Laurel and Hardy Society Sons of the Desert Way Out West Tent Los Angeles
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The Brushwood Gulch Gazette is the newsletter of the Way Out West Tent. It is published six times a year, shortly before regular tent meetings. Members receive the complete printed edition in the mail. The online edition features most of the articles found in the printed version, minus photos.

Stan Laurel Birthday Celebration June 17th

On Tuesday night, June 17th, join us at The Mayflower Club to celebrate Stan Laurel's 124th birthday. Besides screening three Laurel & Hardy short films and a Laurel & Hardy feature, we will serve cake in honor of Stan's birthday and have a raffle to raise money for UCLA's Laurel & Hardy Preservation Fund.

Our evening's film program will begin with Laurel & Hardy's popular silent short, You're Darn Tootin' (1928). As it often happens in L&H films, their situation seems to quickly go from bad to worse. First as musicians, Ollie and Stan (especially Stan), drive their conductor crazy to the point where they both lose their jobs in the orchestra. Then their landlady, to whom they owe back rent, finds out they no longer have jobs. What will the Boys do next?

In their short, Busy Bodies (1933), the Boys are employed at a sawmill. Unfortunately they seem to have no one supervising their dangerous work. Stan and Ollie go from one job to another, never finishing anything that they start. Along the way, Stan unwittingly seems to go out of his way to make Ollie's day at work as miserable as possible. How far will Stan go? Charlie Hall and Tiny Sandford have cameos in the film.

Any Old Port (1932) is a short that can be broken into two parts. The first part is when the Boys rescue Diane Duval (Jacqueline Wells) from marrying Mugsie Long (Walter Long). The second part is when Mugsie unexpectedly pops up again in a boxing ring to fight Stan. Any Old Port is often overlooked by Laurel & Hardy fans, but I think that Stan's boxing match with Walter Long is a classic moment.

Our feature film for the evening will be The Bullfighters (1945). Stan & Ollie are private detectives who go to Mexico to find female larcenist Hattie Blake (Carol Andrews). The Boys find Hattie, but they also find their old enemy Richard Muldoon (Ralph Sanford), who promised if he ever saw the Boys again he would "skin them alive." The bigger problem is that Stan looks exactly like the famous bullfighter, Don Sebastian. Of course, Stan will end up in the bullring pretending to be Don Sebastian! Diosa Costello, a young Rory Calhoun, Hank Worden, and Richard (Dick) Lane also appear in the film. Though Stan is not formally credited, he did help in the directing and the writing of The Bullfighters, which I think makes this 20th Century Fox film a little better than most of the Boys post-Roach films.

The Mayflower Club is located at 11110 Victory Boulevard in North Hollywood. The doors open at 6:30 p.m. Our meeting starts at 7:15 p.m. "Fisher Franks" (100% beef hot dogs) with your choice of chips will be sold at the Mayflower Club Kitchen. Refreshments will be sold at The Mayflower Bar. Free birthday cake will be served during our second break. See you June 17th!

Click here for a map to the Mayflower Club...


UCLA's Laurel & Hardy Preservation Fund Raffle

At our June meeting, we will again have a special raffle where all the proceeds from the raffle will be donated to UCLA's Laurel & Hardy Preservation Fund. Our biggest prize for the raffle will be a brand new 10 disc DVD sealed set of Laurel & Hardy: The Essential Collection. Some of the other prizes will be a rare Laurel & Hardy doll set and some unusual Laurel & Hardy stills. If you have any interesting Laurel & Hardy memorabilia for the raffle, please bring it to the meeting. If you don't want to hassle with the raffle, we will always accept a cash donation of any amount.

Money from our donations will help UCLA finance their work in restoring and preserving all the 35mm negatives in their Roach sound Laurel & Hardy collection. Our donations will hopefully someday allow us and future Laurel & Hardy fans to enjoy the highest quality presentations of Laurel and Hardy films ever possible. Since 2011 we have been able to donate a total of almost $1,700 to the preservation fund. Can we get that total close to $2,000 in June 2014?


Single Event Tickets for July L&H Convention

There is limited space available for individual events at the upcoming "Laurel and Hardywood" 19th International Sons of the Desert Convention taking place next month in Hollywood. These events are open to anyone and will depart from the Loews Hollywood Hotel at Hollywood and Highland. If you purchase a single-event ticket, be sure to arrive early so you don't miss the scheduled tour. Parking is available in the parking structure of the Hollywood and Highland Complex. All Single Event Ticket Registration Forms must be received by us by June 14th. Visit www.laurelandhardywood.com for more information.


Notes From Our March Meeting

At our March meeting, we screened examples of Laurel & Hardy's characters as their normal "law abiding citizens" versus their characters as a little bit "in trouble with the law." For "law abiding citizens" examples, we screened: Going Bye-Bye!, The Midnight Patrol, and Do Detectives Think? For "in trouble with the law" examples, we screened: Liberty, The Hoose-Gow, and Scram! The verdict for the evening, Stan and Ollie are funny and lovable characters no matter what side of the law they are on. Case closed!

Thanks to Jayne Barnhart, Dave Greim, Chris Spicher, Ken Runyan, Frank Guercio, and Bob Duncan for helping me with the Toasts and singing the Song. Thanks also to all our members who continue their great support of our Tent!


From The Grand Sheik

I got a lot of interesting feedback from my Elvis Presley column in March about Elvis being a big fan of Laurel & Hardy and having and showing his collection of the Boys' films often to his friends. In fact in one of his films, Double Trouble, he tries to imitate Babe's famous stare into the camera. If everything works out at our June meeting, I plan to show a clip from Double Trouble and let you be the judge if you think that Elvis does a good job of imitating Babe.

From the You Never Know When Someone Will Say Something About Laurel & Hardy Department: When my family and I recently were on a tour of the Missouri State Capitol, I saw a picture of a man that looked just like Stan Laurel with a mustache. I was just going to poke Jimmy III in the ribs so he saw what I saw, when our guide pointed at picture and told our group, "I'm a big fan of Laurel & Hardy, doesn't that man look like Stan Laurel?




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