From Soup to Nuts (1928) starring Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Anita Garvin, Tiny Sandford
From Soup to Nuts is a hilarious silent Laurel and Hardy short film. It has a simple premise: Stan and Ollie are hired to serve as waiters at a high society party. Where things go hilariously wrong!
Review
From Soup to Nuts is a hilarious silent short film from Hal Roach studios. The team of Laurel and Hardy were rarely funnier. There are several recurring bits:
- Newly rich Anita Garvin tries to eat a grape from a fruit cup. While trying to appear “proper” to the society hoi polloi.
- A banana peel, left by the dog on the floor, that they boys repeatedly slip on.
- Oliver Hardy keeps falling into the enormous cake that he’s trying to serve.
- Stan Laurel actually has a bit of a temper here – and it’s quite funny!
- Take off that hat!
- Anita Garvin’s fancy headgear keeps falling down, covering her eyes.
Funny moments
- Stanley, asked to serve the salad “undressed” – and reluctantly complies.
- Stan dropping the ladle into the soup
- Stan unintentionally spills the soup on Oliver’s foot
- Stan’s fight with the chef. He thinks Oliver doesn’t want him to wear his chef’s hat in the house. This leads to a short, funny battle between the two, breaking an escalating number of plates on each others’ heads. Oliver intervenes, to save an ornate serving plate. But Ollie slips and falls on it, breaking it as well!
- Stanley opening the kitchen door, while Oliver’s in the kitchen talking to the maid – knocking Ollie’s hat into the cake mix!
- Oliver’s pants ripping as he tries to serve soup — while standing on a chair
- Ollie complimenting Tiny on his wife’s (Anita Garvin’s) figure – “Some wiggler!”
Be sure to check out the From Soup to Nuts photo gallery as well.
Editorial review of From Soup to Nuts courtesy of Amazon.com
In “From Soup to Nuts,” Anita Garvin and hubby Tiny Sanford are suddenly rich and must find a way to join the hoi polloi of high society. Naturally, this includes a big dinner party, requiring the addition of two special waiters to project the desired level of snootiness. Unfortunately for Garvin, the Waiter’s Union sends Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.
Trivia
- This film was directed by Edgar Kennedy, who was one of Laurel and Hardy’s frequent supporting players.
- The gag where Anita chases a cherry from her fruit salad round the table was repeated from the Laurel and Hardy film The Second Hundred Years.
- This entire movie was re-worked into a smaller timescale eleven years later in the first part of A Chump at Oxford. Also, Anita Garvin re-prised her role in that movie. She adopted the name “Mrs. Vandervere” as her character name. That’s the real-life name of one of the party guests in this movie.