Blotto
About Blotto
During Prohibition, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy plan a night at the Rainbow Club with a bottle hidden from Stan's wife. She hears the scheme on the telephone and refills the bottle with spiced tea. At the club they force the cork, watch a dancer and a sad singer, and act drunk. Mrs. Laurel arrives with a shotgun, tells them it was tea, and chases their taxi. One shot wrecks the cab.
Cast & crew
More about Blotto
James Parrott directed. Leo McCarey and H. M. Walker wrote it. Hal Roach produced. George Stevens photographed it. MGM released it on 8 February 1930. Anita Garvin plays Mrs. Laurel. Nathaniel Shilkret wrote the original music. Leroy Shield scored the 1937 reissue. The English cut runs 26 minutes. A Spanish version, La Vida Nocturna, runs 39 minutes 30 seconds. In the French version Georgette Rhodes plays Mrs. Laurel.
Themes
Background
A pre-Code short about a bottle during Prohibition. The joke is that the bottle is legal because the wife has already emptied it.
Making
Roach reshot the short in Spanish and French for export instead of subtitling the English negative. The Spanish cut is longer.
Look
George Stevens photographed the club and the street chase.
Music
Nathaniel Shilkret wrote the 1930 score. Leroy Shield's music replaced it on the 1937 reissue.
Preservation
The English short and the longer Spanish version both survive.
Notes
- The liquor is tea. They perform drunkenness on spices.
- The Spanish version, reshot rather than dubbed, survives and adds a gag with an electric fan after Stan asks for air. That gag is not in the English cut.
- Garvin is Mrs. Laurel. Rhodes replaces her in the French version.
- Stevens, later a director, is the cameraman.
- One shotgun blast destroys the taxi.
Scenes
- Mrs. Laurel pours the liquor out and pours spiced tea in.
- She walks into the club with the shotgun and names the drink.
- The taxi comes apart from one shot.
Also available
- Internet Archive (blotto_1930)
