''Two Tars'' is a silent

short subject A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

directed by

James Parrott James Parrott (August 2, 1897 – May 10, 1939) was an American actor and film director; and the younger brother of film comedian Charley Chase. Biography Early years James Gibbons Parrott was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to Charles and Blanch ...

starring comedy duo

Laurel and Hardy Laurel and Hardy were a British-American comedy duo act during the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema, consisting of Englishman Stan Laurel (1890–1965) and American Oliver Hardy (1892–1957). Starting their career as a duo ...

. It was released by

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 ...

on November 3, 1928

Plot

Laurel and Hardy play two sailors on shore leave who decide to rent an automobile. With Laurel at the wheel, he nearly crashes the car into a pedestrian at a street corner. Hardy apologizes for Stan's poor driving, takes the wheel, and shortly thereafter crashes the car into a lamppost. Chagrined, Hardy drives off and parks in front of a drugstore where two young ladies are having difficulty with a street-side vending machine that has taken their penny without giving them a gumball. Hardy tries to shake a gumball from the dispenser but only ends up breaking the glass container, scattering gumballs all over the sidewalk. Seeing this, the angry proprietor confronts Hardy with Stan joining in, constantly slipping on the scattered gumballs. The girls come to their rescue and rough up the proprietor, accidentally breaking another gumball machine in the process. This action leads to a chain reaction of numerous drivers and passengers battling one another and deliberately damaging their automobiles. Eventually a motorcycle policeman arrives and is told that Stan and Oliver were the instigators of the fracas.

Cast

Production

One of the most elaborate silent comedy shorts, ''Two Tars'' was filmed as a three reel (30-minute) comedy originally called ''Two Tough Tars'' and edited down to 20 minutes. The opening scenes were shot on Main Street in

Culver City Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,779. Founded in 1917 as a "whites only" sundown town, it is now an ethnically diverse city with what was called the "third-most d ...

, and the car battle scenes were filmed in

Santa Monica Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to ...

along what is now

Centinela Avenue Centinela Avenue is a 10.2 mile major street in the Westside region of Los Angeles County, California. Geography Centinela Avenue is a major thoroughfare in Culver City, Inglewood, Ladera Heights, Mar Vista, Santa Monica, and West Los Angeles. ...

Sons of the Desert

Chapters — called ''Tents'' — of The Sons of the Desert, the international Laurel and Hardy Appreciation Society, all take their names from L&H films. There are four ''Two Tars Tents'' in

Solingen, Germany Solingen (; li, Solich) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located some 25 km east of Düsseldorf along the northern edge of the region called Bergisches Land, south of the Ruhr area, and, with a 2009 population of 161,36 ...

; Guernsey, Channel Islands; North Illinois/Wisconsin Border; and

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

. A fifth ''Two Tars Tent'' was established in

Reidsville, North Carolina Reidsville is a city in Rockingham County in the U.S. state of North Carolina. At the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 14,580. Reidsville is included in the Greensboro–High Point Metropolitan Statistical Area of the Piedmont ...

, but is no longer active.

References

External links

* * * * {{James Parrott 1928 films 1928 comedy films American silent short films American black-and-white films Films directed by James Parrott Laurel and Hardy (film series) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer short films Films with screenplays by H. M. Walker 1928 short films American comedy short films 1920s American films Silent American comedy films