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Perfect Day (1929 film)

Perfect Day is a 1929 short comedy film starring Laurel and Hardy.

Plot

The story involves the difficulties Laurel and Hardy, their wives, and their Uncle Edgar (Edgar Kennedy) have in trying to go out for a picnic on a Sunday.

Background/Production

Script written around late May, 1929. Filmed circa June 1-8, 1929. Released August 10, 1929. Copyrighted by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, August 13, 1929.

Present prints of the film derive from a 1937 reissue of the film. For this reissue, background musical scoring was added to the soundtrack (originally the film had no music track other than over the introductory titles) by film editor William Ziegler. The soundtrack was also re-adapted from the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system used in 1929 to the superior sound-on-film technique in use by 1937. Adding the soundtrack to the existing film resulted in a slight reduction of the correct frame ratio: in some scenes in "Perfect Day", the picture is slightly cropped at the top and left hand sides of the frame to allow for inclusion of the soundtrack. "Perfect Day" was Laurel and Hardy's fourth sound film and their fifth appearance in a talking movie (the team had filmed a brief sketch for M-G-M's feature "The Hollywood Revue of 1929" just prior to "Perfect Day"). Despite the fact that most film directors and actors were still learning how to deal with the new technology, Laurel and Hardy had mastered the new form quite early, and the overall excellence and high reputation of "Perfect Day" among comedy fans and contemporary audiences alike bear testimony to the team's fruitful use of the new medium. Sound effects to enhance comic effects, such as what the Three Stooges would come to use, were still in a developmental state in 1929, and Laurel and Hardy employ what must have been among the very first in this short, when Stan is struck with the clutch: a loud clang, as of a tolling bell, is heard. One 1929 reviewer termed this effect "the funniest effect so far heard in a comedy" and while Laurel and Hardy would deploy these effects more exotensively in later films, such effects were used quite sparingly in their repertoire. More commonly found in their films is the use of offscreen sounds to suggest comic possibilities, seen in this film when we hear, not see, Stan wresting the clutch from the car, and in the auto klaxon which surprises Ollie after he's been blown into the road by an explosion.

Although John McCabe was the first to suggest this film originally had as its scripted conclusion an actual picnic, discarded when the extended gags centering on the balky auto provided enough comic material to sustain the entire film, "Perfect Day" does adhere to the cinematic structure common to many Laurel and Hardy shorts. A brief opening scene provides the comedic impetus - the impending picnic - followed by a lengthy middle section involving both "milked" gags (the tire changing and engine cranking sequences), running gags (the "goodbye" repetitions and the reactions of neighbors), and what Professor McCabe has termed "reciprocal destruction" (the window-breaking sequence). The film is then concluded with a very brief wrap-up gag, derived in this case from Laurel and Hardy's earlier short Leave 'Em Laughing (1928). Thus a concluding section depicting the picnic is not only unnecessary from a "punchline" standpoint, but unneeded from a structural perspective.

"Perfect Day" also benefits from having been largely shot outdoors, which vitiates the stagebound setting common to many early talking films. The opening scene is the only one set indoors (one can hear the whirring of cameras in some shots, such as the one in which Mrs. Hardy commends the duo to "forgive and forget") and the exterior sound recording must have been technically impressive for this era of filmmaking, when most actors were confined to remaining close to a microphone. This accomplishment helps the short transcend its time period and remain fresh for viewing today.

In his essay on this film in his book "The Films of Laurel and Hardy", William Everson comments that the series of unresolved frustrations can become "irksome" to a viewer as well. Most commentators, among Laurel and Hardy fans, would disgree. The frustrations build logically out of the events of the film, and are relieved or mediated by frequent changes in tone. Again, Professor McCabe argues that each repetition of the "goodbye" running gag serves as a change of tone, signalling the end of one gag sequence and the onset of the next. In structure, this approach is similar to that employed in such Laurel and Hardy films as Two Tars, where gag sequences do not necessarily build in scale so much as increase the comedic tension.

The two homes seen in the film, as Laurel and Hardy's own and the neighbor's, were in fact owned by Baldwin Cooke, the actor portraying the neighbor in the film. Cooke had been one-third of the vaudeville team of "The Stan Jefferson Trio", in which he had worked in the 1915-1916 era with Stan Laurel. The Laurel and Hardy home seen in the film still stands, virtually unchanged, today in Culver City, California.

Cast and crew information

Stan Laurel (Stan)
Oliver Hardy (Ollie)
Edgar Kennedy (Uncle Edgar)
Kay Deslys (Mrs. Hardy)
Isabelle Keith (Mrs. Laurel)
Baldwin Cooke (Irate neighbor)
Lyle Tayo Barton (Irate neighbor's wife)
Harry Bernard (Neighbor across the street)
Clara Guiol (Wife of neighbor across the street)
Charley Rogers (Minister)

Major themes

Release

Theatrical

Home media

Critical reception

Documentaries

Soundtrack

Incidental Music Scoring

"Ku-Ku" (Marvin Hatley, arranged by Le Roy Shield)
"We're Just a Happy Family" (Shield)
"Let's Face It" (Shield)
"We're Out for Fun" (Shield)
"Carefree" (Shield)
"Up in Room 14" (Shield)
"The Laurel and Hardy Waltz" (Nathaniel Shilkret)
"Up in Room 14" (reprise) (Shield)
"Colonial Gayeties" (Shield)
"On a Sunny Afternoon" (Shield)
"We're Out for Fun" (Shield)
"Here Comes the Stagecoach" (Hatley)
"Our Relations/Finale" (Shield)