Should Married Men Go Home?
About Should Married Men Go Home?
Ollie and his wife are having a quiet Sunday until Stan arrives and wants to play golf. Stan breaks a chair and a blind and nearly sets the house on fire; Ollie breaks the Victrola; Mrs. Hardy chases them both out. On the course they are paired with two young women who expect sodas. Short of money, Stan leaves his watch to cover a thirty-cent bill. They tangle with a rude golfer, Edgar Kennedy, and the round ends in a mud fight with the other players.
Cast & crew
More about Should Married Men Go Home?
Leo McCarey and James Parrott co-directed. McCarey, Parrott, and H. M. Walker wrote it. Hal Roach produced. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released it on 8 September 1928. It is the first Roach film to bill Laurel and Hardy as a team. Earlier films they made together went out under the All-Star Comedy banner. Shot in March and May 1928. The working title was Follow Through. George Stevens photographed. Richard C. Currier edited. Two reels, 20 minutes. It entered the public domain in the United States in 2024.
Themes
Making
The gap between the March shoot and the September release was long for a Roach short. By the autumn, Laurel and Hardy were being billed as a team rather than as two names on an All-Star card.
Reviews
Leslie Halliwell thought the domestic scene at the start was the funniest part. William K. Everson, in The Films of Laurel and Hardy (1967), called it one of the best of the overlooked Laurel and Hardy films, and pointed to Ollie collapsing the front fence, the soda fountain, and Edgar Kennedy's toupee.
Look
George Stevens photographed the house and the course. Derricks from the Los Angeles City Oil Field are visible behind the players.
Preservation
Prints survive. The film entered the public domain in the United States in 2024. A copy is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- John Aasen, 7 feet 1 inch, plays a "Very Tall Golfer.
- Dorothy Coburn and Edna Marion are in the cast with Charlie Hall.
- The soda-fountain routine was redone in the talkie Men O' War, with Jimmy Finlayson in the part Charlie Hall plays here.
- Stan sliding a note under the door, only to have it pulled in from the other side, was reused in Come Clean (1931).
- Oil derricks of the Los Angeles City Oil Field stand behind the golf-course scenes.
Scenes
- Stan breaks the chair and the blind, Ollie smashes the Victrola, and Mrs. Hardy throws them out.
- Stan leaves his watch to pay a thirty-cent soda bill.
- A mud fight with Edgar Kennedy and the other golfers.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Should Married Men Go Home?.webm)
