Directed by: Lewis R. Foster

Starring: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Mae Busch, Edgar Kennedy, Thelma Todd

STORY

Oliver Hardy has made a decision.

He is bringing his friend Stanley home for dinner.

There is just one small problem.

He hasn't bothered to tell his wife.

Ollie confidently assures Stan that Mrs. Hardy will be delighted to prepare a wonderful meal for their guest. In Ollie's mind, his wife is apparently waiting at home with nothing better to do than cook an unexpected dinner for Stan Laurel.

Mrs. Hardy has a somewhat different reaction.

The moment Ollie announces his brilliant plan, domestic warfare erupts. Mrs. Hardy is furious that her husband has invited someone home without asking her, and Ollie's attempts to regain control of the situation accomplish exactly what Ollie's attempts usually accomplish:

They make everything worse.

After a spectacular argument, Mrs. Hardy storms out.

Fortunately — or unfortunately — their neighbor Mrs. Kennedy comes to the rescue.

She offers to help prepare dinner while her policeman husband is away. What could possibly go wrong?

This is Stan and Ollie.

Everything.

A kitchen mishap leaves Mrs. Kennedy's dress ruined, forcing her to remove it. At precisely the wrong moment, Mr. Kennedy comes home.

Now Ollie has a partially dressed neighbor in his apartment, her policeman husband nearby, his own furious wife liable to return at any moment, and Stanley right in the middle of the entire catastrophe.

Naturally, the only reasonable solution is to hide Mrs. Kennedy inside a trunk.

And naturally, this makes everything infinitely worse.

What began with the simple sentence “Stan is coming to dinner” becomes a glorious Laurel and Hardy avalanche of marital warfare, misunderstandings, ruined clothing, hiding places, police trouble and escalating panic.

But Unaccustomed As We Are contains something even more important than its wonderfully ridiculous domestic disaster.

For the first time, movie audiences weren't merely watching Laurel and Hardy.

They could hear them.

AIN BACKSTAGE SECRETS & AINTOIDS
LAUREL AND HARDY SPEAK!

This is the big one.

Unaccustomed As We Are was Laurel and Hardy's first all-talking film.

By the time it appeared in 1929, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were already established screen comedians. Audiences knew their faces, their movements, their bowler hats and the wonderfully mismatched personalities they had developed during the silent era.

Now audiences discovered something else.

Their voices were every bit as funny as their faces.

IMAGINE HEARING THEM FOR THE FIRST TIME

Today it is almost impossible to separate Laurel and Hardy from the way they sounded.

Ollie's grand, dignified voice perfectly matches a man absolutely convinced that he is the intelligent member of the partnership.

Stan's softer, bewildered delivery somehow makes his character even funnier.

But audiences in 1929 had never heard any of that.

Imagine already knowing Laurel and Hardy from their silent films and then sitting in a theater as these two familiar characters suddenly started talking.

Their voices could have destroyed the illusion audiences had created around them.

Instead, sound made Laurel and Hardy even better.

THE TITLE WAS A JOKE!

Even the title celebrates their arrival in talking pictures.

The phrase “unaccustomed as we are to public speaking” was a familiar joking way to begin a speech.

So calling Laurel and Hardy's first talking picture Unaccustomed As We Are was a perfect little wink at the audience.

After years of silent comedy...

Stan and Ollie finally had something to say.

SOUND DIDN'T REPLACE THEIR COMEDY

One reason Laurel and Hardy survived the transition to talking pictures so successfully is that they didn't abandon what already worked.

Their comedy remained visual.

Stan could still reduce Ollie to despair with one expression.

Ollie could still stare directly into the camera after Stan did something incomprehensible, silently asking the audience:

Do you see what I have to put up with?

Sound wasn't used to replace their physical comedy.

It was added to it.

Arguments, cries, crashes, pauses and those wonderfully distinctive voices became new ingredients in an already successful formula.

ENTER MRS. HARDY

Mae Busch plays Mrs. Hardy, and anyone expecting a quiet little domestic wife is in for a surprise.

Mrs. Hardy is perfectly capable of standing up to Ollie — and then some.

Busch became one of the most memorable women in the Laurel and Hardy universe, appearing with the team repeatedly and frequently playing exactly the kind of formidable woman capable of making Ollie's life miserable.

And Ollie, naturally, usually gives her plenty of reasons.

THELMA TODD BEFORE BECOMING A COMEDY STAR

The beautiful neighbor Mrs. Kennedy is played by Thelma Todd, who would become one of the best-known comedy actresses of the early 1930s.

Todd appeared with Laurel and Hardy several times and also worked with performers including Charley Chase and the Marx Brothers before starring in her own series of comedy shorts.

Here she becomes an essential ingredient in the catastrophe after trying to do something perfectly innocent:

Help Ollie make dinner.

She should have known better.

EDGAR KENNEDY — THE PERFECT POLICEMAN

Mrs. Kennedy's husband is played by Edgar Kennedy, one of the great character comedians of the era.

Kennedy became famous for what was sometimes called the “slow burn” — the marvelous ability to show anger building gradually until his character seemed ready to explode.

Putting him opposite Laurel and Hardy was practically guaranteed to produce fireworks.

And making him a policeman only raises the stakes.

Stan and Ollie aren't merely worried about an angry husband.

They're worried about an angry husband with a badge.

AINTOID: THE TRUNK WOULD RETURN

If portions of this story sound familiar to Laurel and Hardy fans, there's a reason.

The team later revisited elements of the domestic chaos and particularly the business involving a woman hidden in a trunk in their 1938 feature Block-Heads.

Laurel and Hardy frequently understood that a great comic situation didn't necessarily have to be discarded after one use.

Change the circumstances, expand the routine and let Stan and Ollie destroy everything all over again.

AINTOID: TALKIES ENDED MANY CAREERS — BUT NOT THEIRS

The arrival of synchronized dialogue was one of the great upheavals in Hollywood history.

Some silent stars struggled because their voices, accents or acting styles didn't translate comfortably into talking pictures. Production itself changed as cameras, sets, microphones and performers adapted to the new technology.

Laurel and Hardy didn't merely survive.

They flourished.

Their voices became inseparable from their characters, and sound opened an entirely new chapter in their comedy.

AINTOID: 1929 WAS AN INCREDIBLE MOMENT IN MOVIE HISTORY

When Unaccustomed As We Are reached theaters, Hollywood was transforming almost overnight.

Silent movies hadn't simply vanished. The industry was simultaneously producing silent films, part-talkies and increasingly sophisticated all-talking pictures while studios and theaters rushed to adapt to sound.

Laurel and Hardy were standing right in the middle of that revolution.

And unlike many performers whose careers were threatened by the microphone, Stan and Ollie discovered that the microphone loved them.

FROM SILENT LEGENDS TO TALKING LEGENDS

There is something wonderfully appropriate about Laurel and Hardy's first talkie being built around such a simple disaster.

No enormous spectacle was necessary.

No elaborate musical production.

No grand demonstration of the new technology.

Just Ollie bringing Stan home for dinner without telling his wife.

That's all it takes.

Because with Laurel and Hardy, the machinery of comedy was already there.

Sound simply allowed audiences to hear the gears turning.

Unaccustomed As We Are therefore captures a genuine turning point — not only in the career of one of cinema's greatest comedy teams, but in the history of movies themselves.

Before this film, audiences knew what Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy looked like.

After it...

They knew exactly what Laurel and Hardy sounded like.

And movies would never be quite the same.

DATE RELEASED

May 4, 1929

COUNTRY RELEASED

United States