Their Purple Moment (1928)

Director:

James Parrott

Writer:

H.M. Walker (titles)

Release Date:

19 May 1928 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Short

Plot:

Stanley and Oliver sneak out for a night on the town, unaware that Mrs. Laurel has substituted her grocery...

Plot Keywords:

Money | Taxi Driver | Husband Wife Relationship | Color In Title | Laurel And Hardy

Cast

Stan Laurel	...	Mr. Pincher
Oliver Hardy	...	Ollie
Anita Garvin	...	Oliver's girlfriend
Kay Deslys	...	Mr. Pincher's girlfriend
Fay Holderness	...	Mrs. Pincher
Tiny Sandford	...	Waiter (as S.J. Sandford)
Lyle Tayo	...	Mrs. Hardy
Leo Willis	...	Cab driver

Runtime:

22 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Certification:

Germany:o.Al. | UK:U | USA:Passed

Filming Locations:

Hal Roach Studios - 8822 Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA

Company:

Hal Roach Studios

Trivia:

The troupe of midgets hired for a deleted scene in the film came from the Al G. Barnes Circus, which was wintering in Los Angeles, at the time. They were paid $50 a day.

Definitely one of the boy's best

This silent Laurel & Hardy short falls short of the boy's usually high standards, due largely to a dearth of fresh ideas. They play the usual henpecked husbands, this time married to a couple of shrewish, tight-fisted battleaxes who commandeer the boy's wages the moment they walk through the door. Canny Stan has been hiding the occasional rolled up note under the collar of his shirt and squirreling it away. When Ollie gets wind of Stan's stash he decides they'll go out on the town and blow it all. Unknown to the boys, however, Mrs Stan has discovered her husband's hiding place and replaced the real money with fake cigar store notes.

It would be nice to write that much hilarity ensues, but unfortunately that just isn't the case with this one. There's barely a smile raised in the first five minutes – although this fallow period is brought to an end by a great sight gag involving the boys abandoning a rapid pursuit of a couple of pretty young girls when they realise their wives are watching. Having escaped the wives the boys end up wining and dining a couple of slight psychotic gold-diggers in a swanky restaurant, which is when Stan discovers to his horror that his money has been switched.

It's almost as if everyone was working to a looming deadline with this one and just threw anything at the screen that they thought might raise even a small laugh. There are very few fresh ideas and not a lot of laughs, and the camera spends far too much time studying Laurel's expressions as they alternate between fear, confusion and not-quite-with-it attempts to make sense of what has happened. The boys try to make their escape but keep inadvertently drawing attention to themselves as they do so, and the film ends weakly in the restaurant's kitchen with each character receiving a pie in the face or over the head in turn. Definitely not one of the boy's best.