- #Laurel and hardy movies march of the wooden soldiers movie
- #Laurel and hardy movies march of the wooden soldiers full
- #Laurel and hardy movies march of the wooden soldiers tv
It is very much Stan Laurel’s movie more than it is Hal Roach’s.Īnd in hindsight, we have him to thank for the grand tradition of rewriting Babes in Toyland so it’s almost nothing like the operetta and no two versions are the same.
#Laurel and hardy movies march of the wooden soldiers full
This Babes in Toyland, later re-titled March of the Wooden Soldiers to differentiate it from the others, is full of entertaining comic setpieces, lines, and characters, and has a tight plot that ties them all together. While this might sound like the workings of a control freak prima donna, he actually knew what he was doing. Few know that Laurel took his craft very seriously and was prone to rewriting scripts to milk as many laughs from it as possible. His initial treatment didn’t impress Stan Laurel much, though.
Once movie rights for Babes in Toyland were made available, Roach saw the comic potential for Laurel and Hardy and snagged ’em. And when it did come to the big screen, it took a turn that few expected.Įnter Hal Roach, famed producer of comedy vehicles for stars of the 20s and 30s such as Will Rogers, Thelma Todd, the Little Rascals, and of course, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. But because Babes in Toyland was first and foremost a musical, a film adaptation had to wait until silent pictures became talkies. In the former’s case, it was those stage adaptations that paved the way for the classic 1939 movie. Despite this, the show was tremendously popular and led to many theatrical reimaginings of magical family-friendly stories like The Wizard of Oz and Peter Pan. If you want some idea of what the story is supposed to be, then by all means read Jay Davis’ Babes in Toyland retrospective (coincidentally written in 2013). There’s gruesome murders, convoluted schemes, love octagons, too many characters to keep track of, needlessly dark subplots, and I’m not even touching the random fantasy elements thrown in. That movie is what I’ll be reviewing today.īabes in Toyland began life as an operetta/pantomime by Victor Herbert in 1903, and you’ll never find a straight adaptation or production of the original libretto put on today. A movie that, despite its age and subject, wore down the walls of cynicism, made me forget the troubles of the outside world for 75 minutes, and had me smiling genuinely for the first time in months. But that same Thanksgiving weekend Twisted premiered online, I rediscovered a piece of my childhood almost untouched by time. What helped me out of it? Well, Team Starkid released what is to date their best show, Twisted, for starters. To make a long story short, everything from February onward culminated in a deep depression that lasted through most of the fall. “Way Out West,” on Hal Roach Video, was the first, followed by “Music Box” and “Helpmates.” The color on “West” and “Music Box” is passable but is inferior on “Helpmates.We all have our good years and our bad years that we can recall. This isn’t the first colorized version of a Laurel and Hardy movie. If people like what they see in color, they may check out Laurel and Hardy’s black-and-white movies.” “TV exposure is important in generating new fans for Laurel and Hardy and keeping these movies in the public eye. When they’re watching TV, the studies show they’ll flip right past black-and-white movies. The studies show that people in general don’t like black-and-white. “If it’s in black-and-white,” he said, “it’s tougher to get programmed on TV.
#Laurel and hardy movies march of the wooden soldiers tv
It will do much better business in color.” Her husband, Laurel and Hardy expert Tony Hawes, noted that a color version of the film will be easier to sell to TV too.
Such a feature-length movie wouldn’t hold the interest of children if it was in black-and-white. In addition, she said: “This movie is for kids. The only reason it wasn’t filmed in color is because it was expensive to film in color in the ‘30s.” “This is a musical fantasy, with lots of costumes. “My father always said this movie should be in color,” she said. To make the colorization more palatable to Laurel and Hardy fans, Goodtimes spokeswoman Lois Laurel-Stan’s daughter-maintains that her father would have approved of the color change. Several musical sequences and some scenes featuring the villainous Bogyman also have been restored. Originally titled “Babes in Toyland” and based on the Victor Herbert operetta, the “March of the Wooden Soldiers” cassette presents the restored storybook opening of the film. It is rather soft, not the garish look that characterized many Technicolor films in the ‘30s. But there’s a catch.īefore all you purists gag, it should be noted that the color in this Goodtimes Home Video version is surprisingly good. 1 at $19.95, with 16 minutes of restored footage. One of the all-time great family entertainments, “March of the Wooden Soldiers,” a 1934 musical/fantasy starring comedians Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, is finally coming to home video-on Oct.
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