Laurel and Hardy
I saw “Sons of the Desert” last night — the first Laurel & Hardy I’ve seen since I was a little kid. Loved it. A couple random notes:
When Stan and Ollie are going to sleep in Ollie’s makeshift bed in the scary attic, Stan says they’re just like “Two peas in a pot”, and is corrected by Ollie with some annoyance. Later, Ollie’s wife (I couldn’t get her name) refers to Stan and Ollie with some annoyance as being like two peas in a pot, and is corrected by Stan.
This is a pretty uncommon variant of “two peas in a pod” on Google. The faux old-school “two pease in a pot” is unattested there, but when you think about it that makes perfect sense, since pease (pisum sativum) is not countable and peas (pisum sativum) are. Likewise “two peas in a cod” is unattested. Which is just as well; it definitely sounds a bit racy…
Ollie’s wife uses “infer” for “imply”. As in, “do you mean to infer that I…” This in 1933.
Stan and Ollie, when alone together, refer to their wives collectively as “the wives”.
Stan and Ollie both refer to Stan & Betty’s house as “Betty’s house”. This demonstrates what we know all too well from the rest of the film: poor Stan very much does not wear the pants.
May 9th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Hahaa! Yeah, I love this episode. It’s easily my favorite Stan & Laurel film.
As for Stan not wearing the pants, Stan is the kind of guy who seems to have no idea what’s going on half the time but for whom things tend to turn for the better. Happily oblivious. Kinda like Harry from 3rd Rock from the Sun.