45 MINUTES FROM HOLLYWOOD (1926)
Article 5116 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-24-2016
Directed by Fred Guiol
Featuring Glenn Tryon, Charlotte Mineau, Jack Rube Clifford
Country: USA
What it is: Slapstick comedy

A young man goes to Hollywood to pay off a mortgage, but he is robbed when he ends up running into a bank robber dressed as a woman.

Let’s get the fantastic content out of the way first. After having seen this short, I had to go back to the Don Willis book to see what the fantastic content was supposed to have been, and it was supposed to have featured dinosaurs at some point. If it does, it’s in a sequence that is missing from the print I saw. The only point where I think it might have occurred is during a tour of Hollywood in which we see footage of some famous Hollywood personalities, such as Theda Bara and the Our Gang kids. If my print is complete, than this is a false alarm.

As for the short itself, it’s probably most famous as an early pairing of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, though not as a team. Stan Laurel plays a starving actor who bears an uncanny resemblance to James Finlayson, while Hardy plays a hotel detective. As far as I can tell, they don’t appear in any scenes together. Most of the comic antics involve Glenn Tryon, and they’re not particularly good; Ollie gives the most memorable performance here, and it’s a supporting role. I have to admit to having been disappointed with this one, but I went into it expecting a typical pairing of Laurel and Hardy, and that’s not what I got.

NOTE I have since discovered that my print was indeed missing footage. However, the dinosaur is so fleeting and distant, you’ll be lucky if you find it.