Wrong Again
About Wrong Again
Stable grooms Stan and Ollie hear of a $5,000 reward for the return of Blue Boy and miss the point that Blue Boy is a stolen painting, not their employer's horse. They deliver the horse to the millionaire, Dell Henderson, who tells them to put Blue Boy on the piano. They set the horse on the grand piano. A leg collapses and Ollie holds the piano up while the horse tries to knock off Stan's hat. Henderson's mother returns with the police and the real painting. He chases Stan, Ollie, and the horse out with a shotgun, and the painting falls on a detective.
Cast & crew
More about Wrong Again
Leo McCarey directed. Lewis R. Foster and McCarey wrote the story; H. M. Walker wrote the intertitles. Hal Roach produced. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released it on 23 February 1929. There is no spoken dialogue. A synchronized orchestral score and sound effects were issued with it. Filmed in October and November 1928. The working title was Just the Reverse. Richard C. Currier edited. The stable scenes were shot at The Uplifters, a polo field and ranch in Rustic Canyon. Running time 20 minutes and 19 seconds.
Themes
Making
McCarey shot it in late 1928, before the Roach lot shut to install full dialogue equipment, and sent it out with music and effects only.
Look
George Stevens and Jack Roach photographed it. The horse and stable material was filmed at The Uplifters in Rustic Canyon, not on a studio backlot.
Music
No dialogue. The 1929 release carried a synchronized orchestral score and sound effects. Many later home prints circulated silent.
Preservation
The picture survives. The best current copies restore the original disc score that 8mm and 16mm prints usually lacked.
Notes
- Josephine Crowell plays the millionaire's mother. William Gillespie is the horse's owner. Harry Bernard is a policeman. Charlie Hall is a neighbor. Sam Lufkin plays Sullivan.
- Stan lifts the lid off an urn, ties the reins to it, and drops it, a joke on the horse anchor delivery drivers used. A related gag is in Going Bye-Bye! (1934).
- Randy Skretvedt traces the 180-degree hand twist, which the working title names, to a Roach writers' habit of McCarey's: turn a straight idea halfway around.
- After 1929 the short was mostly seen on 8mm and 16mm, almost always without the sound discs. Restored copies put the disc accompaniment back.
Scenes
- They lead the horse into the house and put him on the grand piano.
- A piano leg gives way and Ollie holds the instrument up while the horse noses Stan's hat.
- The recovered painting falls on one of the detectives as the millionaire chases them with a shotgun.
Also available
- Internet Archive (wrong-again_1929)
- Wikimedia Commons (Wrong Again (1929).webm)
