Starvation Blues

1925 Comedy 20 minutes Directed by Richard Wallace

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About Starvation Blues

Clyde Cook and Syd Crossley play street musicians trying to get by in the cold. The short moves them into a café: Cesare Gravina is the owner, Mildred June his daughter, Frederick Kovert a dancer, Fred Kelsey a prohibition officer, and Tiny Sandford a policeman. The gags are falls. Stan Laurel, who shared the story, later used a street musician out in the snow again in Below Zero (1930), with Oliver Hardy.

Cast & crew

More about Starvation Blues

Richard Wallace directed. Hal Roach produced, and F. Richard Jones was supervising director. The story is credited to Stan Laurel, Sherbourne Shields, Frank Terry, and Wallace. H. M. Walker wrote the titles. Len Powers photographed it, and Richard C. Currier edited. Pathé Exchange released it on 13 December 1925 as a Pathécomedy. Lord Heath's Roach filmography gives the production number as C-5 and the shooting dates as 14–29 September 1925. It was copyrighted on 30 December 1925.

Themes

  • Two musicians in the cold
  • A café and a prohibition officer
  • Falls as the joke
  • street musician
  • snow
  • café
  • prohibition officer
  • Hal Roach
  • Clyde Cook
  • Syd Crossley

Making

Wallace was both director and one of four writers on the story. The titles were not Laurel's; they were H. M. Walker's, the usual title writer at Roach.

Look

Len Powers photographed the two-reeler during the September 1925 shoot.

Preservation

Silent Era lists an abridged 8mm reduction positive. A copy is on Wikimedia Commons.

Notes

  • It is a two-reeler. The AFI Catalog lists the running time as 20 minutes.
  • Motion Picture News of 24 October 1925 reported that Cook was making a new comedy at the Roach studios under C. Richard Wallace, with June, Kovert, Gravina, and Kelsey in support.
  • Other players named by Silent Era include Brooks Benedict, Helen Gilmore, and Edward Jefferson as a diner.
  • Laurel was a writer on the lot in 1925, four years before the Laurel and Hardy team.

Scenes

  • Cook and Crossley work the street as musicians in the cold.
  • The action shifts to Gravina's café, with a prohibition officer and a policeman among the customers.

Influenced

  • Below Zero (1930), which reuses a street musician out in the snow

Also available

  • Wikimedia Commons (Starvation Blues (1925).webm)

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