The Big Noise

The Big Noise (1944)

DANGER! YOU'LL LAUGH YOURSELF TO DEATH!

During World War II Stan and Ollie find themselves as improbable bodyguards to an eccentric inventor and his strategically important new bomb.

Date of release
1944-09-22
TMDB
6.2 / 10 (49)
Runtime
1h 14m
Genres
Comedy
Director
Malcolm St. Clair

Casting

Interesting facts

The Big Noise is a 1944 comedy film starring the comedic duo Laurel and Hardy. It was produced by Sol M. Wurtzel and directed by Mal St. Clair.

Production

The Big Noise constituted the fifth installment among Laurel and Hardy's six feature films produced at 20th Century Fox during the 1940s. Stan Laurel, in an interview during the film's production, underscored their commitment to aligning with the American World War II home front efforts, opting to eschew gags involving wastage and destruction.

Previous comedic material from Laurel and Hardy's repertoire, including segments from films such as Berth Marks, Wrong Again (both 1929), Block-Heads (1938) and The Flying Deuces (1939) found reincarnation within The Big Noise.

Laurel, endeavoring to infuse novelty into the production, proposed repurposing a claustrophobic train berth scene from Berth Marks onto a transcontinental airplane setting. Despite his suggestion being declined by producer Sol M. Wurtzel, the film incorporated fresh elements, notably introducing comic actor Jack Norton as a drunken fellow traveler sharing the berth with Laurel and Hardy.

Certain scenes were filmed at the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway (AT&SF) station in Arcadia, California, providing authenticity to the railroad station ambiance. Notably, the station agent's interaction with Laurel and Hardy occurs against the backdrop of the railroad interlocking tower, an iconic feature safeguarding the crossing of Pacific Electric railway and AT&SF tracks.

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

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