Why Girls Love Sailors

Why Girls Love Sailors
Theatrical poster for Why Girls Love Sailors (1927)
Directed by	Fred Guiol
Produced by	Hal Roach
Written by	Hal Roach H.M. Walker (titles)
Starring	Stan Laurel Oliver Hardy Viola Richard Anita Garvin Malcolm Waite
Distributed by	Pathé
Release date(s)	July 17, 1927
Running time	20 min.
Country	United States
Language	Silent film English intertitles
Preceded by	Love 'em and Weep
Followed by	With Love and Hisses

Why Girls Love Sailors is a 1927 comedy short silent film directed by Fred Guiol for Hal Roach Studios starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy before they had become the comedy team of Laurel and Hardy. It was shot during February 1927 and released July 17, 1927, by Pathé Exchange. It was considered a lost film until the 1980s.

1 Opening Title
2 Plot
3 Cast
4 Rediscovery of film in the 1980s
5 Miscellany
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

Opening Title

The crew of the 'Merry Maiden' feared nothing on earth — except the police.

Plot

The film starts with the loading of a ship called the Merry Maiden. Oliver is first mate on the ship and described as "a bully, the nastiest crew member, after the captain of course". Stan plays Willie Brisling a guy who is engaged to Nelly and they are in love. The captain leaves his ship, he sees Nelly and decides he wants her. Stan has a tattoo of a ship on his chest and shows it to the captain. The captain pours a jug of water down Stan's sweater and abducts Nelly. The captain takes Nelly to his ship and Stan sneaks on board to rescue her. Oliver starts to look for Stan. Stan decides to save Nelly his last hope is to get rid of the crew, one by one. Stan disguises himself as a loose woman. The crew begin to fall for his charms. Stan calls one of the crewmen over, he hits the crewman with a cosh and knocks him out. Then he throws the cosh at Oliver, who thinks the crewman threw the cosh. Oliver throws the crewman overboard, this is repeated until all of the crew are in the sea.

Nelly is being harassed by the captain. The captain's wife appears at the ship. The Captain takes a fancy to Stan. The wife appears as Stan is sat in the captain's lap. The captain's wife takes a gun and goes to shoot her husband. Stan stops her and takes off his wig. Stan says "this was a test to see if you really love your husband". The captain and wife begin to make up. But then the captain indicates he's going to "deal with Stan later". Stan is peeved, he opens the door and Nelly appears. Stan indicates the captain has been up to no good with Nelly and that four other loose women have already gone. The captain's wife is furious, Stan gives her the gun back. Stan and Nelly leave. There is a gun shot in the room. The wife, still angry, sees Stan and Nelly through a porthole and shoots them. Stan and Nelly's clothes fall off revealing their underwear.

Cast

Stan Laurel as Willie Brisling
Oliver Hardy as First mate
Viola Richard as Willie's Girl
Anita Garvin as Captain's wife
Malcolm Waite as Captain
Charles R. Althoff as Grandpa Brisling (uncredited)
Edgar Dearing as Amorous Sailor (uncredited)
Bobby Dunn as Bemused bit (uncredited)

Rediscovery of film in the 1980s

After its initial run in 1927 — and particularly after talkies eclipsed silent films' marketability — Why Girls Love Sailors was put in a film can and went missing (Stateside) for nearly fifty years. But the Cinémathèque Française had a 16mm print deep within its vaults, and French film critic Roland Lacourbe saw it in 1971 — and pronounced it "mediocre."^[1] When it finally was possible to see it, it was drawn from a 16mm print in a private collection, and only due to the efforts of a private collector in Copenhagen.

Laurel and Hardy author Glenn Mitchell is even less impressed by the film than was Lacourbe: "Why Girls Love Sailors is one of several instances where the status of a 'lost' film has been reduced by its rediscovery," he writes.^[2]

It is available on VHS and DVD releases, with reconstructed credits. In the United States, both VHS and DVD editions are out-of-print.

Miscellany

Oliver has a beard and a moustache, rather than his usual solitary moustache.
In later years, Oliver Hardy claimed he originated his signature "tie-twiddle" in this film, except he doesn't wear a tie in it; he was probably thinking of Sailors Beware, a film he made some two months later.^[3]
The film marks the first appearance of Anita Garvin in a Laurel & Hardy picture; her involvement in the film wasn't known for over fifty years, until the 1986 rediscovery.
Deleted scenes from this film included actress Anna May Wong.

References

^ Skretvedt, Randy (1996). Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies. Beverly Hills, CA: Past Times Publishing. ISBN 094041029X, p. 81.
^ Mitchell, Glenn (1995). The Laurel & Hardy Encyclopedia. London: Batsford, Ltd. ISBN 0713477113, p.289.
^ Mitchell, Glenn (1995). The Laurel & Hardy Encyclopedia. London: Batsford, Ltd. ISBN 0713477113, p.289.

External links

Why Girls Love Sailors at the Internet Movie Database
Why Girls Love Sailors at Allmovie

v • d • e Laurel and Hardy filmography

Silent short films (Starring roles)	The Lucky Dog (1921) • Duck Soup (1927) • Slipping Wives (1927) • Love 'em and Weep (1927) • Why Girls Love Sailors (1927) • With Love and Hisses (1927) • Sugar Daddies (1927) • Now I'll Tell One (1927) • Sailors, Beware! (1927) • The Second Hundred Years (1927) • Hats Off (1927) • Do Detectives Think? (1927) • Putting Pants on Philip (1927) • The Battle of the Century (1927) • Leave 'Em Laughing (1928) • Flying Elephants (1928) • The Finishing Touch (1928) • From Soup to Nuts (1928) • You're Darn Tootin' (1928) • Their Purple Moment (1928) • Should Married Men Go Home? (1928) • Early to Bed (1928) • Two Tars (1928) • Habeas Corpus (1928) • We Faw Down (1928) • Liberty (1929) • Wrong Again (1929) • That's My Wife (1929) • Big Business (1929) • Double Whoopee (1929) • Bacon Grabbers (1929) • Angora Love (1929)

Talking short films (Starring roles)	Unaccustomed As We Are (1929) • Berth Marks (1929) • Men O' War (1929) • Perfect Day (1929) • They Go Boom (1929) • The Hoose-Gow (1929) • Night Owls (1930) • Blotto (1930) • Brats (1930) • Below Zero (1930) • Hog Wild (1930) • The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case (1930) • Another Fine Mess (1930) • Be Big! (1931) • Chickens Come Home (1931) • Laughing Gravy (1931) • Our Wife (1931) • Come Clean (1931) • One Good Turn (1931) • Beau Hunks (1931) • Helpmates (1932) • Any Old Port! (1932) • The Music Box (1932) • The Chimp (1932) • County Hospital (1932) • Scram! (1932) • Their First Mistake (1932) • Towed in a Hole (1932) • Twice Two (1933) • Me and My Pal (1933) • The Midnight Patrol (1933) • Busy Bodies (1933) • Dirty Work (1933) • Oliver the Eighth (1934) • Going Bye-Bye! (1934) • Them Thar Hills (1934) • The Live Ghost (1934) • Tit for Tat (1935) • The Fixer Uppers (1935) • Thicker than Water (1935)

Short films (As guests)	45 Minutes from Hollywood (1926) • Call of the Cuckoo (1927) • The Stolen Jools (1931) • On the Loose (1931) • Wild Poses (1933) • On the Wrong Trek (1936) • The Tree in a Test Tube (1942)

Feature films (Starring roles)	Pardon Us (1931) • Pack Up Your Troubles (1932) • Fra Diavolo/ The Devil's Brother/Bogus Bandits (1933) • Sons of the Desert (1933) • Babes in Toyland (1934) • Bonnie Scotland (1935) • The Bohemian Girl (1936) • Our Relations (1936) • Way Out West (1937) • Swiss Miss (1938) • Block-Heads (1938) • The Flying Deuces (1939) • A Chump at Oxford (1940) • Saps at Sea (1940) • Great Guns (1941) • A-Haunting We Will Go (1942) • Air Raid Wardens (1943) • Jitterbugs (1943) • The Dancing Masters (1943) • The Big Noise (1944) • Nothing But Trouble (1944) • The Bullfighters (1945) • Atoll K / Utopia (1951)

Feature films (As guests)	The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929) • The Rogue Song (1930) • Hollywood Party (1934) • Pick a Star (1937)

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