We Faw Down
Encyclopedia
We Faw Down is a 1928
two-reel silent comedy
starring Laurel and Hardy
and directed by Leo McCarey
. It was shot in August and September 1928, and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
on December 29 of that year, with synchronized music and sound effects in theaters wired for sound.
The plot line was later reworked into one of Laurel and Hardy's most celebrated films, Sons of the Desert
(1933
).
Of course, it is not going to last. We see two toughie girls, talking with "One Round" Kelly, the swarthy tough-guy prizefighter boyfriend of Kay, one of the girls. After he leaves, an electric fan blows her hat into the street, under a car — just as the gallant protagonists stroll onto the scene. Under Ollie's elaborate orchestration, they push the car forward just as a street-washing machine comes by and floods the gutter with water. Down they go, and although the tough girl's hat is retrieved, The Boys are sopping wet. She invites them up to her apartment to dry their clothes.
Meanwhile, galloping fire horses and some action footage inform us of the calamitous fire at the Orpheum Theatre — The Boys' alibi as to their boss-obeying whereabouts. The wives snag a newspaper detailing the blaze and set out for town and, they hope, their intact husbands.
Except that the aforementioned husbands are currently sitting in bathrobes and smiles at the girls' table, thoroughly populated by empty beer bottles. Tipsy Kay gets very touchy-feely with Stan, poking different spots on his neck and causing his eyebrow to raise or his tongue to flick out. The physicality increases in scope until Stan gets upset and wants to stop. Kay's feelings are hurt, and just as Ollie tries to console her, "One Round" enters and sees Hardy's conciliatory embrace. He produces a huge knife from under his coat, but before he can use it, Stan stops him in his tracks with a pie in the face. You should always take a pie to a knife fight.
The Boys grab their clothes, and after another wrong-hat mixup, wriggle out a window, only to plop out on the sidewalk right in front of their wives. Unseen by their husbands, the wives turn and beat it, arriving home only moments before the men, who are practicing their Orpheum alibi. Inside, Ollie tries to describe the show they saw based on charades-style clues from Stan, who's reading an ad for it from the newspaper. No soap, though — the women remain unconvinced, and when Ollie realizes the Orpheum burned, he says, "Good thing we went to the Palace." This is too much even for Stan, who breaks out in paroxysms of glee: Even "I could 'a' thought of a better one than that."
When Kay's friend arrives at the front door with Ollie's forgotten vest ("Here's your vest, Big Boy"), it's the last straw for Mrs. Hardy. She produces a shotgun and chases the men out and around the corner into a side courtyard. Her first shot produces a very funny sight gag and the film's final visual punchline: some two dozen men come dropping out of first and second floor windows onto the ground, many of them pants-less.
(1937) and Going My Way
(1944).
A contemporary account says that the basic story was contributed, unusually, by Oliver Hardy, who had heard similar gossip from his laundress.
Critic/historian William K. Everson
makes a different contention, tracing the story back to the Mack Sennett
comedy Ambrose's First Falsehood.
Interior shooting took place at the Hal Roach studio; exteriors were shot both on the Roach back lot and on several locations in Culver City.
The original Victor sound discs for We Faw Down were thought lost until the 1990s, when a set was discovered. Certain European DVD editions feature this original synchronized score, but American DVDs (Region 1) still have music cannibalized from other L&H Victor soundtracks.
This short is better known for what got cut out of it than for what remained in it. As originally scripted and shot, The Boys flee the girls' apartment having pulled on each other's pants, then dart from spot to spot in town trying to find a private place to rectify the situation. An irate husband, a suspicious cop — even a belligerent king crab — all conspire to thwart the swapping o' the pants. Unfortunately, this reel's worth of very funny material made the film just too long, so the filmmakers reluctantly excised it. They saved it, though, and it became the core of Laurel and Hardy's next short, Liberty
(1929).
Ten years later, Stan Laurel would dust off his final shot concept from We Faw Down to close out the L&H feature Block-Heads
(1938). Unfortunately, the sight gag which had been such a funny and fitting capstone to the earlier film, a film about perceived infidelity, proves a complete non sequitur the second time around. It is interesting, though, to see how all the vegetation had grown up in the courtyard over ten years' time.
It was sometimes known under a different title (We Slip Up). This separate title was used in the compilation film The Golden Age of Comedy
, released in 1957.
, We Faw Down draws only tepid notices from most critics.
1928 in film
-Events:Although some movies released in 1928 had sound, most were still silent.* July 28 - Lights of New York is released by Warner Brothers. It is the first "100% Talkie" feature film, in that dialog is spoken throughout the film...
two-reel silent comedy
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
starring Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...
and directed by Leo McCarey
Leo McCarey
Thomas Leo McCarey was an American film director, screenwriter and producer. During his lifetime he was involved in nearly 200 movies, especially comedies...
. It was shot in August and September 1928, and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
on December 29 of that year, with synchronized music and sound effects in theaters wired for sound.
The plot line was later reworked into one of Laurel and Hardy's most celebrated films, Sons of the Desert
Sons of the Desert
Sons of the Desert is a 1933 American film starring Laurel and Hardy, and directed by William A. Seiter. It was first released in the United States on December 29, 1933 and is regarded as one of Laurel and Hardy's greatest films...
(1933
1933 in film
-Events:* March 2 - King Kong premieres in New York City.* June 6 - The first drive-in theater opens, in Camden, New Jersey.* British Film Institute founded....
).
Opening title
This story is based upon the assumption that, somewhere in the world, there are husbands who do not tell their wives everything —Plot synopsis
It is a typical afternoon for the Laurels and the Hardys: they keep polite company, the girls playing cards while The Boys sulk in the other room. Escape comes in the form of a phone call from a crony inviting the men to a poker game. Oliver speaks loudly and clearly into the phone: "Yes, BOSS..." With orders from the boss, after all, the better halves can hardly object to their leaving. One wrong-hat mixup and — freedom.Of course, it is not going to last. We see two toughie girls, talking with "One Round" Kelly, the swarthy tough-guy prizefighter boyfriend of Kay, one of the girls. After he leaves, an electric fan blows her hat into the street, under a car — just as the gallant protagonists stroll onto the scene. Under Ollie's elaborate orchestration, they push the car forward just as a street-washing machine comes by and floods the gutter with water. Down they go, and although the tough girl's hat is retrieved, The Boys are sopping wet. She invites them up to her apartment to dry their clothes.
Meanwhile, galloping fire horses and some action footage inform us of the calamitous fire at the Orpheum Theatre — The Boys' alibi as to their boss-obeying whereabouts. The wives snag a newspaper detailing the blaze and set out for town and, they hope, their intact husbands.
Except that the aforementioned husbands are currently sitting in bathrobes and smiles at the girls' table, thoroughly populated by empty beer bottles. Tipsy Kay gets very touchy-feely with Stan, poking different spots on his neck and causing his eyebrow to raise or his tongue to flick out. The physicality increases in scope until Stan gets upset and wants to stop. Kay's feelings are hurt, and just as Ollie tries to console her, "One Round" enters and sees Hardy's conciliatory embrace. He produces a huge knife from under his coat, but before he can use it, Stan stops him in his tracks with a pie in the face. You should always take a pie to a knife fight.
The Boys grab their clothes, and after another wrong-hat mixup, wriggle out a window, only to plop out on the sidewalk right in front of their wives. Unseen by their husbands, the wives turn and beat it, arriving home only moments before the men, who are practicing their Orpheum alibi. Inside, Ollie tries to describe the show they saw based on charades-style clues from Stan, who's reading an ad for it from the newspaper. No soap, though — the women remain unconvinced, and when Ollie realizes the Orpheum burned, he says, "Good thing we went to the Palace." This is too much even for Stan, who breaks out in paroxysms of glee: Even "I could 'a' thought of a better one than that."
When Kay's friend arrives at the front door with Ollie's forgotten vest ("Here's your vest, Big Boy"), it's the last straw for Mrs. Hardy. She produces a shotgun and chases the men out and around the corner into a side courtyard. Her first shot produces a very funny sight gag and the film's final visual punchline: some two dozen men come dropping out of first and second floor windows onto the ground, many of them pants-less.
Production and exhibition
We Faw Down is the first Laurel and Hardy film with Leo McCarey in the director's chair after more than a year guiding the team's characters' development as "Supervisor." He would go on to direct their best silents, and eventually to win Best Director Oscars for the feature films The Awful TruthThe Awful Truth
The Awful Truth is a 1937 screwball comedy film starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant. The plot concerns the machinations of a soon-to-be-divorced couple, played by Dunne and Grant, who go to great lengths to try to ruin each other's romantic escapades...
(1937) and Going My Way
Going My Way
Going My Way is a 1944 film directed by Leo McCarey. It is a light-hearted musical comedy-drama about a new young priest taking over a parish from an established old veteran . Crosby sings five songs in the film. It was followed the next year by a sequel, The Bells of St. Mary's. This picture was...
(1944).
A contemporary account says that the basic story was contributed, unusually, by Oliver Hardy, who had heard similar gossip from his laundress.
Critic/historian William K. Everson
William K. Everson
William Keith "Bill" Everson was an English-American archivist, author, critic, educator, collector and film historian. He often discovered lost films.-Early life and career:...
makes a different contention, tracing the story back to the Mack Sennett
Mack Sennett
Mack Sennett was a Canadian-born American director and was known as the innovator of slapstick comedy in film. During his lifetime he was known at times as the "King of Comedy"...
comedy Ambrose's First Falsehood.
Interior shooting took place at the Hal Roach studio; exteriors were shot both on the Roach back lot and on several locations in Culver City.
The original Victor sound discs for We Faw Down were thought lost until the 1990s, when a set was discovered. Certain European DVD editions feature this original synchronized score, but American DVDs (Region 1) still have music cannibalized from other L&H Victor soundtracks.
This short is better known for what got cut out of it than for what remained in it. As originally scripted and shot, The Boys flee the girls' apartment having pulled on each other's pants, then dart from spot to spot in town trying to find a private place to rectify the situation. An irate husband, a suspicious cop — even a belligerent king crab — all conspire to thwart the swapping o' the pants. Unfortunately, this reel's worth of very funny material made the film just too long, so the filmmakers reluctantly excised it. They saved it, though, and it became the core of Laurel and Hardy's next short, Liberty
Liberty (1929 film)
Liberty is a 1929 short comedy film starring Laurel and Hardy as escaped convicts who, while trying to change pants, wind up on a skyscraper in construction.-Cast:*Stan Laurel as Stanley...
(1929).
Ten years later, Stan Laurel would dust off his final shot concept from We Faw Down to close out the L&H feature Block-Heads
Block-Heads
Block-Heads is a 1938 comedy film starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, produced by Hal Roach Studios for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film, a reworking of elements from the Laurel and Hardy shorts We Faw Down and Unaccustomed As We Are , was Roach's final film for MGM, and is remembered as one of...
(1938). Unfortunately, the sight gag which had been such a funny and fitting capstone to the earlier film, a film about perceived infidelity, proves a complete non sequitur the second time around. It is interesting, though, to see how all the vegetation had grown up in the courtyard over ten years' time.
It was sometimes known under a different title (We Slip Up). This separate title was used in the compilation film The Golden Age of Comedy
The Golden Age of Comedy
The Golden Age of Comedy was a compilation of silent comedy films ,released in 1957, written and produced by Robert Youngson. Youngson had previously produced several award-winning short documentaries beforehand, and this was the first compilation of its kind in feature-length form...
, released in 1957.
Cast
- Stan LaurelStan LaurelArthur Stanley "Stan" Jefferson , better known as Stan Laurel, was an English comic actor, writer and film director, famous as the first half of the comedy team Laurel and Hardy. His film acting career stretched between 1917 and 1951 and included a starring role in the Academy Award winning film...
as Stanley - Oliver HardyOliver HardyOliver Hardy was an American comic actor famous as one half of Laurel and Hardy, the classic double act that began in the era of silent films and lasted nearly 30 years, from 1927 to 1955.-Early life:...
as Ollie - Bess FlowersBess FlowersBess Flowers was an American actress. By some counts considered the most prolific actress in the history of Hollywood, she was known as "The Queen of the Hollywood Extras," appearing in over 700 movies in her 41 year career....
as Mrs. Laurel - Vivien OaklandVivien OaklandVivien Oakland , was an American actress best known for her work in comedies in Hollywood in the 1920s and 1930s, most notably with the Hal Roach Studios...
as Mrs. Hardy - Kay DeslysKay DeslysKay Deslys was a British comedy actress in American films from the 1920s.Born as Kathleen Herbert in London, one of her earliest roles was in Charlie Chaplin's celebrated feature The Gold Rush; she later appeared in several comedies at the Hal Roach Studios, including several early Laurel and...
as Kelly's Girlfriend - Vera WhiteVera WhiteVera White was an actress primarily in silent films. Many of her films are now considered to be lost films. Her birth and death dates are unavailable....
as Kay's Friend - George KotsonarosGeorge KotsonarosGeorge Kotsonaros was a Greek-born film actor. He acted mostly in silent pictures....
as "First Round" Kelly (uncredited)
Critical reputation
With its funniest material — sorting out the pants mix-up — excised and saved for use in LibertyLiberty (1929 film)
Liberty is a 1929 short comedy film starring Laurel and Hardy as escaped convicts who, while trying to change pants, wind up on a skyscraper in construction.-Cast:*Stan Laurel as Stanley...
, We Faw Down draws only tepid notices from most critics.
- Prolific critic Leslie HalliwellLeslie HalliwellRobert James Leslie Halliwell was a British film encyclopaedist and television impresario who in 1965 compiled The Filmgoer's Companion, the first one-volume encyclopaedia devoted to all aspects of the cinema. He followed it a dozen years later with Halliwell's Film Guide, another monumental work...
is terse, even by his own standards of brevity: "Moderate star comedy, later elaborated in Sons of the Desert."
- Laurel and Hardy Encyclopedia author Glenn Mitchell is likewise succinct: "Typical of their matrimonial comedies," he writes.
- Bruce Calvert is a silent film expert and a film-still guru. Writing at Allmovie.com, Calvert says of We Faw Down: "While this film is only an average comedy, it is still worth a look. Laurel and Hardy's explanation of the "show" and why they didn't know about the fire, is priceless."
- Laurel and Hardy scholar (and paper trail detective) Randy SkretvedtRandy SkretvedtRandy Skretvedt is an American film and music scholar, author, lecturer and broadcaster. His 1987 book Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies is the reference standard for Laurel and Hardy fans Randy Skretvedt (b. November 1958) is an American film and music scholar, author, lecturer and...
unearthed the scripts for many L&H shorts, and the promise of some of the unfilmed gags in the We Faw Down script left him a less than ardent supporter of the final film. "All that We Faw Down proves is that even [Leo] McCarey could not always save a film from mediocrity.... [it's] amusing but nothing to rave about."
- William K. EversonWilliam K. EversonWilliam Keith "Bill" Everson was an English-American archivist, author, critic, educator, collector and film historian. He often discovered lost films.-Early life and career:...
was the first to deconstruct the L&H canon, and his 1967 essay delivered a split-decision: "We Faw Down is, on the whole, rather draggy and pedestrian, though it has isolated gags that are among their best. Particularly amusing are the two flirts' attempts to inject some life into their two pickups.... The best gag of all, however, is the.... brilliant and untoppable climactic gag."