Berth Marks is a 1929 short comedy starring Laurel and Hardy. The story involves Stan and Ollie as two musicians attempting to travel by train to Potsville. It was only their second sound film, but a silent version was also made for cinemas at the time that were not equipped to show talkies.
Although not highly regarded among Laurel and Hardy enthusiasts today, Berth Marks is a technically accomplished film considering its production early in the...
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Berth Marks is a 1929 short comedy starring Laurel and Hardy. The story involves Stan and Ollie as two musicians attempting to travel by train to Potsville. It was only their second sound film, but a silent version was also made for cinemas at the time that were not equipped to show talkies.
Although not highly regarded among Laurel and Hardy enthusiasts today, Berth Marks is a technically accomplished film considering its production early in the team's sound films. The opening scene - in which Ollie listens patiently to a stationmaster rattling off a long, garbled list of destinations - shows that even at this very early stage the filmmakers were conscious of how sound could be deployed in new comedic ideas. (This scene inspired a similar train station bit at the beginning of Jacques Tati's 1953 film Mr. Hulot's Holiday, in which a throng of holidaying tourists must listen to the announcement of trains at a station, and follow the directions to the correct platform - which ends up...
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