Stan Laurel and the writers for the Laurel and Hardy series of shorts and features on occasion reworked their movies from the pair's previous films. A good example is their December 1928's "We Faw Down." The story concerns the two falsely telling their wives they're going to a movie, but they're really playing poker at their friend's house. They get sidetracked helping two women get one of their hats wedged underneath a car. Laurel and Hardy's charitable act leads to a messy situation with one of the ladies' husband. When the two wives hear about what happened, there's heck to pay. If this sounds like Laurel and Hardy's 1933's "Sons of the Desert," this is exactly the outline of their classic feature film.
In addition, 1932's 'Their First Mistake' copies the telephone gag from "We Faw Down," pretending the call is from the pair's new boss. There were also scenes in "We Faw Down" that didn't make the final edit, but ended up in their next release, 1929's 'Liberty.'
Oliver Hardy told the pair's team of writers the tale he heard was from his laundress that spawned the "We Faw Down's" plot. It was a rare instance where Hardy's suggestion resulted in a storyline. Most of their movies' inspiration came from Laurel, who sketched a majority of the team's screenplays. Years of experience in comedy made Stan adept in shaping his writers' scripts, improving and adding a number of hilarious sequences. His working sessions were loud affairs with several writers in a conference room where each attempted to top the others by suggesting increasingly outrageous situations.
"We Faw Down" was Leo McCarey's first short directing Laurel and Hardy. He claimed he was responsible in pairing the two as a team the previous year (1927). McCarey's name was always listed in the credits as the 'Supervising Director.' For the first time he found out just as other directors before him that Laurel essentially ran the movie set. There was an unwitting understanding the head director always deferred to Stan. Hal Roach, their producer, said if Laurel didn't like what the director was telling them, "the director didn't say 'Well, you're going to do it anyway.' That was understood." Laurel would suggest the direction the scene was going to take, and the director picked up on the comic's idea and ran with it.
In addition, 1932's 'Their First Mistake' copies the telephone gag from "We Faw Down," pretending the call is from the pair's new boss. There were also scenes in "We Faw Down" that didn't make the final edit, but ended up in their next release, 1929's 'Liberty.'
Oliver Hardy told the pair's team of writers the tale he heard was from his laundress that spawned the "We Faw Down's" plot. It was a rare instance where Hardy's suggestion resulted in a storyline. Most of their movies' inspiration came from Laurel, who sketched a majority of the team's screenplays. Years of experience in comedy made Stan adept in shaping his writers' scripts, improving and adding a number of hilarious sequences. His working sessions were loud affairs with several writers in a conference room where each attempted to top the others by suggesting increasingly outrageous situations.
"We Faw Down" was Leo McCarey's first short directing Laurel and Hardy. He claimed he was responsible in pairing the two as a team the previous year (1927). McCarey's name was always listed in the credits as the 'Supervising Director.' For the first time he found out just as other directors before him that Laurel essentially ran the movie set. There was an unwitting understanding the head director always deferred to Stan. Hal Roach, their producer, said if Laurel didn't like what the director was telling them, "the director didn't say 'Well, you're going to do it anyway.' That was understood." Laurel would suggest the direction the scene was going to take, and the director picked up on the comic's idea and ran with it.