“LIFE-BLOOD” OF FILM COMEDY

Southland Times, Issue 23026, 21 October 1936, Page 9

“LIFE-BLOOD” OF FILM COMEDY

Value of “Gags” STAN LAUREL’S OPINION Take Stan Laurel’s word for it, gags are the life-blood of a motion picUire comedy. And one of the most difficult tasks in the construction of a fulllength humorous film is to assemble sufficient gags to assure a continuation of laughs from start to finish of such a production. In “The Bohemian Girl,” starring Laurel and Hardy, which comes to the Majestic Theatre on Friday, the sad-faced Hal Roach comedian believes that he and his rotund screen partner have accomplished this goal.

“For weeks after we had completed a rough draft of our screen story, which was suggested by Balfe’s famous opera of the same title, we worked on gags for the picture,” he said. “There were six of us altogether, all men who have made a specialty of comedy construction. Although a gag does not necessarily have to be an integral part of the main story, it should fit snugly into the spot for which it is intended and with a certain amount of appropriateness. This being true, we had to confine our ideas for gags to the period in which the story of ‘The Bohemian Girl’ is laid—almost a century ago. In other words, we could not introduce bicycles, telephones, roller skates, or any such comparatively modem contrivances into a comedy situation. Neither could we employ modern slang expressions or wisecracks to win laughs.

“An additional handicap,” continued Stan Laurel, “was the fact that we are in gipsy characters in this picture, and as such are limited to a certain extent in using our favourite screen mannerisms. But for all this we eventually managed to construct some gags which, in my opinion, excel anything of the character we have heretofore done. I refer especially to two sequences—a pocket-picking episode and another concerning my attempt to produce music from wime bottles.”