Duck Soup (1927 film)

Duck Soup

Theatrical poster for Duck Soup (1927)

Directed by

Fred Guiol

Produced by

Hal Roach

Written by

H.M. Walker
Arthur J. Jefferson (play)

Starring

Stan Laurel
Oliver Hardy

Distributed by

Pathé Exchange Inc.

Release date(s)

March 13, 1927 (1927-03-13)

Running time

20 minutes

Language

Silent film
English intertitles

Preceded by

The Lucky Dog

Followed by

Slipping Wives

Duck Soup is a 1927 short silent film made by Hal Roach Studios. It was the first occasion Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy appeared together on screen at Hal Roach Studios. It was considered a lost film for nearly fifty years, until a print was discovered in 1974. It was previously thought by film scholars that the comedians barely shared any scenes, if any at all, but in fact they appear as a team throughout the entire picture, albeit rather primitively, dressed in tramp costuming, with Hardy sporting an unshaven chin and top hat. In the next few films, Laurel and Hardy were together as separate performers and not working as a double act, before their potential as a team was used again, notably in Do Detectives Think?.

Fleeing a group of forest rangers, who are rounding up tramps to serve as firefighters, they take refuge in a mansion. The owner has gone on vacation and the servants are away, so Hardy pretends to be the owner and offers to rent the house to an English couple. Hardy gets Laurel to pose as the maid. Unfortunately, the owner returns and tells the would-be renters that he owns the house; Laurel and Hardy then flee again and are caught by the rangers and forced to fight wildfires.

The film was directed by Fred Guiol but a more important contribution was noted by the films' supervising director, Leo McCarey, the man who probably more than anyone else at Roach saw the greatest possibilities for Laurel and Hardy as a comedy team. McCarey later used the same title for the classic Marx Brothers film, Duck Soup he directed at Paramount in 1933. The sketch on which the film was based was written by Stan Laurel's father, Arthur J. Jefferson.

It was remade three years later as Another Fine Mess.

Cast

External links

Duck Soup at the Internet Movie Database
Duck Soup at Allmovie
Duck Soup at Rotten Tomatoes

v • d • e

Laurel and Hardy filmography

Silent short films
(Starring roles)

The Lucky Dog (1921) • Duck Soup (1927) • Slipping Wives (1927) • Love 'em and Weep (1927) • Why Girls Love Sailors (1927) • With Love and Hisses (1927) • Sugar Daddies (1927) • Now I'll Tell One (1927) • Sailors, Beware! (1927) • The Second Hundred Years (1927) • Hats Off (1927) • Do Detectives Think? (1927) • Putting Pants on Philip (1927) • The Battle of the Century (1927) • Leave 'Em Laughing (1928) • Flying Elephants (1928) • The Finishing Touch (1928) • From Soup to Nuts (1928) • You're Darn Tootin' (1928) • Their Purple Moment (1928) • Should Married Men Go Home? (1928) • Early to Bed (1928) • Two Tars (1928) • Habeas Corpus (1928) • We Faw Down (1928) • Liberty (1929) • Wrong Again (1929) • That's My Wife (1929) • Big Business (1929) • Double Whoopee (1929) • Bacon Grabbers (1929) • Angora Love (1929)

Talking short films
(Starring roles)

Unaccustomed As We Are (1929) • Berth Marks (1929) • Men O' War (1929) • Perfect Day (1929) • They Go Boom (1929) • The Hoose-Gow (1929) • Night Owls (1930) • Blotto (1930) • Brats (1930) • Below Zero (1930) • Hog Wild (1930) • The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case (1930) • Another Fine Mess (1930) • Be Big! (1931) • Chickens Come Home (1931) • Laughing Gravy (1931) • Our Wife (1931) • Come Clean (1931) • One Good Turn (1931) • Beau Hunks (1931) • Helpmates (1932) • Any Old Port! (1932) • The Music Box (1932) • The Chimp (1932) • County Hospital (1932) • Scram! (1932) • Their First Mistake (1932) • Towed in a Hole (1932) • Twice Two (1933) • Me and My Pal (1933) • The Midnight Patrol (1933) • Busy Bodies (1933) • Dirty Work (1933) • Oliver the Eighth (1934) • Going Bye-Bye! (1934) • Them Thar Hills (1934) • The Live Ghost (1934) • Tit for Tat (1935) • The Fixer Uppers (1935) • Thicker than Water (1935)

Short films
(As guests)

45 Minutes from Hollywood (1926) • Call of the Cuckoo (1927) • The Stolen Jools (1931) • On the Loose (1931) • Wild Poses (1933) • On the Wrong Trek (1936) • The Tree in a Test Tube (1942)

Feature films
(Starring roles)

Pardon Us (1931) • Pack Up Your Troubles (1932) • Fra Diavolo/ The Devil's Brother/Bogus Bandits (1933) • Sons of the Desert (1933) • Babes in Toyland (1934) • Bonnie Scotland (1935) • The Bohemian Girl (1936) • Our Relations (1936) • Way Out West (1937) • Swiss Miss (1938) • Block-Heads (1938) • The Flying Deuces (1939) • A Chump at Oxford (1940) • Saps at Sea (1940) • Great Guns (1941) • A-Haunting We Will Go (1942) • Air Raid Wardens (1943) • Jitterbugs (1943) • The Dancing Masters (1943) • The Big Noise (1944) • Nothing But Trouble (1944) • The Bullfighters (1945) • Atoll K / Utopia (1951)

Feature films
(As guests)

The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929) • The Rogue Song (1930) • Hollywood Party (1934) • Pick a Star (1937)

Cast

See also

External links