Beau Hunks opens with Oliver surprising us with some rather mellifluous pipes as he sings a romantic love song on the piano. He's feeling good because he's about to marry his girl, Jeanie-Weanie, who never appears in the film, only in an oft-viewed photograph. ("Jeanie-Weanie" is actually Jean Harlow, who also appeared in a framed photograph as the Boys' mother in the 1930 short, Brats.) Unfortunately, a "Dear John" letter arrives for Ollie, plunging him into heartbreak. Out of sheer misery and the urge to forget his pain, Ollie decides that he -- and Stanley, naturally--must join the Foreign Legion. It turns out to be an experience that offers them softball-sized rocks in their shoes, epic sandstorms, a seriously cranky commandant, plenty of "levity," thousands of thumbtacks (don't ask), the chance to toss grenades (bad idea), and finally, "3897 Arabs, 1921 Riffians and four native Swede guides." (By the way, the actor portraying the Arab leader is credited as Abdul Kasim K'Horne, an alias for director James Horne, who acted the part as a cameo.)
The Motion Picture Productions Code Administration (also known as the Hays Office) reviewed the scripts of Laurel and Hardy films for possible violations of the Code before they were shot. For Beau Hunks, made prior to when the censorship board wielded the dictatorial power it later had, surviving correspondence reveals that not only did the Production Code Administration (PCA) review the film prior to original release, but so did an official of the French Government, the latter invited by the former to assure the American censors that the film would not put our Gaelic friends in an offensive light.
The PCA passed it, believing that it "complies with the tenets of the Code, and contains nothing reasonably censorable." However, the representative of the French government, Valentin Mandelstamm, had some objections. In a letter to all concerned of September 10, 1931, Mandelstamm wrote, "The only remarks which I feel I have to make are: The line in which the French Commander says: 'The Legion is hell on earth and in heaven,' should be cut out. In the same scene, the gag of showing Laurel and Hardy leaving the Commander's desk, then coming back and leaving again, and so forth, forgetting either their hat, or taking away papers by mistake, etc. is really too exaggerated, and besides too long - and not even so funny! It would be rather a good thing if this could be cut."
Mr. Mandelstamm obviously had not yet heard of Jerry Lewis.
Producer: Hal Roach
Director: James W. Horne
Screenplay: H.M. Walker
Cinematography: Art Lloyd, Jack Stevens
Film Editing: Richard C. Currier
Music: Marvin Hatley, Leroy Shield
Cast: Stan Laurel (Stanley), Oliver Hardy (Oliver), James W. Horne (Chief of the Riff Raff), Charles Middleton (Commandant), Broderick O'Farrell (Ft. Arid commander), Harry Schultz (Captain Schultz).
BW-37m.
by Scott McGee
