Hog Wild (1930 film)

Hog Wild
Directed by	James Parrott
Written by	H. M. Walker, Stan Laurel
Produced by	Hal Roach
Starring	Stan Laurel Oliver Hardy
Cinematography	George Stevens
Edited by	Richard Currier
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date	1930
Running time	19 min
Country	United States
Language	English

Hog Wild is a 1930 short film starring Laurel and Hardy, directed by James Parrott, and produced by Hal Roach.

Opening Title

"Amnesia! Mr. Hardy was beginning to forget things, but Mr. Laurel had no fear of losing his memory -- As a matter of fact, Mr. Laurel never had a memory to lose--"

Cast and Production Credits

• Stan Laurel
• Oliver Hardy
• Fay Holderness (Mrs. Hardy)
• Dorothy Granger (Tillie, the Hardys' maid/Flapper crossing puddle)

• Produced by Hal Roach
• Directed by James Parrott
• Cinematography by George Stevens
• Film editing: Richard Currier
• Sound recording: Elmer Raguse
• Dialogue and opening title: H. M. Walker

• Music: William Axt (introductory fanfare); Marvin Hatley ("Ku-Ku"); Alice K. Howlett (song: "Smile When the Raindrops Fall"); Charley Chase (song: "Golfer's Blues")

Production Notes

Action and dialogue scripts written March, 1930. Filmed in early April, 1930. Released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, May 31, 1930. Copyrighted December 9, 1930. Filmed in Culver City, California (interior scenes at the Hal Roach Studios, exterior scenes in Culver City). (Source: Randy Skretvedt: Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies).

Film Analysis

Although this film begins with a scene devoted to Ollie's problems with amnesia, the comedic possibilities that might arise from this are dismissed once the main action of the film - putting up the aerial - gets under way, much in the way other Laurel and Hardy films introduce a potential storyline only to dismiss it in favor of what Stan called "milking" a single gag situation.

A significant part of this film is devoted to variations on a single gag, repeated three times: that of Ollie falling off the roof into his lily pond. Each time, fresh gags and camera angles help to retain the viewer's interest, while fulfilling viewerly expectation about the outcome. On the first plunge taken by Ollie, the entire fall is shown via a montage of shots all varying in angle and composition: (1) we see a close-up of Ollie's foot slipping on the misplaced pole; (2) we see Ollie in full shot, falling forward; (3) we see a medium long shot of Ollie sliding face-first down the incline of the roof; (4) we see an overhead shot of the lily pond, into which Ollie drops; (5) we see a sustained shot of Ollie splashing in the lily pond, sitting back upright, and extricating a lily pad from his face. Each subsequent plunge deploys this last shot while omitting all the preceding establishing shots: the gag works by virtue of the viewer's familiarity with the context of each fall, and in knowing the demouement to be identical as well as unavoidable. Additionally, each plunge thereafter focuses more and more on the reactions of both Ollie and Stan to this deterministic fate; each plunge culminates not just in the physical violence of the splash but in our anticipation of Ollie's increasingly resigned glances into the camera as he rises from submersion with the lily pad again stuck to his face.

Although this is a fairly early sound picture (Laurel and Hardy had been making sound films for about a year when Hog Wild went into production), it demonstrates the sophistication with which the team employed sound and sound effect to enhance what is essentially visual humor. The opening scene begins and concludes with offscreen noises suggesting the emotional turmoil or impatience of unseen characters. Ollie's second tumble off the roof is shown not by footage depicting the actual fall, but by a sustained shot of Stan peering over the edge of the roof, shot from a low angle, while the soundtrack carries the noise of Ollie's "ohhhhhh!" followed by a loud splash: we view Stan's reaction to these sounds and the offscreen action rather than focus on the action itself. The third variation on this gag likewise deploys sound to heighten the gag: we see Stan and Ollie fall off the edge of the roof, disappearing out of the bottom frame of the image, then cut to a shot of the collapsing chimney and the roar of bricks tumbling, before picking up a reaction of Laurel and Hardy in the pond. And, at the film's conclusion, rather than witnessing the streetcar/Model T collision, we are given a cutaway shot in which bystanders react to the event while the soundtrack conveys the noises appropriate to such a catastrophe.

Dramatic irony also functions throughout this short film. Laurel and Hardy viewers know that when Ollie states he'll accept Stan's help "if you'll help me", it is a prelude to disaster. Ollie's repeated exclamations that he'll accomplish a task "if it's the last thing I do" serve to heighten the incompetence and comedic frustration he expresses as the task of erecting the aerial soon grows to unmanageable proportions. Finally, the film provides an exposition of Laurel and Hardy's ongoing relationship with the hardships inherent in matrimony: Mrs. Hardy can be demanding and, at the film's conclusion, a little unsympathetic to her husband, but Ollie is no model husband either, being both forgetful and short-tempered.

A highly regarded film at the time of its initial release, "Hog Wild" was cited by British documentarian Basil Wright as being ahead of its time in its "proper" use of the cinematic medium. Wright particularly noted the manner in which sound was used to emphasize offscreen events. Present-day critics likewise place this film highly in the Laurel and Hardy canon: William Everson, in his book The Films of Laurel and Hardy, distinguishes it as one of their best two-reelers and notes the final sequence with the car bears more the influence of Mack Sennett than is commonly found with Laurel and Hardy.

Like other Laurel and Hardy films of this period, "Hog Wild" was refilmed in both Spanish and French versions in which Laurel and Hardy spoke phonetically the respective languages. The French version was titled "Pele Mele"; the Spanish version "Radio Mania". In England, as "Hog Wild" was an American idiomatic expression, the film bore its working title of "Aerial Antics."

See also

• Laurel and Hardy films

External links

• Hog Wild at IMDb