The Bottle & Glass Inn, transposed from the Midlands to the North East to accommodate Stan & Ollie on their visit to Newcastle. No wonder they weren’t impressed. (Image Ricoh GR)
The story of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy’s last tour — in England as it happens — provided a great couple of hours’ entertainment. I strongly recommend Stan & Ollie to anyone who remembers Laurel and Hardy from their youth. Or to anyone who has never heard of them, for that matter. It’s good to watch..
Steve Coogan as Stan Laurel and John C.Reilly as Oliver Hardy were outstanding. By the end of the film they were Laurel and Hardy to my eyes. It was something of a disappointment later when I fired up YouTube and watched an original short film. The real characters looked rather alien.
But the purpose of this article is not to review Stan & Ollie, rather it is to comment on location photography. Finding the right places for an early 1950s film isn’t easy. But when I saw the rather unlikely hotel supposedly occupied by the comedy duo in Newcastle-on-Tyne, I had a clear recollection of the building. But where had I seen it? The viaduct in the background, a hallmark of Newcastle, was a distraction until I realised it had been added in post processing.
Look out for this parade of period shops if you visit Stan & Laurel — another film location at the Black Country Museum (Image Ricoh GR)
After pondering for a time it came back to me. This was the Bottle & Glass Inn from the Black Country Museum. I had paid a visit in 2015 with my then-current fave-rave, the Ricoh GR. I covered it in this article in April 2015. Several more of the street scenes in Stan & Ollie were also filmed at the Black Country Museum, an excellent example of the living museum concept. It’s definitely worth a visit if you are in the Midlands.
No it was definitely the Tyne Bridge in the background. I have seen it almost every day for 67 years
Thanks, David. That’s one thing cleared up.
What about that little hotel? Without going back to see the film I can’t be absolutely sure but I recognised it from a visit to the Black County museum and when I checked they had indeed filmed there. So it must have been a montage. Do you think this possible? Here is a link to an article I wrote some years ago:
https://www.macfilos.com/2015/04/13/2015-4-12-living-museums-a-journey-back-in-time-to-the-grimy-gritty-life-in-the-black-country-between-the-wars/
.
“..So it must have been a montage. Do you think this possible..”
ANYTHING (..and everything..) is possible in films, Mike! D’you really think an elephant can fly? ..How did the camera move from inside those space helmets in ‘Gravity’ to way out into space, or into the interior of Sandra Bullock’s space ship? ..Could Dr Floyd Whatsisname’s pen really float out of his pocket, or off his table (was it?) in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’? ..and d’you think the space hostess really turned upside down as she was carrying the tray?
Could [..what was the boy’s name, Elliot?] really have ridden his bike – with E.T. in the basket – up into the sky and in front of the moon? Did Dorothy and Toto really live in a purely black-&-white world until the tornado picked them up and took them to ..or on the way to.. Oz, to meet the Wizard?
Did Deckard’s spinner really take off vertically in ‘Blade Runner’ and fly past those enormous animated billboards?
Yes, one picture can be “matted” onto another, with elements from several different sources being blended together into a single frame ..or do you actually believe in Jar Jar Binks?
I’m sorry to spoil things for you, Mike, but, er, what you see on the screen does not necessarily exist in what we’re used to calling ‘real life’ ..except that in ‘real life’ – or as real as it gets – we sit in the cinema and see these impossible things.
Did you take your red pill or your blue pill this morning?
Yes I have often been known for my gullibility. But I was really asking if it is possible that it was the Black Country Museum hotel and the Tyne Bridge, not the possibility of a combination of the images which, of course, is indeed possible and likely.
Yes, I saw that it was the building from the Black Country Museum, but I don’t remember what else was in the frame ..a bridge? ..I’d have to watch the movie again.
But – in brief – yes it’s perfectly possible to combine, say, live action in front of the museum building (..or have the building “filled in” in the background by shooting the actors against a plain background consisting of, literally, just a green screen, and then later substituting video, or a photo, of the building in place of that green section of the frame..) and also including, say, the Tyne Bridge ..or anything else.
Whether it is, or not, the Tyne Bridge, though, I can’t remember. Sorry.
Not sure about a “viaduct” – wasn’t that the Tyne Bridge?
Interesting one. The hotel and the bridge in the film appear to be a combination of two images. The hotel where Laurel & Hardy stayed in Newcastle is definitely in the Black Country Museum and nowhere near Newcastle. I have photographs of it from an earlier visit to the museum. And, as I remember, the bridge was the big stone viaduct in the centre of Newcastle and not, I think, the Tyne Bridge. But I may be wrong.
Without a doubt two legends of the silver screen and watching this brought back memories of watching them on TV when I was a kid , and Coogan and Reilly were great and captured them to a tee.
Yup, we went to see ‘Stan & Ollie’ the other day: I saw that it had been chosen to finish the London Film Festival a few months ago, and a friend – who works with actors’ movement in films (..she looks after James Bond and others..) – said that John C. Reilly had been staying in a houseboat on the Thames near here for the duration of the shoot, and he’d walked past here in Richmond, admiring the view..
..where was I? It starts a bit abruptly, and there’s no “lead in”, showing younger filmgoers – who may not have known Stan and Ollie – why they were so famous.
So there’s a bit of a lack of empathy at the beginning, and we only gradually get to feel for them, and Stan’s abortive aim to shoot a film in England under their own control, rather than just being employees of Hal Roach.
[When Stan walks the streets of London to get to a putative film-maker’s office, did that suddenly jump to Liverpool and the Adelphi hotel?]
Some of the dialogue was – to my ears – a bit garbled: ‘Bernard Delfont’ and Ollie’s wife, for instance. (I doubt that Delfont was that much of a fast-talking, ingratiating smarm, as he was, of course, the loud and bossy Lew Grade’s brother!)
It’s a charming film, and John C. Reilly, and his make-up team, really should have been in the running for Oscar nominations, as his – no, both of their – performance(s) were so beautifully nuanced: he and Steve Coogan must have watched hours of ‘the boys’ to get those gestures just so right.
Somewhere I have a couple of VHS tapes of Stan’s and Ollie’s tour of the UK, on which this story’s based ..and there’s a beautiful moment when Stan’s gone to visit his father in Ulverston, ooop North (where he was born), and he kisses his dad at the garden gate.
Really, such unpretentious men, and a charming movie.
Agreed, David. They both put in outstanding performances. You could have bumped into John C. in The Ivy…..
David, I thought I’d replied to this but it seems to have gone AWOL. However, I endorse your view on Coogan and Reilly. Two excellent performances. And the fact that John C lived in a houseboat near Richmond is added interest. Perhaps you could have bumped into him at The Ivy?
"..bumped into him at The Ivy?.." ..well, perhaps in some other, parallel universe (..but that would be more like a Chris Nolan film ..’Inception’? ..’Interstellar’?..)
Yes, good overview, David.
This is another fine mess you got me into! Best O and H line ever. The best comedy duo..PERIOD! Thank you.
It’s worth shelling out and seeing on the big screen
I saw the trailer to this when I took Liz to see something else, it did look interesting, and I do recall Laurel and Hardy films that still ran in the seventies when I was young’un. I will probably pick it up when it appears available to watch in the comfort of my own living room.