Pie-Eyed
About Pie-Eyed
Stanley, of the New Temperance Society, walks into a speakeasy with a bottle to see what drink does. The manager, ex-boxer Jack Tinney, tells him to sit. A steak goes onto a black eye. Stan shoots a spoon down a girl's dress, fishes it out, and is shoved into the band, where a trombone breaks. He dances with Tinney's wife, spills a drink that burns the table like acid, and is thrown out. On the way home he mistakes a tree guard for a jail, hands a policeman Tinney's card when he cannot remember his own address, and is delivered to the couple's flat. He ends in their bed, jumps from a window into tar, and walks off barefoot.
Cast & crew
More about Pie-Eyed
Scott Pembroke and Joe Rock directed. Rock produced. Tay Garnett wrote it. Edgar Lyons photographed it. The release date is 30 March 1925. Stan Laurel plays Stanley. Glen Cavender plays Jack Tinney. Thelma Hill plays Mrs. Tinney. Budd Fine plays the policeman.
Themes
Background
The speakeasy and the temperance card are set in Prohibition, when the bottle Stanley carries is itself the joke.
Making
Joe Rock both produced the short and shared the direction with Scott Pembroke, with Tay Garnett on the script.
Look
Edgar Lyons shot the club, the broken trombone, and the street where a cleaning wagon soaks Stanley before the tar.
Notes
- The club owner is played as a blend of Gene Tunney and Jack Johnson. Johnson was known for owning speakeasies.
- A spilled drink burns through the tabletop, which is how the club finally throws Stanley out.
- He loops his coat around a lamp-post and spins until the policeman asks for an address.
- The last shot leaves him in the street without his shoes, the tar still on the policeman.
Scenes
- Stan catapults a spoon down a girl's dress and is thrown backward into the band.
- A drink burns the table. Tinney puts him out.
- Stan jumps from the apartment window into tar and leaves his shoes behind.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Pie-Eyed (1925).webm)
