So the first thing I thought of watching the picture - did Billy Wilder get the idea for the skirt gimmick in "The Seven Year Itch" from watching this Laurel and Hardy film short? I wouldn't be surprised, but fortunately he didn't carry it as far as the director did here, can you imagine? I thought that was a pretty risqué idea to offer movie viewers of the day - Stan, or in this case Philip, with nothing on underneath his kilt! No wonder all those women fainted dead away.
The opening title card states that this is a story of a Scotch lad who came to America for a Columbian half dollar that his grandfather lost in 1893. Once things got going though, we never heard another word about it. It doesn't matter, the boys make it entertaining enough in this early team up of theirs, although a couple of the bits seemed over done, like Philip's argument with the ship's doctor (Sam Lufkin) and the extended measuring tape scene. I guess once they had an idea back in the day they milked it as much as they could.
Getting back to Stan/Philip's underwear, did you notice this? When he set down the kilt for the young lady to cross the street, the shorts he was wearing were longer than the ones he started out with! I also noticed that the Hal Roach crew liked to recycle their story ideas from picture to picture. This is the third time I've seen Ollie (as J. Piedmont Mumblethunder) fall into a water filled hole stepping off a street curb. The other two times were in "Habeas Corpus" (1928) and "Angora Love" (1929). If it got a laugh once, why not do it again.
I caught this on Turner Classics the other day, and host Ben Mankiewicz mentioned that the Culver Hotel, noticeable in the story, is still there today. It's located in a section of central Los Angeles called Culver City, which at the time of filming wasn't very far from both the Hal Roach Studios and MGM.
The opening title card states that this is a story of a Scotch lad who came to America for a Columbian half dollar that his grandfather lost in 1893. Once things got going though, we never heard another word about it. It doesn't matter, the boys make it entertaining enough in this early team up of theirs, although a couple of the bits seemed over done, like Philip's argument with the ship's doctor (Sam Lufkin) and the extended measuring tape scene. I guess once they had an idea back in the day they milked it as much as they could.
Getting back to Stan/Philip's underwear, did you notice this? When he set down the kilt for the young lady to cross the street, the shorts he was wearing were longer than the ones he started out with! I also noticed that the Hal Roach crew liked to recycle their story ideas from picture to picture. This is the third time I've seen Ollie (as J. Piedmont Mumblethunder) fall into a water filled hole stepping off a street curb. The other two times were in "Habeas Corpus" (1928) and "Angora Love" (1929). If it got a laugh once, why not do it again.
I caught this on Turner Classics the other day, and host Ben Mankiewicz mentioned that the Culver Hotel, noticeable in the story, is still there today. It's located in a section of central Los Angeles called Culver City, which at the time of filming wasn't very far from both the Hal Roach Studios and MGM.