Berth Marks

Berth Marks
Lobby card
Directed by Lewis R. Foster
Produced by Hal Roach
Written by Leo McCarey
H.M. Walker
Starring

Stan Laurel
Oliver Hardy
Pat Harmon
S.D. Wilcox
Eleanor Fredericks
Harry Bernard
Baldwin Cooke
Paulette Goddard
Charlie Hall

Sammy Brooks
Music by Marvin Hatley (1936 reissue)[1]
Cinematography Len Powers
Edited by Richard C. Currier
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
DIC Entertainment (1990 reissue)
Release date
  • June 1, 1929 (1929-06-01)
Running time
 19:34 (English)
49:09 (Spanish)
Country United States
Language English
French
Spanish
German
Silent film with English intertitles

Berth Marks is the second sound film starring Laurel and Hardy, released on June 1, 1929.

Plot

Stan and Ollie are musicians, who are traveling by train to their next gig in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, a popular vaudeville performance location at the time. They manage to board, but Ollie is annoyed that Stan left the music behind. They then antagonize a short gentleman (Sammy Brooks) when they sat on him. By entering a private car looking for their berth and frightening a woman who is dressing for bed, they anger her husband who, coming out and seeing a man who had nothing to do with the intrusion, rips his coat. The man, seeing another innocent man, proceeds to tear up his coat. This leads to a tit-for-tat of clothes tearing.

Stan and Ollie spend most of the trip trying to change into pajamas and get comfortable in a cramped upper berth. By the time the duo manage to sort themselves out, the train has reached their stop. In their haste to deboard, they leave their musical instruments behind. The clothes tearing battle has, by now, involved the whole train, and the conductor manages to get stripped to his underwear and some rags trying to get through.

Production notes

Berth Marks was the second sound film released by Laurel and Hardy. A silent version was also made for cinemas that were not yet wired to show talking pictures. Action and dialogue scripts were written mid-April 1929, with filming commencing on April 20–27, 1929.[1]

Several train sequences (included a few not used in the English release) were utilized for foreign language releases versions of The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case in 1930. Laurel and Hardy released three different versions of The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case combined with Berth Marks for the foreign language market:

  • Feu mon oncle - French
  • Noche de duendes - Spanish
  • Spuk um Mitternacht - German[1]

Berth Marks was later reissued in 1936 with a music score added to introductory scenes.[1] This is currently the only surviving version and was subsequently included on the 10-disc Laurel & Hardy: The Essential Collection DVD set, as well as the Spanish Noche de duendes.

The locomotive pulling the train is shown as a 4-6-2 or an American Pacific type steam locomotive, which was the most common wheel arrangement, during the 1800s and 1830s on American railroads until 1928. Such locomotives were given the name "American" in 1872, because a total of 25,000 were built, which did all the work on every railroad. These types of engines have twelve wheels: four leading wheels, six drive wheels, and two trailing wheels.

Cast

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Skretvedt, Randy; Jordan R. Young (1996) [1987]. Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies. Beverly Hills, California: Past Times Publishing. ISBN 0-940410-29-X.
  2. ↑ "Berth Marks - Cast", imdb.com; accessed April 20, 2017.
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