That's My Wife

That's My Wife (1929)

Oliver stands to inherit a large fortune from his rich Uncle Bernal, with the condition that he be happily married. But when Mrs. Hardy walks out just before Uncle Bernal is due for a visit, Stanley is pressed into duty (and into drag) to impersonate Oliver's loving spouse.

Date of release
1929-03-23
TMDB
6.6 / 10 (28)
Runtime
20m
Genres
Comedy
Director
Lloyd French

Casting

Interesting facts

That's My Wife is a 1929 synchronized sound short subject film produced by the Hal Roach Studios and starring Laurel and Hardy. While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized orchestral musical score with sound effects. It was shot in December 1928 and released March 23, 1929, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Production and exhibition

December 1928 was a frenetic month for the Laurel and Hardy unit at Roach: they had a commitment for several films, and the studio was slated to close at the end of the month for the installation of the new sound equipment. The filming of the "minor masterpiece" Wrong Again had just wrapped on the first, and the unit would go on to wrap its landmark Big Business just after Christmas.

Leo McCarey got the "Story by" credit, although L&H Encyclopedia author Glenn Mitchell also traces some lineage back to the 1926 Roach short Along Came Auntie, with Glenn Tryon and Oliver Hardy and a writing co-credit for Stan Laurel. L&H scholar Randy Skretvedt has run down many of the "action scripts" for L&H two reelers, and the one for That's My Wife reveals a few differences between original concept and finished film.

Most significant, though, is the script-to-screen evolution of the ending. On paper, Stan was to have been searched — bodily — by a female officer in the hunt for the purloined pendant; he was to refuse the manhandling, though, and leave the club after revealing the masquerade to Uncle Bernal.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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