Anita Garvin Movies

Back at Hal Roach Studios for the first time since 1938's Block-Heads, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy star in the uneven but generally rewarding A Chump at Oxford. The boys are cast as street-sweepers who hope to better their lot in life by attending night school. Fate intervenes when Stan and Ollie are instrumental in the capture of a bank robber, whereupon they are rewarded by the bank's grateful president (Forbes Murray) with an all-expenses-paid education at England's Oxford University. Arriving on the venerable old campus dressed in Eton jackets, our heroes are pounced upon by a group of prankish students and subjected to all manner of practical jokes. After spending most of the night trying to escape from a maze, Stan and Ollie are installed in their "new quarters"-which turns out to be the bedroom of the Dean (Wilfred Lucas). This sort of collegiate nonsense comes to an end when it is discovered that simple-minded Stan is actually Lord Paddington, the brainiest student and finest athlete that ever attended Oxford. According to Meredith the valet (Forrester Harvey), His Lordship wandered away from the university upon being rendered an amnesiac by a blow on the head. An accidental tap on the noggin restores Stan to his aristocratic Lord Paddington status, whereupon he beats up a crowd of bullying students and deposits them one by one in a nearby ditch. Though Ollie is aghast to learn that Stan-er, His Lordship-has no recollection of their previous friendship, he decides to stay on at Oxford as Paddington's manservant. After having been humiliated once too often by his vain and condescending employer, Ollie angrily packs his bags and prepares to head for home, when yet another bop on His Lordship's skull causes him to revert to lovable, bumbling old Stan again. Originally intended as a four-reeler (running approximately 45 minutes), A Chump at Oxford was completed in the spring of 1939, whereupon Laurel and Hardy were loaned out to producer Boris Morros to star in The Flying Deuces. When shooting was finished on the latter film, the team was summoned back to Roach to film a 2-reel "prologue" for Oxford, bringing the film's running time up to 63 minutes. The new footage consisted of a reworking of the boys' 1928 comedy From Soup to Nuts, with temporary servants Stan and Ollie unintentionally wrecking a dinner party held by Mr. and Mrs. Vandevere (played by veteran L&H supporting players James Finlayson and Anita Garvin). The patchwork stucture of A Chump at Oxford works against its overall effectiveness, but the scenes in which Stan Laurel undergoes a complete change of character as the genius-level Lord Paddington more than make up for the film's earlier shortcomings. One of the students (the tall, mustachioed one) is played by Peter Cushing, in his second Hollywood film appearance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Tall, slinky Anita Garvin took time out from menacing Laurel and Hardy to terrorize the female Stan and Ollie next door, Thelma Todd and ZaSu Pitts. Garvin plays the star attraction of a touring company eventually torn to shreds by Todd and Pitts and their (un)trained monkey. Interestingly, Show Business was directed by Jules White who later launched (and championed) the two-reel career of the Three Stooges. Indeed, White would remake Show Business with Moe, Larry, and Curly as A Pain in the Pullman (1936). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

While this isn't one of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy's best shorts, its premise is very similar to one of their finest features, Sons of the Desert. In both films, the hapless duo is trying to sneak around their wives' backs to join a group of club mates. In Sons of the Desert, they're going to a convention; in Be Big, it's an evening in their honor. The boys have just agreed to go to Atlantic City with their spouses (Isabelle Keith and Anita Garvin), but one of the club men calls Ollie with such enticing details of the celebration that he just has to attend...with Stan in tow, of course. With the help of some talcum powder, Ollie looks pale enough to convince the wives to leave on the trip without him and Stan. Then they hurriedly get into their club outfits, but trouble ensues when Ollie puts on Stanley's much smaller boots and can't get them off. The pair's various attempts to get the boots off Ollie all but destroy Ollie's apartment -- and Ollie. The wives miss the train and return home to discover that they've been tricked. Their panicked husbands try to hide in the folding bed, but the wives pull out their shotguns (a common prop for Laurel and Hardy wives) and start blasting away. Originally filmed in black & white, a colorized version was released in the late 1990s. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

In this especially amusing Laurel and Hardy short, the boys are planning a night on the town. Standing in their way is Mrs. Laurel (Anita Garvin). Ollie telephones Stan with a scheme: Stan will send himself a bogus telegram, calling him away on "business." Unfortunately for the duo, Mrs. Laurel hears all on the extension and upon learning that they intend to take the bottle she's been saving, comes up with a scheme of her own. She takes the bottle, pours out the liquor and replaces it with every disgusting thing she can find in her kitchen -- spices, hot pepper sauce, etc. Stan and Ollie take this concoction to the Rainbow Club and proceed to have a grand time, impressed by the fire of their brew. They find out the truth -- and suffer instant sobriety -- when Mrs. Laurel shows up to tell them the bottle's actual contents...and brandishes a shotgun. While Blotto was originally three reels long, several scenes have been lost, shortening its length by a few minutes. It was shortened even further in the late 1990s, as well as colorized, for the cable TV "Laurel & Hardy Show". This is also one of Laurel and Hardy's films that was made when foreign versions of Hollywood pictures were commonly shot. In Blotto's foreign versions, the night club scene is extended, with several added acts, including a balloon dancer, and showing the boys singing a drunken rendition of "The Curse of an Aching Heart". ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

In her family, Mrs. Pincher (Fay Holderness) keeps a firm hold on the purse strings, but Mr. Pincher (Stan Laurel) has managed to squirrel away three dollars in the pocket of a portrait hanging in the hallway. Mrs. Pincher discovers the hiding place, takes the money, and substitutes her trading stamps. Mr. Hardy (Oliver Hardy) and his wife (Lyle Tayo) stop by. It isn't long before Mr. Pincher and Mr. Hardy decide to ditch their wives and hit the town, the stash from portrait in hand. They meet two girls (Anita Garvin and Kay Deslys) outside the Pink Pup Cafe and escort them inside. After much entertainment at the club, including a performance by a midget troupe, the wayward husbands finally discover their only means of payment is a handful of trading stamps. The head waiter (Tiny Sanford) and the duo's wives converge upon them and a pie fight ensues. This was one of Laurel and Hardy's earlier shorts; they were not yet consistent with using their real names for their characters. The ending was changed before its release, but the original version looks intriguing from stills: Stan and Ollie are attempting to leave the club by disguising themselves as female members of the midget troupe. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Flower-shop clerk Madge Norton (Madge Bellamy) loses her job because she won't fool around with her boss. Figuring that the only way to get anywhere in the world is to be bad, Madge tries to become a loose woman. Unfortunately, she is too good to be bad and is thwarted in her efforts to live a life of sin by her inherent moral fibre. Virtue is ultimately rewarded when Madge falls in love with clean-cut Bradley Lane (Johnny Mack Brown). Play Girl afforded the tired businessmen in the audience ample opportunity to see star Madge Bellamy in a variety of revealing outfits. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Although this is one of the better early films from Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, they have obviously not yet teamed up and their characterizations have not yet gelled. Stan still exhibits the assertiveness from his previous films, and Ollie is still a rather lecherous heavy. The latest fare for cab driver Chester Chase (Laurel) is Madame Ritz (Anita Garvin) and her baby -- who is really her midget husband (Harry Earles). The pair are international jewel thieves. Chester takes them to the dock, and when his cab is inadvertently hauled on board the SS Mirimar, he ends up being steward under the captain (Frank Brownlee) and Purser Cryder (Hardy). Cryder is more interested in pursuing women than being a purser, but Chaste constantly gets in the way (one of the ladies is a young Lupe Velez). Chaste loses at dice with the baby/midget, but foils Madame Ritz's crooked card game. Finally, when he is given the task of bathing the "infant," the kid's hairy chest gives him away. Chaste and Cryder turn in the crooks and collect the reward, but the midget gets his revenge by beating up Cryder. Although Hardy claims that his famous "tie twiddle" originated in this film, it does not appear in the final version -- his classic camera stare, however, is there. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Laurel is Canvasback Clump, an underfed and thoroughly clueless prize-fighter, and Hardy his rather overly optimistic manager. In confronting his ape-like opponent, Thunder-clap Callahan (Noah Young), Canvasback is quickly out for the count and the boys are left with the five-dollar loser's end of the purse. Later, considering their bleak prospects in the park, they encounter a smooth-talking insurance salesman (Eugene Pallette), who talks them into taking out a five-dollar accidental injury policy on Canvasback. After seeing his friend almost slip and fall, his manager decides to take matters into his own hands -- hurling banana peels into his pal's path. Instead, he topples a pie seller exiting a bakery -- thus inciting the silver screen's first real pie fight -- and arguably it's most inventive and funny.

An about average Laurel and Hardy short until the extravagant climactic blowout, it was made near the start of their collaboration and helped prompt their swift rise as worldwide favorites. The pie fight itself, building methodically and hilariously to all-out Armageddon, has been endlessly copied but certainly never equalled. The short's early boxing sequences laid the groundwork for portions of Any Old Port (1932), a later Laurel and Hardy three-reeler. ~ All Movie Guide

Earlier in the century, this melodrama about a young girl in the garment industry was a famous stage play. To bring it to the screen in 1926, the Fox studios changed modest Bertha in her gingham apron into a modern young lady who wears silk lingerie. Madge Bellamy was well-cast in the title role. Bertha Sloan is a sewing machine girl for only a few minutes of screen time. In short order, she is fired from her job and lands a new one, as the telephone girl for a company that manufactures fine women's lingerie. Bertha falls in love with Roy Davis, a young shipping clerk (Allan Simpson), and Morton, the company's manager (Paul Nicholson), makes her one of their models. He also invites the unsuspecting girl onto his yacht, where he tries to have his way with her. But Davis comes to the rescue and saves Bertha's virtue. It turns out that Davis is not a clerk at all, but the head of the company. He fires Morton and marries Bertha. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy can't even tell whose hat is whose, so it's no surprise when they lose their jobs as dishwashers. But it isn't long before they once again obtain employment, this time selling washing machines. Their duties involve dragging a sample machine from door to door. One woman (Anita Garvin) mtions them to come to her door. It's up a very, very high flight of steps, but they make it up there, machine in tow, only to find out that the woman just has a letter she wants them to post. Then when they get back down the stairs she calls them up again -- she forgot to stamp the envelope. Back on the street, another woman (Dorothy Coburn) really wants a demonstration...but she lives back up those steps, so a frustrated Stan kicks her. Angrily, she hits Ollie and leaves the two arguing. Once again they have a mix up with their hats, which spreads a whole streetful of passersby, with everyone mangling everyone else's hats. A steamroller comes by and runs over the washing machine and the crowd of hat destroyers are all arrested -- except for Stan and Ollie, who are still getting their now-raggedy hats on the wrong heads. Sadly, this is the one Laurel and Hardy short that appears to be a lost film -- a brief look at the situations it contains shows how much was borrowed from it in later pictures (the hat switching and reciprocal destruction are only a couple of examples). The stairs in this film -- which are located in the Silverlake district of Los Angeles and still exist today -- were also used in the boys' Academy Award-winning 1934 short The Music Box. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide