was actually quite nice. It showed off her figure very well. (I would have told her to take it off, anyway!) And she looks just as good as a brunette as she does as a blonde. Kinda like Jeannie's evil sister in I DREAM OF JEANNIE. Or Samantha's in BEWITCHED! Yowza!

In her later shorts, Thelma actually looks a bit puffy -- but not in this film.

In the first edition of Randy's book, he doesn't even mention that her singing voice was dubbed. I've always just assumed, since you can tell it is not her singing.

As an aside, one thing that I don't like about Randy's book (first edition) is that he doesn't always review a film and give his opinion on it, and when he does, it is often just a sentence or two. He spends lots of time talking about scripts and what didn't make it to the screen. The one script I have a copy of, for WAY OUT WEST, made me realize that reading the scripts are useless. They seemed to have been a formality, and then were tossed in the trash before the actual filming began. Or, as my copy says, "This script No. 27 is the property of Hal Roach Studios. When picture is completed, it positively must be returned to the production department, Room 29. S.S. Van Kueren, Production Manager."

Has any of this been changed in the 3rd Edition? (That's the latest, right?)

Back to SWISS MISS: For musical comedies, Abbott and Costello got The Andrews Sisters (good), and all L&H got was Walter Woolf King! (bad.) At least in A NIGHT AT THE OPERA, we got to see the audience throwing fruits and vegetables at him! No such luck in SWISS MISS.

[Tony Bensley]

Her costume in THE BOHEMIAN GIRL was actually quite nice. It showed off her figure very well. (I would have told her to take it off, anyway!) And she looks just as good as a brunette as she does as a blonde. Kinda like Jeannie's evil sister in I DREAM OF JEANNIE. Or Samantha's in BEWITCHED! Yowza!

Thelma Todd's "Bohemian Girl" costume sure beats the hell out of that garish Butterfly outfit, LOL!  Her brunette look definitely worked well for her, too! She was a "Hot Toddy!" Ditto for Elizabeth Montgomery and Barbara Eden, the latter who, now in her 90s, is still with us!

CHEERS! 

[Umbday]

As an aside, one thing that I don't like about Randy's book (first edition) is that he doesn't always review a film and give his opinion on it, and when he does, it is often just a sentence or two. He spends lots of time talking about scripts and what didn't make it to the screen.
Has any of this been changed in the 3rd Edition? (That's the latest, right?)

Randy's expanded edition doesn't say much more about the plots of each film than his first edition did — and he still does not do much in the way of critiquing the content or filmmaking. Instead, he delves even deeper into the people and circumstances involved with each film.

[NoahYoung]

Randy's expanded edition doesn't say much more about the plots of each film than his first edition did — and he still does not do much in the way of critiquing the content or filmmaking. Instead, he delves even deeper into the people and circumstances involved with each film.

Well, I guess he sticks mostly to what the title says the book is about. I love all the background info; what I don't like is details about the scripts, since most of the time none of it was filmed anyway.

Apparently, lots more of Thelma Todd was filmed for THE BOHEMIAN GIRL, and I'd love to see the first cut that was done before she died. She was supposedly the love interest originally of Antonio Moreno's character in the film, which kind of explains why turning it into Mae Busch didn't work out so well, IMO.

Years later, actors' deaths before a film was released never forced the studio heads to cut out their scenes, regardless of the circumstances. One of the most famous examples is the accidental deaths of Vic Morrow and 2 children during the filming of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE. They did not replace Morrow and refilm his scenes. (I went to see the movie, and I don't even think I knew about the tragedy at that time. Before the Web, there was no platform to read all the details on a daily basis, like today.) The most recent tragedy involving Alec Baldwin and RUST, and the cinematographer accidentally shot, was supposed to have canceled the movie, but now I hear it is still being released.

And then there's the whole "fake Shemp" thing!

Completely off-topic, but who wants to see Alec Baldwin in a western anyway? Who wants to see him in any movie? Call me old-school, but I like my westerns to have either John Wayne or Clint Eastwood in them! 

[NoahYoung]

Still, notice how crafty Stan is in this scene.  He is confident and competent in a way you rarely see Stan and the way he bails Ollie out of trouble and gets the police officer (played by James C. Morton!) to get the guy being robbed to appear as the robber is brilliant.     

Stan being "crafty" or clever was not actually rare in their films. One of the "jokes" of the L&H characters throughout their films is that Stan is actually smarter than Ollie, though Ollie thinks that he is smarter than Stan. One need go no further than the scene after they do the pickpocketing when Stan cons Ollie out of their loot.

The problem with the Stan character is that he never thought things through. He solved the problem at hand without realizing the unintended consequence. Trying to light a fire in the fireplace with just a match did not work; Stan therefore poured kerosene on it so it would light. He solved the problem. He just didn't realize he also spilled some on the carpet. The unintended consequence was that the whole house burned down.

Stan took an order from Santa Claus for 600 wooden soldiers 1 foot high. In his absent-mindedness, he wrote it down as 100 wooden soldiers 6 foot high. He and Ollie then achieved an amazing engineering feat that produced 6 foot high wooden soldiers that did "eveything but talk", according to the toymaker. It certainly took a grand amount of intelligence to accomplish that. Stan (and Ollie in this case) just never thought it through, for in Santa's words, "I can't give those to my children to play with!" One also wonders why neither Ollie nor their toymaker boss ever questioned it as well!

When Stan accidentally gets his head caught behind a pole in a boat, he is intelligent enough to take a saw and saw his way out. He is also smart enough to realize he is about to saw into his own throat, and he makes an adjustment. He successfully gets himself out of his predicament -- the unintended consequence is that the pole was actually the bottom part of the mast that Ollie is up on a ladder painting, so when it is cut, Ollie falls to the ground into a mud puddle. Stan didn't think it through.

Stan has much more dexterity than Ollie, too. He can do kneesie-earsey-nosey while Ollie cannot. Also a finger-wiggle. He can light up his thumb when a match isn't available. He is also the best peewie player in all of Toyland!

I think Stan is often confident and competent.