The Battle of the Century (1927) starring Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Charlie Hall, Eugene Pallette
The Battle of the Century is an early Laurel & Hardy comedy. After losing the world heavyweight boxing match, it’s the best pie fight of all!
The Battle of the Century is a very funny, fast-paced Laurel and Hardy comedy. It’s early in their combined careers, and they’re not quite a team yet. It begins with a boxing match, where Oliver Hardy is the manager for Stan Laurel — known as “canvas back”. Who, by a fluke, manages to knock out the champ! But Stan can’t figure out what it means to move to a neutral corner, and so the champ has time to revive. And to knock out Stanley.
So afterward, Eugene Pallette is an insurance agent, who sells Oliver an accident insurance policy on Stan. Which indirectly leads to the second half of the short film.
The lead up to the pie fight
Walking down the street, Stan nearly slips on a banana peel, and almost hurts himself. Which gives Oliver an idea. As I say, this is an early Laurel and Hardy comedy, and it’s a little out of character for Ollie. It’s more the sort of thing I would expect Bud Abbott to pull on Lou Costello. Regardless, it’s the tie-in for what happens next.
Oliver tries to get Stan to trip on a banana peel — but irritates a police officer instead! So, he puts the banana in Stan’s hand — and Stan gets hit on the head with a billy club! Shortly after, another banana peel causes pieman Charlie Hall to slip! Ollie again tries to blame Stanley, but it doesn’t work this time! And Ollie gets a pie in the face!
The pie fight begins
And soon, Oliver throws a pie back …. And misses! THEN the cascade of humor grows fast and furious, and people are wrongly hit, throw a pie back, and miss, hitting more innocent bystanders! Who then throw more pies …
And the pies fly fast and furiously! Everyone’s getting hit – the insurance salesman, the mayor, a dentist’s patient with his mouth open, a man working in a manhole …. And Stan and Ollie just walk away at the end!
Cast of characters
- Stan Laurel (Pack Up Your Troubles) … Stanley
- Oliver Hardy (Zenobia) … Manager
- Charlie Hall (Laughing Gravy) … Pie Deliveryman (uncredited)
- Eugene Pallette (My Man Godfrey) … Insurance Agent (uncredited)
- Anita Garvin (From Soup to Nuts) … Woman Who Slips on Pie (uncredited)
Additional Cast
- Wilson Benge (Scram!) … Pie Victim in Top Hat (uncredited)
- Ed Brandenburg (The Hoose-Gow) … Corner Man / Warring Pedestrian (uncredited)
- Dorothy Coburn (Laurel & Hardy’s Laughing 20’s) … Pie Victim Boarding Auto (uncredited)
- Lou Costello (Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein) … Ringside Spectator (uncredited)
- George B. French … Dentist (uncredited)
- Dick Gilbert … Sewer Worker (uncredited)
- Pete Gordon (Men O’War) … Barber (uncredited)
- Al Hallett … Bit Part (uncredited)
- Jack Hill … Ringside Spectator (uncredited)
- Ham Kinsey (Laurel and Hardy’s March of the Wooden Soldiers) … Ringside Spectator (uncredited)
- Sam Lufkin (Bacon Grabbers) … Boxing Referee (uncredited)
- Eric Mack … Spectator (uncredited)
- Gene Morgan … Ring Announcer (uncredited)
- Steve Murphy (The Love Nest) … Noah Young’s Assistant (uncredited)
- Jack O’Brien … Shoeshine Patron (uncredited)
- Bob O’Connor … Warring Pedestrian (uncredited)
- Bert Roach … Ringside Spectator (uncredited)
- Hayes E. Robertson … Shoeshine Man (uncredited)
- Dick Sutherland (Grandma’s Boy) … Dental Patient (uncredited)
- Lyle Tayo … Woman at Store Window (uncredited)
- Ellinor Vanderveer (The Hoose-Gow) … Lady in Automobile (uncredited)
- Dorothea Wolbert … Warring Pedestrian (uncredited)
- Charley Young … Fruit-Cart Vendor (uncredited)
- Noah Young (Bumping into Broadway) … Thunder-Clap Callahan (uncredited)
Trivia
- Lou Costello makes one of his earliest screen appearances as an extra in the boxing match sequence. He is visible standing close to the ring.
- The famed pie fight held the record for the biggest ever staged for a film. It reportedly used 3,000 pies, an entire day’s output from the Los Angeles Pie Co. Almost 40 years later this record claimed to be broken by the pie fight staged for The Great Race.
- The pie fight was recreated in Hollywood Cavalcade (1939). During a sequence where they’re making a film, Alice Faye and Buster Keaton are in a jeweler’s where he’s buying her a ring when a “masher” comes in and starts making advances to her. Director Don Ameche tells Buster to throw something at the masher to make him unhand Alice. The only thing at hand is a custard pie, which he throws but it hits Alice full in the face, which everyone–apart from Alice–finds hilarious. Ameche realizes he has a new routine and has Buster and the ‘masher’ square up for a duel with custard pies, but as they’re about to throw them Alice rushes in, shouting “Stop!”, only to be hit on both cheeks with pies and at one point slips and lands on one.