For this season (the 20th!), the staff is choosing the films, and the ones to choose from all feature Raymond Griffith, a major silent film star who is pretty much unknown to me. After working in films in the ’teens as a comedy juvenile, he went behind the camera until he eventually developed his comedy character as an elegant, top-hatted, mustachioed gent, and became a star in his own right. Who knew? I didn’t, but now we all do. The feature, Paths to Paradise (1925) was preceded by a Laurel and Hardy short, Do Detectives Think? (1927).
In addition to being notable for having Laurel and Hardy appear in their ‘standard’ costumes of suits and bowler hats for the first time, this was also a very funny film. And one bit where Laurel gives his own hat to Hardy while keeping Hardy’s on his head is quite amusing. Even when you know it’s going to happen again and again, it’s still funny. Okay, here’s the plot.
The boys are sent by their agency to protect a judge who is being threatened by the Tipton Slasher. Unfortunately, the boys are the least skilled detectives in their agency. Through many bumbling interludes, the boys finally (by dumb luck) catch their man. One of my favorite scenes featured Laurel in a graveyard trying to retrieve both of the windblown, aforementioned bowlers and then being frightened over and over again by his own shadow. The lighting created the gags in a very interesting way. And the gag was brought full circle when the shadow of a billy goat ends up looking like a devil and frightening Hardy.
Paths to Paradise stars Raymond Griffith (the Dude from Duluth) and Betty Compson (Molly) as a pair of con men, if you will, trying to con each other and the San Francisco police. Once they team up against the police, it’s no contest, although one of the police detectives keeps trying to get Compson to see the error of her ways and go straight. She does, but unfortunately we don’t get to see that. You’ll understand why later.
As a team, they attempt to steal a diamond necklace from a rich man who is having a party for his daughter’s upcoming wedding, and wants to present her with the necklace. Compson is undercover as a maid, and Griffith is undercover as a detective, even though there are already two detectives supposedly guarding the safe and the necklace.
Once Griffith actually has the safe and is plotting his and Compson’s escape, we were treated to a very funny ‘lighting’ scene in this film, too. One of the detectives is using a flashlight to sweep the room, and as it catches Griffith in its beam, Buddy the dog distracts the detective so that the detective doesn’t see Griffith. Buddy eventually grabs the flashlight in his teeth, and every time Griffith tries to avoid the flashlight beam, it catches him, but the detective never sees him. Finally, Griffith gets out of the beam of light and out of the room and hooks up with Compson to open the safe. Once the two of them have the necklace, they hightail it out of the mansion, though finally seen by the detectives, and ‘the chase’ begins.
This is a very funny chase. The thieving duo jumps into a car and they’re off. They are soon followed by a police car as well as a brigade of police motorcyclists. As the chase wends its way south toward Mexico, additional cyclists pile on—from San Luis Obispo, from LA, from San Diego—with what looks like close to a hundred cyclists. At one point it seems as though the duo’s car is going to run out of gas but, fortuitously, they’re hurtling down the road next to a tanker truck. So Griffith turns the wheel over to Compson (mind you, the speedometer reads between 80mph and 100mph) and he siphons gas out of the tanker into their gas tank! Then when the duo’s car crosses the border, the cops just stop, and refuse to cross. Something to do with respecting international borders. And that’s where the film ends. Sort of.
Apparently, from original reviews, we learn that Compson does have a change of heart and the dapper Dude from Duluth is gallant enough to return with her and the necklace back to the USofA and to the bride-to-be’s father. Unfortunately, that seventh reel of the film is lost (so far). So the end of reel six is satisfying as an ending, but ‘what-ifs’ abound.
Ben Model once again supplied wonderful piano scores for both films. I especially liked the way he sync’ed rhythmically with Laurel and Hardy’s rhythmic sight gags and head nods. And the audience supplied a real-live laugh track better than any ’60s or ’70s sitcom. There are two more to come in this Griffith series, with two more staff members choosing the films, and I plan on being at both of them. I look forward to getting better acquainted with Griffith.
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