Billy Ruge and Oliver Hardy are a couple of life guards on a beach, fighting over pretty Ray Godfrey in the 90-second clip from this Vim comedy I just looked at.
I've written elsewhere of the need to preserve every scrap of film that has survived, in hope of fixing our fading memory; of the joy of seeing the larger half of Laurel & Hardy when he was just starting out. This time, let me talk about Jacksonville, Florida, where this was shot, and the fact that there was a sizable film industry in the town. Lubin, Thanhouser, and Vitagraph shot movies down there. Through the 1920s, Norman Films, one of the major producers of Black movies, then called 'race films' centered its production down there. When moviemakers left the Northeast in search of milder climates and different locales, they didn't all head out to Hollywood. Some went to Texas, or Arizona. And some went to Jacksonville, like the people who shot this snippet of film.
I've written elsewhere of the need to preserve every scrap of film that has survived, in hope of fixing our fading memory; of the joy of seeing the larger half of Laurel & Hardy when he was just starting out. This time, let me talk about Jacksonville, Florida, where this was shot, and the fact that there was a sizable film industry in the town. Lubin, Thanhouser, and Vitagraph shot movies down there. Through the 1920s, Norman Films, one of the major producers of Black movies, then called 'race films' centered its production down there. When moviemakers left the Northeast in search of milder climates and different locales, they didn't all head out to Hollywood. Some went to Texas, or Arizona. And some went to Jacksonville, like the people who shot this snippet of film.
