''Should Married Men Go Home?'' is a silent short subject co-directed by

Leo McCarey Thomas Leo McCarey (October 3, 1898 – July 5, 1969) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He was involved in nearly 200 films, the most well known today being '' Duck Soup'', ''Make Way for Tomorrow'', '' The Awful T ...

and

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 Blan ...

starring comedy duo Laurel and Hardy. 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 September 8, 1928.

Plot

Ollie and his wife are enjoying a quiet Sunday at home until Stan shows up, eager to play some golf. After Stan breaks the chair, the blind, and nearly sets fire to their house, and Oliver breaks the Hardys' Victrola Mrs. Hardy chases the boys out. At the golf course, they are partnered with a pair of young women to complete a foursome. The girls want to be treated to sodas, but the boys are short of money. Stan leaves his watch to settle the thirty-cent bill. On the course, they tangle with rude golfer Edgar Kennedy, and wind up in a mud-throwing battle with several other linksters.

Cast

Production notes

''Should Married Men Go Home?'' was filmed in March and May 1928. It was the first Hal Roach film to bill Laurel and Hardy as a team. Previous appearances together were billed under the Roach "All-Star Comedy" banner. On-location footage has recently surfaced on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

. The film's working title was ''Follow Through''.Skretvedt, Randy (1996). ''Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies''. Beverly Hills: Past Times Publishing. 7-foot-1 actor John Aasen appears as "Very Tall Golfer." The soda fountain routine was reworked during the sound era in the film '' Men O' War'', with

Jimmy Finlayson James Henderson Finlayson (27 August 1887 – 9 October 1953) was a Scottish actor who worked in both silent and sound comedies. Bald, with a fake moustache, Finlayson had many trademark comic mannerisms and is known for his squinting, outraged ...

assumed the role inhabited by Charlie Hall. The gag of Stan slipping a note under the door, only to see it get pulled further in from the inside where the Hardys are hiding from him, was reused during the sound era in '' Come Clean'' (1931) when the Hardys again pretend not to be home when the Laurels come calling. Several oil derricks from the

Los Angeles City Oil Field The Los Angeles City Oil Field is a large oil field north of Downtown Los Angeles. Long and narrow, it extends from immediately south of Dodger Stadium west to Vermont Avenue, encompassing an area of about four miles (6 km) long by a quarter ...

are visible during golf course scenes. The lag time between the primary filming in March and the September release of ''Should Married Men Go Home?'' was unusually long. When the company reconvened in Los Angeles in Autumn 1928, the fame and popularity of the Laurel and Hardy team had grown.

Reception

British film critic

Leslie Halliwell Robert James Leslie Halliwell (23 February 1929 – 21 January 1989) was a British film critic, encyclopaedist and television rights buyer for ITV, the British commercial network, and Channel 4. He is best known for his reference guides, '' Fi ...

gave the film a lukewarm reception, commenting that the "preliminary domestic scene is the funniest."Walker, John, ed. (1994). ''Halliwell's Film Guide''. New York: HarperPerennial. , p.1077 while ''The Films of Laurel and Hardy'' author

William K. Everson Keith William Everson (8 April 1929 – 14 April 1996) was an English- American archivist, author, critic, educator, collector, and film historian. He also discovered several lost films. Everson's given first names were Keith William, but he r ...

wrote in 1967 that the film was "one of the best of the "forgotten" Laurel and Hardy films, ''Should Married Men Go Home?'' admittedly overlaps with several other of their films but is no less funny because of it."Everson, William K. (1967). ''The Films of Laurel and Hardy''. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press. , p.65. He cites Ollie's collapsing of the front fence, the soda fountain routine and Edgar Kennedy's toupee woes as high spots.

References

External links

* * * {{James Parrott 1928 films 1928 comedy films American black-and-white films American silent short films Films directed by James Parrott Films directed by Leo McCarey Films with screenplays by H. M. Walker Golf films Hal Roach Studios short films Laurel and Hardy (film series) 1920s American films Silent American comedy films