The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case (1930)

A wealthy man named Laurel has been murdered, and a rather aggressive police detective has corralled all the relatives in the spooky old house to determine which one of them did it: a parody of several serious murder thrillers at the time. Stan and Olly are among the suspects.

There is a rather unfeminine looking housekeeper, played by the male actor Dell Henderson, who is in league with the butler to get the money.

He tries to kill Oliver, and is foiled by a very well timed straight right from Stanley; and he is unmasked, or rather unwigged, at the very end of the film. There's not a very satisfactory explanation of the preceding events at this stage, however, so don't expect a Hercule Poirot style elaboration of all the clues you have missed.

Recently a computer-colorised version of the original print has been produced; I think the colouring process has been well done.

In these early days of talkies, the studio produced a Spanish language version of the film, called Noche de duendas, following the same action with some additional material. Oliver and Hardy and most of the cast performed, speaking the Spanish dialogue themselves as techniques of dubbing had not been developed at that time. Their Spanish accents are pretty bad.

HF December 2002

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