It is surprising that Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy’s real debut as a comic duo, in 1927, remained virtually unseen until 1974. Even more so when you consider that Leo McCarey borrowed its title for the Marx Brothers’ most celebrated feature. Duck Soup – which was remade in 1930 as Another Fine Mess – features Fred Guiol as director, McCarey as supervisor and H.M. ‘Beanie’ Walker writing the intertitles. The fact that the story is based on Home from the Honeymoon by Stan’s father, Arthur J. Jefferson, demonstrates the extent to which this film truly belongs to Laurel. Although he retained the essential themes of his father’s work, Stan brilliantly rewrote it, incorporating disguises, desecrating symbols of privilege, and featuring awkward (or better yet, terrified) acts of voyeurism towards the opposite sex. It marks the beginnings of an extraordinary deconstruction of machismo; it is also the first film in which ‘Babe’ Hardy acts as the spark, igniting his partner’s gags and paving the way for all the quarrels and predicaments to come.

Alessandro Criscitiello