Berth Marks

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Plot

Laurel and Hardy's second two-reel talkie is made up of a few very simple scenes -- Oliver Hardy goes to meet his partner Stan Laurel at the train station. They have a vaudeville act which involves a bass fiddle and are on their way to their next performance. They just barely make the train and are led to their berth, wreaking havoc amongst the other passengers in their wake. With much difficulty, they undress in their berth. As soon as they're ready for bed, they arrive at Pottsville, their destination, and have to hurry off. Once the train has left the station, they discover that they have left their bass fiddle on board. But the situations aren't important, it's what the boys do with them -- the way Ollie wanders around the station in search of Stan, just missing him several times, and the various contortions the pair try to get into their upper berth -- that give the film its fun. Especially nice is the interchange between the boys and the conductor. When Ollie describes himself and Stan to the trainman as a "big-time vaudeville act," the old man dryly replies, "Well, I bet you're good!" Originally filmed in black & white, a colorized version was released in the late 1990s. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi

Cast

Harry Bernard - Train Passenger; Paulette Goddard - Train passenger; Oliver Hardy - Oliver; Pat Harmon - Stationmaster; Stan Laurel - Stanley; Baldwin Cooke - Train Passenger; Charlie Hall - Train Passenger

Credit

Lewis R. Foster - Director, Richard C. Currier - Editor, Len Powers - Cinematographer, Hal Roach - Producer, Leo McCarey - Screenwriter, H.M. Walker - Screenwriter

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Berth Marks
Directed by Lewis R. Foster
Produced by Hal Roach
Written by Leo McCarey
H.M. Walker
Starring Stan Laurel
Oliver Hardy
Cinematography Len Powers
Editing by Richard C. Currier
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s) June 1, 1929
Running time 19:25
Country United States
Language silent film
English intertitles

Berth Marks is a 1929 short comedy starring Laurel and Hardy.

Contents

Plot

Stan and Ollie are musicians, travelling by train to their next gig in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, a very popular vaudeville performance location at the time .They spend most of the trip trying to change into pajamas and get comfortable in a cramped upper berth.

Notes

Berth Marks was the second sound film released by Laurel & Hardy. A silent version was also made for cinemas at the time that were not equipped to show sound pictures.

Cast

Production

Action and dialogue scripts were written mid-April 1929, with filming April 20-27, 1929, and release by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on June 1, 1929.

Remakes

The train scenes, including outtakes unused in Berth Marks, were spliced into foreign-language versions of The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case the following year. These scenes were combined with new footage, utilizing actors fluent in the languages appropriate to the foreign-language versions. Laurel and Hardy's scenes from Berth Marks were overdubbed to match the required languages.

Berth Marks was reissued in 1936 with new musical scoring added to introductory scenes.[1] This is currently the only surviving version and was subsequently included on the 10-disc Laurel & Hardy: The Essential Collection DVD set released in 2011.

References

  1. ^ Randy Skretvedt, Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies

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