Today, nearly five years after Stan Laurel's passing, and twelve years since rotund
Oliver Hardy died, and more than seventeen years since the pair's last film entry, the legion of Laurel and Hardy fans continues to grow. This phenomena may most easily be explained by the fact that third generation admirers of Stan and Ollie are being exposed to the team's films presented on television. Their fascination with the boys is as their fathers and grandfathers was during the late twenties through the forties.
     Although Stan Laurel remained rather leery of Laurel and Hardy telecasts (the films were generally mercilessly re-edited) he owes a lot to them. Viewers seeing the old classics would ask, "Whatever became of Laurel and Hardy?" Such was the question posed to one of Chicago's various letters to the editor column. One local paper noted that Stan was retired and lived quietly in Santa Monica. The paper also quoted Stan's home address.
     I had recently finished John McCabe's Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy and I leapt at the chance to ask Mr. Laurel a few questions regarding matters on which McCabe only touched lightly.
     In an early letter to Mr. Laurel, I asked him to explain the phonetic system used in making early "foreign versions of their films, and to quote a few titles done in this matter. Soon a letter arrived in which Mr. Laurel explained, "The foreign language was NOT DUBBED IN.
     We first made the film in ENGLISH - after this was previewed and final editing was completed - we then called in four interpreters, FRENCH, SPANISH, GERMAN, and ITALIAN who translated the script and engaged a different cast for each version, excepting of course L&H and principal characters such as Jimmy Finlayson, etc.
     "The interpreter read each scene to us word by word and we wrote it on a blackboard as it sounded to us (phonetic system). These boards were placed in back of each of us (out of camera range) so we had no difficulty in speaking the lines in every language. In early days of making foreign versions in sound, the technique of 'DUBBING' wasn't conceived - it soon became a specialized job and our method naturally was discarded.
     "We made five versions of THE LAUREL AND HARDY MURDER CASE, NIGHT OWLS, CHICKENS COME HOME, RATS, BE BIG, COME CLEAN, BELOW ZERO, PARDON US, and a few others I don't recall the titles."
     In ensuing letters Stan expressed doubt that the proposed film on the career of Laurel and Hardy (which was to feature Chuck McCann and Dick Van Dyke) would ever materialize, noted that their appearance on the This is Your Life program was "definitely a big surprise," and asked whatever became of Walter Long.
     In one of my last letters, I mentioned that Hal Roach, Sr., had been a featured guest on one of the late night talk shows. Roach told an anecdote concerning the filming of "Big
Business"—the film in which Finlayson's home is practically leveled by the pair.
     Roach claimed the house used in the classic comedy was rented from a studio employee who was leaving on vacation. Of course, he was to be compensated for the damage done to his home. Roach went on to say that the cast and crew arrived at and destroyed the wrong house. In reference to this Stan wrote,"The anecdote Hal Roach, Sr., told on the Les Crane show, was definitely not true - the chap who owned the house - was employed at the studio and worked on he film with us." Apparently Roach has little regard for what a film historian would record as being fact.
     The last piece of correspondence I received was a postcard which arrived February 23, 1965, the day Stan passed away. This concerned a statement published in a BLACKHAWK FILM bulletin of the day which announced the release of the Laurel and Hardy sound film titled UNACCUSTOMED AS WE ARE in an 8MM silent version.
     In part, the BLACKHAWK announcement read,"Here is the original silent version of this 1929 Laurel and Hardy comedy, one of the few from the transitional period between the silent era and the era of sound. As a result, subtitles are more frequent and more wordy than the silents of just a year before—some separate shooting—as done to the silent versions that make them different from a title version of a sound film that might be edited today.
     Regarding this statement, Stan wrote, "Re the film UNACCUSTOMED AS WE ARE, this was our first SOUND film - there was never a silent version made, or any silent films made after this by us. It doesn't make sense - why should we make one with sound and one without - if a silent version - was required, simply take off the sound track and replace the titles."
     It was while re-reading these letters that it occurred to me that quite a bit of film history which might otherwise be lost to film buffs is contained therein. It is my hope that others who might have had contact with Mr. Laurel (and I'm sure there are many readers of CLASSIC FILM COLLECTOR who have exchanged letters with Stan) might share those letters in similar articles.

—Classic Film Collector (Winter 1970)