the woman who stole his pants
by Douglas Messerli
Hal Roach, H.M. Walker, and Walter Lantz (screenplay), Fred
Guiol (director) 45 Minutes from Hollywood / 1926
Fred Guiol’s 45 Minutes from
Hollywood once again stars the handsome Glenn Tryon, who this time plays
the “just” out of town hick, Orville, desperate to get to see Hollywood and
watch a movie being made. Both Oliver Hardy, who plays the Hotel Detective, and
Stan Laurel who has a small role as a starving actor who has evidently
permanently retreated to bed, are also this film; but the director has yet
imagined them as a team, although in less than a year he will pair them in
roles similar to their famous coupling in Duck Soup.
Orville’s poor family are desperately behind in their rent, and his
mother (Charlotte Mineau) has just received notice that if the fee is not
immediately paid in person, the office apparently being located in Hollywood,
they will be evicted from their home.
She first assigns the task to her father, Grandpa (Rube Clifford) who
has dreams of breaking and entering an elderly star’s mansion for a little fun
and sex. But Orville is desperate to travel into the city and pleads with his
mother to let him go, who finally relents, sending all her family members,
Orville, Grandpa, and Orville’s sister (Sally O’Neil) off on the 45-minute
journey. But by the time they race to the train via bicycle—clearly not built
for the 3 of them—they have almost missed the train, requiring them to jump on
the already moving locomotive, and although Grandpa makes a valiant attempt, he
finally falls off and is forced to remain behind.
The sister simply disappears from sight
for the rest of the movie, as Orville takes a Hollywood tour bus which presents
the film’s audience with what is perhaps one of the earliest of Hollywood movie
self-promotions, giving us quick glimpses of Theda Bara, the Our Gang players,
and the Hal Roach Bathing Beauties. Somehow Orville keeps missing all the
announced stars and sites, and when they finally observe a bank robbery in progress,
which they all believe is merely a film shoot, he and the others jump off the
bus to get into the picture, so to speak—precisely what the real robbers hoped
would happen in order to help cover their tracks. The bank manager however
refuses to hand over the money, and in front of the tourists the crooks, caught
in the act, must rush off as the police chase after.
Observing what he believes a female
actor on the run, Orville joins in the chase; he is shocked, however, that the
movie is so very realistic, the film police using real bullets, the evidence of
which is manifested in the holes in his hat. The escaping female criminal
enters a hotel, and selects a room in which to hide, Orville following.
Once inside, the two hear a man in the
bathroom shower, Orville supposing that it must be the woman’s husband, a
delusion she encourages. When she seems to signal the boy that she’s sexually
interested in him, he’s more than a little surprised even if intrigued. By the
time he sits down next to her on the bed, she’s hit him over the head with a
heavy object and begins to attempt to pull of his pants, presumably, we realize
by now, to change out of her drag costume back into male attire.
Orville briefly awakens to discover his
pants half-way slid down his legs, chastising her for her eager desire to get
him undressed for sex, particularly with her husband in the next room. The
thief manages the transformation by hitting him over the head once again. Now
dressed in Orville’s pants, in the pocket of which sits the role of bills he
was to have delivered for the payment of their house, the robber rushes off,
leaving Orville dressed in the female costume the crook abandoned.
The bathing beauty in the next room is the house detective (Hardy) who,
at the very moment he exits the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his
substantial girth, is met with not only a strange woman in his bed but his
returning wife Em (Edna Murphy), who, despite all his insistence upon his
innocence, will not believe a word he says and proceeds to violently attack
both the intruding harlot and her errant man.
So begins a series of chases, with
Orville attempting time and again to return to the room from which he has been
ousted to help the police find the thief and explain that the woman stole his
pants, while Em chases them both, and the police chase everyone in sight.
Orville ends up in a trash bin set on
fire. The Police Detective appears the hotel lobby with a cat clawing its way
up his body under the towel, while the police run in and out of bedrooms— including the one in which Stan is attempting to get some
sleep—all ending up in chaos. Orville finally gets his clothes and money back,
the detective restores his innocence and the temporary love of his wife, and
the police get their woman/man; but it really doesn’t matter because by the
time this movie ends we’re all rather tired of the mad mess of movie.
Both producer and director hoped that Tyron, who had become popular in
previous shorts, might through this vehicle become a star. But today this short
is remembered primarily because it is one of the few pre-Laurel and Hardy
films, in which the duo both performed. In this case Stan, who had been writing
for Guiol, was asked to substitute for another actor who had become ill, contrary
to Laurel’s contract with another studio for which he was then performing. But
the role is so small and his fake moustache so large, you might miss him if you
weren’t on the lookout. And today, alas, the pretty boy Tyron is nearly
forgotten.
Los Angeles, March 6, 2022
Reprinted from World Cinema
Review (March 2022).
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