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October, 1929 American Cinematographer Five A Little Study in Contrasts But they both landed at the Hal Roach lot and one day Hardy spilled a pan of hot grease on his arm. Laurel came along just then. Hardy looked at Laurel. Laurel looked at Hardy. Laurel cried. Hardy laughed. And each suddenly discovered the other was a perfect foil. Then came the first picture together. It was a riot of laughter and the world knew that Hal Roach had discov^ered a pair of honest-to-goodness funny men; a real rarity in the picture field. And Len Powers was the man who was photographing them. Theirs was a new comedy technique. Laurel completely changed his style of comedy overnight and he and Hardy worked like a well-oiled machine together—perfect fits—and their pictures were perfectly photographed. “Habeas Corpus,” “Big Business,” “Men O’War,” “Perfect Day,” “You’re Darn Tootin’,” “Soup to Nuts,” “Birthmarks,” “Unaccustomed As We Are,” were a few of the pictures this trio turned out to the accompaniment of gales of laughter from mil- lions of movie-goers. “This man Powers is the funniest cameraman I ever worked with,” says Hardy. “You can’t help being funny when you look at him,” adds Laurel, “And who can help laughing when they have to work with a pair of nuts like you fellows,” chimes in Powers. “So that makes us a mutual admiration society,” chorus the trio amid uproarious mirth and back-slapping. • And then they all looked serious for a moment. “My Gosh,” exclaimed Hardy, “What would we do without our director?” “Jimmy Parrot is the cat’s meow when it comes to directing comedy,” declared Laurel. “All right,” shouted Parrot, “suppose you fellows do a little work.” “He's not so good, after all,” declared Hardy. So Laurel started to cry and Hardy “faw down” and another riot was on. From Powers we learned the secret of this pair’s success. Sum- med up, it is simply this: the pair just act natural. “Sometimes,” explained Powers, “I can’t do a thing for laughing as they start to ad lib. Their funniest gags are pulled at these moments and no one could ever be funnier than they are when they once get started. I remember in ‘Birthmarks,’ most of the very funniest stuff was absolutely devised on the spur of the moment by Stan and Oliver. They got started and we couldn’t stop them. And that sequence was side-splitting. “One reason why I say they are the funniest men in pictures {Continued on Page 39) Laurel and Hardy have to do the heavy work for Len Powers, S. C., and Director James Parrot.