'45 Minutes from Hollywood' is sometimes cited in filmographies as Theda Bara's last movie. When her deadly-earnest vamp roles fell out of fashion, Bara signed a multi-film contract with Hal Roach to guy her previous screen image in lowbrow comedies ... but made only one film, 'Madame Mystery'. Since Bara didn't need the money, she gave quits right there. Roach inserted a brief out-take from 'Madame Mystery' into '45 Minutes', oddly showing Bara indoors during an exterior sequence. There's also a clip of Our Gang from their recent 'Thundering Fleas'.
The title parodies "Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway", a 1906 musical (and song) by George M Cohan, and the premise of '45 Minutes from Hollywood' -- country boy goes to the city -- is arguably a reversal of Cohan's show.
Gormless hick Orville (Glenn Tryon) has to deliver a wad of cash to an office in the big city ... but that city is Hollywood, so Orville's elderly dad and his pretty sister want to tag along. As the sister, Molly O'Day gamely joins into the slapstick pratfalls.
In the big city, Orville gets mixed up with a woman bank thief ... but when I saw her running down an alley, I rumbled that she was no woman. Sure enough: this 'woman' (played by an unbilled male actor who's extremely credible in female guise) lures Orville into a hotel room, one jump ahead of the cops. For some reason, the faux female pretends to swoon into Orville's arms ... which ought to tip him off that this woman is heavy enough to be a man. Then 'she' knocks him out, intending to make a getaway in his clothes. The wad of banknotes in Orville's suit turns out to be a bonus. So far, so plausible: there are many real-life accounts of male bank robbers using female disguise. But for some stupid reason, the bank robber hangs about long enough to put his own female disguise (including cloche hat, earrings, stockings, undergarments and shoes) onto the unconscious Orville. When Orville wakes up, he discovers he's a wanted 'woman' ... and the cops don't believe him when he claims otherwise. This sort of comedy is just barely plausible in silent films, since the actor's unheard voice doesn't give away his gender. In a talkie, this wouldn't have worked at all. Earlier, there's a title card acknowledging that the 'female' bank robber sounds like a man.
For modern viewers, this film will be of greatest interest because of separate performances by Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, pre-team. Laurel briefly mugs as an unemployed actor. In a (literally) much larger role is burly Hardy as the apoplectic house detective, galumphing through the lobby in a towel. Hardy's good, but his big scene is an implausible sequence relying on very poor animation, when Hardy shares his towel with a (very obviously cartoon) mouse and cat.
Elsewhere, Hardy does one hugely impressive face-first pratfall -- nobody in this movie was stunt-doubled, so far as I could tell -- and there are some ludicrous gags involving a fire extinguisher. A photo caption expects us to believe that Vivien Oakland (a Hal Roach contract player) lives in a $250 million(!) mansion. Earlier, I was intrigued by a close shot played against a chequerwork tablecloth: interesting Pop Art effect in black and white. There's some funny stuff in '45 Minutes from Hollywood', but it's too bad they didn't credit that actor who portrayed the cross-dressing thief. My rating for this one: 5 out of 10.
The title parodies "Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway", a 1906 musical (and song) by George M Cohan, and the premise of '45 Minutes from Hollywood' -- country boy goes to the city -- is arguably a reversal of Cohan's show.
Gormless hick Orville (Glenn Tryon) has to deliver a wad of cash to an office in the big city ... but that city is Hollywood, so Orville's elderly dad and his pretty sister want to tag along. As the sister, Molly O'Day gamely joins into the slapstick pratfalls.
In the big city, Orville gets mixed up with a woman bank thief ... but when I saw her running down an alley, I rumbled that she was no woman. Sure enough: this 'woman' (played by an unbilled male actor who's extremely credible in female guise) lures Orville into a hotel room, one jump ahead of the cops. For some reason, the faux female pretends to swoon into Orville's arms ... which ought to tip him off that this woman is heavy enough to be a man. Then 'she' knocks him out, intending to make a getaway in his clothes. The wad of banknotes in Orville's suit turns out to be a bonus. So far, so plausible: there are many real-life accounts of male bank robbers using female disguise. But for some stupid reason, the bank robber hangs about long enough to put his own female disguise (including cloche hat, earrings, stockings, undergarments and shoes) onto the unconscious Orville. When Orville wakes up, he discovers he's a wanted 'woman' ... and the cops don't believe him when he claims otherwise. This sort of comedy is just barely plausible in silent films, since the actor's unheard voice doesn't give away his gender. In a talkie, this wouldn't have worked at all. Earlier, there's a title card acknowledging that the 'female' bank robber sounds like a man.
For modern viewers, this film will be of greatest interest because of separate performances by Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, pre-team. Laurel briefly mugs as an unemployed actor. In a (literally) much larger role is burly Hardy as the apoplectic house detective, galumphing through the lobby in a towel. Hardy's good, but his big scene is an implausible sequence relying on very poor animation, when Hardy shares his towel with a (very obviously cartoon) mouse and cat.
Elsewhere, Hardy does one hugely impressive face-first pratfall -- nobody in this movie was stunt-doubled, so far as I could tell -- and there are some ludicrous gags involving a fire extinguisher. A photo caption expects us to believe that Vivien Oakland (a Hal Roach contract player) lives in a $250 million(!) mansion. Earlier, I was intrigued by a close shot played against a chequerwork tablecloth: interesting Pop Art effect in black and white. There's some funny stuff in '45 Minutes from Hollywood', but it's too bad they didn't credit that actor who portrayed the cross-dressing thief. My rating for this one: 5 out of 10.
