The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case (1930) starring Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy
The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case is more of a spoof of the haunted house movie, rather than an actual murder mystery, but the interplay between Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy make it all worthwhile.
The movie begins with Laurel and Hardy fishing off the end of a pier, when they discover that Stanley’s rich uncle Ebenezer had died, leaving a fortune. However, once Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy arrive at the mansion for the reading of the will, they learn that Uncle Ebenezer was murdered. The police detective investigating the murder keeps Stan and the other relatives at the mansion until he finds the murderer.
At this point the movie turns into more of a spoof on the haunted house, complete with fake bat, a skull moving around due to a parrot inside the skull walking, etc. If this sounds like a Three Stooges movie, that’s because it is — or became one. The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case was made in 1930, and the Three Stooges remade it as If a Body Meets a Body in 1945.
Quotes from The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case
Oliver (Oliver Hardy): Where were you born?
Stanley (Stan Laurel): I don’t know.
Oliver (Oliver Hardy): Fancy not knowing where you were born!
Stanley (Stan Laurel): Well, I was too young to remember.
Oliver (Oliver Hardy): Didn’t you once tell me that you had an uncle?
Stanley (Stan Laurel): Sure, I’ve got an uncle. Why?
Oliver (Oliver Hardy): Now we’re getting somewhere. Is he living?
Stanley (Stan Laurel): No. He fell through a trap door and broke his neck.
Oliver (Oliver Hardy): Was he building a house?
Stanley (Stan Laurel): No, they were hanging him.
Stanley (Stan Laurel): Three million dollars! Is that as much as a thousand?
Oliver (Oliver Hardy): Why, man alive! It’s TWICE as much!
Stanley (Stan Laurel): Gee whiz!
Stanley (Stan Laurel): September … October … No wonder.
Cast of characters
- Stan Laurel (Sons of the Desert) … Stan Laurel
- Oliver Hardy (Way Out West) … Oliver Hardy
- Frank Austin … Butler
- Stanley Blystone (Modern Times) … Detective
- Bobby Burns … Nervous Relative at Window
- Jack Rube Clifford … Detective
- Rosa Gore … Old Relative
- Dorothy Granger (Punch Drunks) … Young Relative
- Charlie Hall (Laughing Gravy) … Unknown
- Dell Henderson … Housekeeper
- Fred Kelsey (Speak Easily) … Chief of Detectives
- Lon Poff … Old Relative
- Art Rowlands … Theater-goer Relative
- Tiny Sandford (The Hoose-Gow) … Policeman
Trivia about The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case
- This is the first short film where Oliver Hardy says to Stan Laurel, “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!”
- Like other early talkies, this film was re-shot in other languages, with casts who spoke the language and Stan & Ollie learning their lines phonetically. In one of the foreign-language versions, but not the English version, the butler is played by Boris Karloff.
- The elaborate interior sets built for this short were kept and used for future productions up through some of Hal Roach’s television productions in the 1950s.