Bonnie Scotland (1935)

Director:

James W. Horne

Writers:

Frank Butler (writer) and
Jefferson Moffitt (writer)

Release Date:

23 August 1935 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

Their Funniest Full Length Feature!

Plot:

Stan and Ollie mistakenly enlist in the army and find themselves posted to the Northwest Frontier in India on a dangerous mission.

Plot Keywords:

India | Army | Beehive | Sergeant | Inheritance

Cast

Stan Laurel	...	Stanley MacLaurel
Oliver Hardy	...	Ollie
June Lang	...	Lorna MacLaurel
William Janney	...	Allan Douglas
Anne Grey	...	Lady Violet 'Vi' Ormsby
Vernon Steele	...	Col. Gregor McGregor
James Finlayson	...	Sergeant Major Finlayson
David Torrence	...	Mr. Miggs - the lawyer
Maurice Black	...	Khan Mir Jutra
Daphne Pollard	...	Millie - the maid
Mary Gordon	...	Mrs. Bickerdike
Lionel Belmore	...	Blacksmith
John Sutherland's Scotch Pipers	...	British soldiers

Also Known As:

Heroes of the Regiment (USA) (reissue title)
Kilts (USA) (working title)
Laurel and Hardy of India (USA) (working title)
McLaurel and McHard (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

80 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Iceland:L | USA:Approved | Australia:G

Filming Locations:

Fryman Ranch, Laurel Canyon, Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Hal Roach Studios

Trivia:

The date on the office calendar in "Bonnie Scotland" is June 16, the same day as Stan Laurel's birthday.

Quotes:

Mrs. Bickerdike: Where is Mr. Hardy? I haven't seen him in the past three weeks.
Stanley MacLaurel: Oh, he's awful sick.
Mrs. Bickerdike: Is that a fact?
Stanley MacLaurel: Hoot, ma'am. You know the day he fell in the water he got an awful cold, and it turned into pneumatics.
Mrs. Bickerdike: Is he very sick?
Stanley MacLaurel: You're darn hootin' he's sick! You know the only thing he can keep on his stomach is a hot water bottle.
Mrs. Bickerdike: My, my, what a predicament!
Stanley MacLaurel: Yeah! I think he's got that too.

Movie Connections:

References Towed in a Hole (1932)

By Yon Bonnie Banks And By Yon Bonnie Braes, The Sun Shines High On MacLaurel

Stan and Ollie travel all the way to Bonnie Scotland to collect on an inheritance left by Stan MacLaurel's late grandfather. Both he and his cousin June Lang are provided, but she's not of age and she's under the firm guardianship of Colonel Vernon Steele and his scheming Mrs., Anne Grey.

William Janney, the clerk in lawyer David Torrence's office is in love with June Lang, but she's spirited off to India during the British Raj. Never mind, Stan and Ollie and poor young Janney also find their way there as the scene of the plot shifts from Bonnie Scotland to India with the Highlanders.

It's all a pretty thin plot, but good enough to hang some of Stan and Ollie's best screen moments on. One of my all time favorites is when Ollie has an encounter with a snuff box which was half of Laurel's inheritance the other half being a set of bagpipes. Another is when Stan and Ollie try to use the bedsprings in their hotel to grill some fish and nearly burn poor Mary Gordon's establishment down.

After the boys go into the Indian Army they become the bane of the existence of their old nemesis, Sergeant James Finlayson. In the end Janney, Finlayson, and the boys provide a hilarious ending to a tribal rebellion.

Films like Lives of a Bengal Lancer and Charge of the Light Brigade about the British Raj take one good beating from producer Hal Roach and his intrepid and incomparable stars. For fans of Stan and Ollie the world over.