| Throwing
things at other film-goers has not been confined to
unruly children’s matinees. No doubt it owes much to the
popular tradition of cinema-going, and perhaps also to
the peculiar kinaesthetics of watching vigorous,
suggestive action from a fixed seat. But could it also
be influenced by one of the earliest distinctive tropes
of screen drama – the food fight, with its weapon of
choice, the custard-pie? Like much else in film comedy,
the mechanics of the custard-pie fight were apparently
first worked out at Mack Sennett’s Keystone studio
around 1915. They were then taken up and developed by
many screen comedians, with Lauren and Hardy’s
titled BATTLE OF THE CENTURY widely regarded by
connoisseurs as the apotheosis of the genre.
Ollie is the manager of
Stan…the world’s worst prize fighter. After Stan
looses the fight, Ollie buys an insurance policy on Stan
and then tries to create an accident so they can
collect.
For years it was believed
that the four minute pie fight sequence from the end of
the second reel was all that remained of THE BATTLE OF
THE CENTURY. Robert Youngson had preserved parts
of that segment by including it in his 1957 film,
"The Golden Age of Comedy." In the monumental
filmography, "Laurel and Hardy," by Messieurs
McCabe, Kilgore and Barr, the authors report that
"Only the pie-fight sequence of THE BATTLE OF THE
CENTURY is extant."
Then, in 1979, Leonard
Maltin found an intact print of reel one while doing
film research at the Museum of Modern Art. With this new
material, some still photographs from the missing
segments, and the 1927 shooting schedule, Richard W.
Barr reconstructed the middle section for Blackhawk
Films to create a representative version of THE BATTLE
OF THE CENTURY.
In the fight sequence of
the first reel Stan, the world’s worse boxer, must
contend with Thunder-clap Callahan (Noah Young). Quite
by accident, Stan knocks out Callahan. But, the referee
(Sam Lufkin) manages to delay the count until the bell.
In 1927 this was an obvious allusion to the famous
"long count" of the Demsey-Tunney fight of the
same year. But, in the next round, Callahan recovers and
wreaks havoc with Stan. Ringside in this sequence you
may spot a young Lou Costello.
In the missing part at
the beginning of the second reel, Ollie has concluded
that Stan’s ineptitude could yield a profit. An
insurance agent (Eugene Pallette) sells Ollie an
insurance policy on Stan for the grand sum of $5. He
gets the money from Stan’s pocket, then borrows Stan’s
pen to sign the policy. The faulty pen showers Ollie
with ink. They finally succeed in signing the policy by
dipping the pen into the ink on Ollie’s nose.
Ollie then deliberately
tries to inflict injury upon Stan to collect insurance
money. He plants a booby-trap banana peel in Stan’s way,
but it is a pie vendor (Charlie Hall) who falls victim.
Spotting Ollie as the obvious culprit, Hall throws one
of his pies at Ollie, but misses and hits an innocent
bystander (Dorothy Coburn).
This initiates the most
spectacular pie fight in film history. Hal Roach
authorized the purchase of the entire day’s output of
the Los Angeles Pie Company, over 3,000 pies. The whole
neighbourhood eventually fell victim to pie-throwing
hysteria; a dignified matron (Ellinor Van Der Veer), a
postman, a dentist’s patient (Dick Sutherland), a sewer
worker (Dick Gilbert), a shoe-shine customer, and
others.
Stan and Ollie finally
decide it may be expedient to beat a hasty retreat. Stan
drops his last pie. A passing pedestrian (Anita Garvin),
who is apparently unaware of the carnage around the
corner, slips and sits on Stan’s pie, causing extreme
embarrassment.
There are still several
missing pieces. The entire middle section in which Ollie
buys the insurance policy can only be seen in a few
still pictures, the negatives of which have also
decomposed. Robert Youngson did not retain all the shots
from the original print, and thus some of the
pie-throwing sequences are also missing. It is doubtful
if a complete print of the entire movie exists, but we
can hope.
by Don Morgan and Ian
Christie |
