The Slippery Pearls (1931)

Director:

William C. McGann

Writers:

Release Date:

4 April 1931 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Short

Plot:

Star-packed promotional short subject intended to raise funds for the National Variety Artists tuberculosis sanatarium...

Plot Keywords:

Detective | Laurel And Hardy | Dog | Police Sergeant | Public Domain

Cast

Wallace Beery	...	Police Sergeant
Buster Keaton	...	Policeman
Jack Hill	...	Policeman
J. Farrell MacDonald	...	Policeman
Edward G. Robinson	...	Edward Robinson (as Edward Robinson)
George E. Stone	...	Himself
Eddie Kane	...	Detective
Stan Laurel	...	Policeman
Oliver Hardy	...	Police Driver
Allen 'Farina' Hoskins	...	Farina (as Farina)
Matthew 'Stymie' Beard	...	Stymie (as Stymie)
Norman 'Chubby' Chaney	...	Chubby (as Chubby)
Mary Ann Jackson	...	Herself
Shirley Jean Rickert	...	Shirley Jean
Dorothy DeBorba	...	Echo (as Echo)

Also Known As:

The Stolen Jools

Runtime:

20 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Netherlands:AL (DVD rating)

Company:

Masquers Club of Hollywood

Trivia:

"The Stolen Jools" is this film's original title. It was made by the National Vaudeville Artists (NVA) as part of a charity campaign and distributed free to theatres in 1931. After the showing a live speaker would come out and request donations. The film was rediscovered in 1972 in Britain, where it had been released in 1932 as "The Slippery Pearls," one of the Masquers Club comedy series for RKO. Subsequently a U.S. print was discovered and the film's true title, origin and purpose were at last known.

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): On Detective Kane's pawn ticket, "saxophone" is misspelled "saxaphone."

Movie Connections:

Featured in Classic Comedy Teams (1986) (V)

Who's hot, who's not...

This fairly lame two-reel comedy is an early example of an all-star cast, although even by Hollywood standards the cast can be described as stellar. Many of them will be unfamiliar to viewers who aren't knowledgeable about classic Hollywood flicks from the twenties and early thirties, but for those of us who are familiar with that era the film will serve up a few surprises and give us the rare opportunity to catch a glimpse of near-forgotten stars of the past such as Billy Haines who, if I remember correctly, was the first openly gay actor in Hollywood (needless to say, this distinction and the fact that he was a self-destructive hedonist, did his career absolutely no good whatsoever, and probably goes some way to explaining why he is forgotten today.) Here he shares a scene with Joan Crawford, already a Hollywood fixture by then but still looking incredibly young.

The film was financed by Chesterfield (the cigarette people) for the NVA, and is really little more than a series of twenty second gags, each one featuring a couple of stars. Most of the gags are fairly unfunny – although Laurel & Hardy's collapsing car gag is a highlight – but it's still a fascinating glimpse into a bygone era, and a clue as to who was considered hot and who – by their absence – was, perhaps, not back in 1931.