Be Big!

Be Big! (1931)

Stan and Ollie are on their way to Atlantic City with their wives, when Ollie gets a phone call from a lodge buddy telling him that a stag party is taking place that night in their honor. Ollie pretends to be sick and sends the wives on ahead, promising that he and Stan will meet them in the morning. The pair dress in their lodge gear, but their wives return having missed their train. With no obvious escape route, Stan and Ollie take to a bed in fear and in response to Stan's plea of "What'll I do?", Ollie replies "Be big!".

Date of release
1931-02-07
TMDB
6.9 / 10 (47)
Runtime
28m
Genres
Comedy
Director
James W. Horne

Casting

Interesting facts

Be Big! is a Hal Roach three-reel comedy starring Laurel and Hardy. It was shot in November and December 1930, and released on February 7, 1931.

Production

The opening titles on the film credit James Parrott as director and Art Lloyd as director of photography, but all contemporary publicity and promotional materials name James W. Horne as director and Jack Stevens as photographer.

Besides serving as a dress extra Jean De Briac was also Laurel's and Hardy's dialogue coach on the French-language version, Les Carottiers (in which he also played Cookie).

This was Anita Garvin's last appearance in a Laurel and Hardy short; since 1927's Why Girls Love Sailors, she had appeared in over a dozen L&H short subjects. She would return in 1938 for their feature Swiss Miss and again in 1940 in A Chump at Oxford.

The premise of Ollie feigning illness so that he and Stan can slip their wives and go off to a special event held by a particular men's club of which they're both members was later reused as part of the plot for their 1933 feature film Sons of the Desert.

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