Duck Soup (1927 film)

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Duck Soup
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Fred Guiol
Written by	H.M. Walker Arthur J. Jefferson (play)
Produced by	Hal Roach
Starring	Stan Laurel Oliver Hardy
Edited by	Richard C. Currier
Distributed by	Pathé Exchange Inc.
Release date	March 13, 1927 (1927-03-13)
Running time	20 minutes
Country	United States
Languages	Silent film English intertitles

Duck Soup is a silent comedy short film starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy prior to their official billing as the duo Laurel and Hardy. The team appeared in a total of 107 films between 1921 and 1951.

Plot[]

Fleeing a group of forest rangers, who are rounding up tramps to serve as firefighters, Laurel and Hardy take refuge in a mansion. The owner has gone on vacation and the servants are away, so Hardy pretends to be the owner and offers to rent the house to an English couple. Hardy gets Laurel to pose as the maid. Unfortunately, the owner returns and tells the would-be renters that he owns the house. Laurel and Hardy then flee again and are caught by the rangers and forced to fight wildfires.

Production background[]

Duck Soup was considered a lost film for nearly fifty years, until a print was discovered in 1974. It was previously thought by film scholars that the comedians barely shared any scenes, if any, but in fact they appear as a team throughout the entire picture, albeit rather primitively, dressed in tramp costuming, with Hardy sporting an unshaven chin, monocle and top hat. In the next few films, Laurel and Hardy were together as separate performers and not working as a double act, before their potential as a team was used again, notably in Do Detectives Think? (1927), another Hal Roach two-reeler.

The film was directed by Fred Guiol. However, the more important contribution was by the films' supervising director, Leo McCarey, who probably more than anyone else at Roach saw the greatest possibilities for Laurel and Hardy as a comedy team. McCarey later used the same title for the classic Marx Brothers film, Duck Soup, which he directed for Paramount Pictures in 1933. The sketch on which the film was based was written by Stan Laurel's father, .

Duck Soup was remade as Another Fine Mess (1930).^[1]

The print found in 1974 was a cropped 9.5mm re-release with French intertitles replacing the originals. However, since then a pristine quality full aperture 35mm nitrate print was located at the BFI National Archive, which appears to be from a British re-release. A restored version of the film with a theater organ soundtrack accompaniment was televised on the Movies! channel in the U.S. on December 26, 2020.^[2]

Cast[]

References[]

Further reading[]

• Bann, Richard W. (2014). "Another Fine Mess: Laurel & Hardy's Legacy". UCLA Film & Television Archive. Los Angeles, CA, USA: UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Retrieved December 19, 2015.
• Bann, Richard W. (2011). "Film Preservation—Another Fine Mess: "Why Don't You Do Something To Help Me?"". Laurel & Hardy, the Official Website. laurel-and-hardy.com. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved December 19, 2015.

External links[]

• Duck Soup at IMDb
• Duck Soup at the TCM Movie Database
• Duck Soup at AllMovie
• Duck Soup at Rotten Tomatoes