The Finishing Touch
About The Finishing Touch
Stan and Ollie take a contract to finish a house, with $500 extra if they make the deadline. A hospital nurse (Dorothy Coburn) sets a policeman (Edgar Kennedy) on them for the noise, and the cop takes most of the falling lumber. The owner (Sam Lufkin) pays them. A bird lands, the chimney drops, and the house gives way. He wants the $500 back, and they try to keep it.
Cast & crew
More about The Finishing Touch
Clyde Bruckman directed, with Leo McCarey supervising. Hal Roach produced. H. M. Walker wrote it. Shot in November and December 1927. The house was built by the Roach crew on Motor Avenue and torn down after the shoot. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released it on 25 February 1928.
Themes
Making
An overbuilt set stopped the planned collapse. The truck sat in the wall instead of driving through it.
Reviews
William K. Everson, in The Films of Laurel and Hardy (1967), called it a slight disappointment: the climactic gags lack the force the build-up promises, and the short has a mechanical flavor, though the construction problems give each gag an anticipation. Glenn Mitchell noted one gag in which Stan seems to hold both ends of a long piece of timber.
Look
George Stevens photographed the Cheviot Hills location, including the Motor Avenue house built only for the film.
Music
Silent.
Preservation
The short survives in circulation among Laurel and Hardy silents.
Notes
- George Stevens was the cinematographer.
- The hospital bit was filmed at 2728 McConnell Drive, a house that was still standing when the location was later identified. The set house was at 2830 Motor Avenue.
- The truck was supposed to flatten the house. The crew built it sturdier than designer Thomas Benton Roberts specified, and the truck lodged halfway through.
- Randy Skretvedt found the action script, including gags that were never used.
- It follows Laurel's Smithy (1924) and Hardy's Stick Around (1925), both solo films about manual work.
- Later accounts call it the first of their 'workingman' shorts, with Dirty Work, Busy Bodies, and The Music Box in that line.
Scenes
- Lumber and tools keep landing on the policeman the nurse has called.
- A bird hits the chimney and the paid-for house comes apart.
- The truck wedges in a wall that the crew built too strong.
Influenced by
- Smithy (1924)
- Stick Around (1925)
Influenced
- The Music Box (1932)
