The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case

The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case
Directed by	James Parrott
Produced by	Hal Roach
Written by	H.M. Walker
Starring	Stan Laurel Oliver Hardy
Music by	Marvin Hatley Nathaniel Shilkret
Cinematography	Walter Lundin George Stevens
Editing by	Richard C. Currier
Release date(s)	September 6, 1930 (1930-09-06)
Running time	30:12 (3 reels)
Country	United States
Language	English

The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case is a Laurel and Hardy comedy film released in 1930. It is 28 minutes in duration and was made from three-reels. It was directed by James Parrott, produced by Hal Roach and distributed by MGM.

Plot

Laurel and Hardy are seated at a dockside where Stan is fishing. Ollie sees a notice in a newspaper which says one Ebeneezer Laurel has died and left a large estate. Parties interested in the estate should go to the Laurel mansion for the reading of the will. Stan can't remember if Ebeneezer is a relative or not but they decide to go to the mansion anyway. They arrive during a thunderstorm and discover that Ebeneezer had been murdered and that the police had placed the notice in the newspaper to draw all of the relatives together to find out who committed the crime.

Stan and Ollie are shown to a bedroom to sleep overnight, which is the room in which Ebeneezer was murdered. They hear a strange noise and in the darkness see a pair of eyes which turns out to be a cat. They then hear a scream and decide to investigate.

Meanwhile the butler is calling all of the relatives to a study telling them they have a phone call. After lifting the handset of the phone a trapdoor opens into which each relative disappears. Stan and Ollie return to their bedroom and get into the bed but a bat has flown into their room and is under their covers, which causes them to panic and run downstairs.

All of the other relatives have now disappeared and the butler calls Stan and Ollie to take a telephone call in the study. Oliver takes the call and falls through the trapdoor and the murderer (a man dressed in drag) appears through a secret door with a knife. A fight ensues but then Stan and Ollie both wake up from a dream, fighting over Stan's fishing line at the dockside.

Cultural significance

This is the first film where Oliver says "Here's Another Nice Mess You've Gotten Me Into". The phrase is commonly misquoted as "Here's Another Fine Mess You've Gotten Me Into" and has passed into everyday language usage. The phrase means to blame another person for causing both people an avoidable problem.

Influences and title

• The film is a parody of the silent horror film The Cat and the Canary (1927).
• The film is also a parody of a silent film called The Bat (1926).
• The film name may be a play on words from the film The Canary Murder Case (1929), and other titles based on Philo Vance mystery novels, although the films' plots are totally different. The dash in place of an ampersand may also indicate that the title derives from the Hall-Mills murder case, a high-profile New Jersey murder trial that dominated newspaper front pages throughout much of 1926.
• The 1943 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animated short directed by Tex Avery, Who Killed Who?, borrowed imagery, characters and situations from the film.
• If a Body Meets a Body (1945) with The Three Stooges has a similar plot, and also features actor Fred Kelsey.

Film similarities

The elements of the night in a sinister mansion and the dream ending were re-used in their 1934 film Oliver the Eighth.

Cast

• Stan Laurel as himself
• Oliver Hardy as himself
• Frank Austin as Butler (uncredited)
• Stanley Blystone as Detective (uncredited)
• Bobby Burns as Nervous Relative at Window (uncredited)
• Rosa Gore as Old Relative (uncredited)
• Dorothy Granger as Young Relative (uncredited)
• Dell Henderson as Housekeeper (uncredited)
• Fred Kelsey as Chief of Detectives (uncredited)
• Lon Poff as Old Relative (uncredited)
• Art Rowlands as Theater-goer Relative (uncredited)
• Tiny Sandford as Policeman (uncredited)

Cast notes

Stan's wife Lois Laurel gave birth prematurely during filming. The baby died 9 days later.

External links

• The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case at the Internet Movie Database