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THE BOHEMIAN GIRL (1936)

Aspect ratio: 1.37:1

Sound format: Mono

(Black and white)

Two bumbling gypsies (Stan 'n' Ollie) are left holding the baby when Ollie's wife (Mae Busch) steals the infant daughter of a contemptuous nobleman (William P. Carleton).

The last of three L&H vehicles based on popular comic operas (following FRA DIAVOLO and BABES IN TOYLAND). Derived from a work by Michael William Balfe, THE BOHEMIAN GIRL is theatrical in every sense of the word, with its exaggerated performances (by everyone except Stan and Ollie), cramped sets and predictable plot. Some of the songs are lovely (particularly the ode to Ollie's fatherly love, sung at breakfast by Julie Bishop, here billed as 'Jacqueline Wells'), but most are rendered quaint by antiquity. Ollie is just as punctilious and accident-prone as ever, but Stan steals the picture with effortless grace, getting drunk on home-made wine and saving Bishop from Carleton's misguided nobleman. Favorite gag: After being told that Ollie has become a father, Stan shakes his hand and declares, "I hope you grow up to be as good a mother as your father was!". Mae Busch plays Ollie's duplicitous wife, and L&H regular James Finlayson turns up in a bit part as one of Carleton's guards. Though previewed in 1935, the movie underwent extensive re-editing following the death of co-star Thelma Todd, who appears only briefly in the finished version as the gypsy queen's daughter. Directed by James W. Horne and Charles Rogers.