Dorothy Coburn Movies
A member of the Hal Roach stock company in the late '20s, brunette Dorothy Coburn was the perfect comedy flapper. Prison escapee Stan Laurel rudely slaps white paint on her backside in The Second Hundred Years (1927), and although her appearance is a mere five-second bit, it is fondly remembered. Coburn had a much larger role as the quarrelsome nurse in The Finishing Touch (1928) and that same year played one of the dental assistants (Viola Richard was the other) in Leave 'Em Laughing. Coburn retired from acting at the advent of sound but later functioned as a stunt double and became a stand-in for Ginger Rogers. Her death was attributed to emphysema. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide- 1965
Five of Laurel and Hardy's best features from the silent film era are compiled in this collection by Robert Youngson. Included are From Soup To Nuts, Wrong Again, The Finishing Touch, and iberty. On hand are legendary comic foils like James Findlayson and Edgar Kennedy, both masters of the "slow burn" when showing their disapproval. Watch for Margaret Dumont, famous for her characterization as the flustered dowager in many Marx Brothers films, in the pie-fight scene. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jay Jackson, Stan Laurel, (more)
- 1928
Our Gang member Joe Cobb has to do some quick thinking when his playful but undeniably destructive pet dog Pansy is slated to be shot by Joe's frustrated dad. Training Pansy to play dead, Joe does his job so well that the pooch is hired as a "stunt dog" by a local movie studio. As expected, Joe and the rest of the Our Gang kids tag along when Pansy makes his debut before the cameras, culminating in an outsized pie fight on the set of a slapstick comedy. By the time Playin' Hookey was released by Pathe on January 1, 1928, producer Hal Roach was releasing his newest Our Gang comedies through his new distributor MGM. Long available only in a fragmentary version, a complete print of this film was discovered in a French vault in the 1980s.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joe Cobb, Farina Hoskins, (more)
- 1928
Originally released on April 7, 1928, "Barnum & Ringling, Inc." was the first "Our Gang" silent comedy to be released with a synchronized musical and sound-effects track. All of the action takes place at the fashionable Ritz-Biltmore hotel, where the Our Gang kids have elected to stage a circus. The fun really begins when the circus animals escape and begin roaming in and out of various hotel rooms. And when an ostrich manages to consume a full bottle of bootleg booze, it's "Katie Bar the Door." Watch for brief appearances by character actor Eugene Pallette as a house detective, future B-western heavy Charles King as a would-be Romeo, and comedian Oliver Hardy as a startled guest. (Ollie is in fact, so startled that he swallows a cork!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joe Cobb, Farina Hoskins, (more)
