James Finlayson

A miner's beautiful daughter comes between two ruthless thugs who are plotting to kill her father and steal his claim.

In this twist on SOULS AT SEA (with a nod to Chaplin’s MODERN TIMES), Ollie goes berserk at the horn factory. When the doctor recommends an ocean voyage as an antidote to calm his nerves, the fellows rent a ship that slips her moorings and drifts miles from shore … with an escaped murderer on board. This farewell Laurel & Hardy film at the Hal Roach Studios was nostalgic, almost on par with A CHUMP AT OXFORD. Critics loved the lively, old-fashioned slapstick. Thereafter, Roach allowed his deal with Laurel & Hardy to lapse, and while both the partnership and studio flirted with the idea of reuniting to produce more movies, and eventually TV programs, strokes suffered by the two comedy giants in the mid-1950s finally made any such plans impossible. Directed by Mr. Roach’s protégé, Gordon Douglas. With James Finlayson and Rychard Cramer. Plus former Mack Sennett silent star Ben Turpin, and Harry Bernard, close friend of Charley Chase; all three of whom died shortly after the picture was issued to movie theaters.

Ready to leave for his wedding, Mr. Hardy is distracted when best man Mr. Laurel arrives with his gift — a jigsaw puzzle. Merchandising stills shot during the production of PACK UP YOUR TROUBLES showed Laurel & Hardy trying to assemble a studio-licensed jigsaw puzzle and could well have been the genesis of this entertaining comedy. Directed by Charley Rogers and Lloyd French. With James Finlayson and Frank Terry, aka Nat Clifford, as both the butler and radio announcer. Also a gag writer at the studio, Terry wrote the title tune for SONS OF THE DESERT.

When a failing circus folds its tent, the assets are divided among unpaid employees, including roustabouts Stan and Ollie. One gets the flea circus, the other a chimp named “Ethel, ” who they try to conceal in their lodgings. Named to trade on the success of THE CHAMP, this lesser but still underrated short relied on dry, black humor. The now-restored original titles (the work of Louis McManus and Roy Seawright) may be the most imaginative ever devised for the team. Directed by James Parrott. With Billy Gilbert and James Finlayson.

A collection of the duo’s best colorized shorts including Night Owls and Alley Cats, The $125 Misunderstanding, A Dollar a Head, and many more.

In a literal reworking of LOVE ’EM AND WEEP, Mr. Hardy plays an important businessman. Having made his fortune in fertilizer, Hardy is well qualified to run for mayor, but is blackmailed by a venomous old flame from his past. Directed by James W. Horne. With Mae Busch as the gold-digger, Thelma Todd as Mrs. Hardy (she was originally slated to enact the vamp according to the shooting script), and James Finlayson as the opportunistic butler, a role he exchanged with Hardy for this remake.

In their final two-reel comedy, Stan is a boarder, renting a room from Ollie and his wife. On their way to making a furniture payment, the fellows are lured into an auction and wind up purchasing a grandfather clock. The fine optical work by Roy Seawright allowing the actors to literally grab and pull succeeding scenes into view (via so-called “wipes”) is a unique cinematic gag and aids the pacing. Escorted to the set every day by Hal Roach’s father, Charles, who actually lived on the lot, was a visitor from England named A. J. Jefferson, watching his “boy, ” Stan Laurel, perform before movie cameras for the first time. Directed by James W. Horne. With Daphne Pollard and James Finlayson.

Arriving in the cow town of Brushwood Gulch, our heroes attempt to deliver the deed to a gold mine, as it was bequeathed to a deceased prospector’s daughter. A larcenous saloon keeper (James Finlayson) diverts them instead to his wife, a brassy saloon chirp who enacts the role of grieving daughter. Once this duplicity is exposed, the two tender heels must retrieve the deed and rescue the rightful heiress. Unadulterated Laurel & Hardy fun, spiced with surrealistic gags and sparkling musical interludes, including an Oscar®-nominated score by Marvin Hatley. The review in New Yorker magazine declared the picture to be “leisurely in the best sense; you adjust to a different rhythm and come out feeling relaxed as if you’d had a vacation.

Developed as a two-reeler spoofing prison pictures, the project grew into Laurel & Hardy’s first feature film at Roach. For years, their popular shorts were billed above the feature attraction on theatre marquees, so, at last, they appeared in a full-length movie themselves. Imaginative individual set pieces are among the fellows’ funniest and most endearing, including a prison-school sequence meant to echo the shorts being made by Our Gang at the time. Listen carefully early in the picture when someone in the crew cannot help himself and laughs off-scene! This is an extended version, restored to reflect what the motion picture looked like during its final preview stage. Directed by James Parrott, who along with Hal Roach makes a gag appearance as a prisoner. With Wilfred Lucas, James Finlayson, June Marlowe (OUR GANG’S “Miss Crabtree”) and Walter Long as the “The Tiger. ”

After deriding his superior officer, an ace fighter pilot is promoted to squadron commander and learns hard lessons about sending men to their deaths.

Two spirited and zany funny guys try to put on a show in a theater that has a reputation for being jinxed beyond any kind of public redemption.

This polished, fast-moving, complex story with solid production values was an artistic, box office and critical success. Though it was a meaningless concession to salve his bouts of temperament, this was the first of two films nominally credited as “A Stan Laurel Production. ” In fact, it was just business, and business as usual. During principal photography, Roach wrote his son, then away at military school, of making “a very funny Laurel & Hardy picture. Had the Laurels over for dinner…borrowed his fishing boat last weekend and went to Coronado for yellowtail. ” The lavish shooting required 48 days. The cast included Alan Hale and Sidney Toler, soon to become the next “Charlie Chan” at Fox, and effervescent Betty Healy, former wife of Ted Healy of Three Stooges fame. This was her only movie; she played Mrs. Laurel, and remained his lifelong friend, as so many surviving letters now attest. Also featuring an intricate and lively musical score by Roy Shield, which the studio used as “stock tunes” to score concurrent Charley Chase and Our Gang comedies, as well as the reissues of five Laurel & Hardy shorts. Directed by Harry Lachman, a visual stylist and neighbor of Roach who was brought in to help the studio graduate from the custard pie era. With Daphne Pollard, James Finlayson, Iris Adrian, and Lona Andre, who said in 1990 she had never seen the film! Looking at a still photo, she remembered, “This one (Hardy) was always doing something that made the other one (Laurel) laugh; and I mean he would roar!”