Stubs - Tit for Tat

Tit for Tat (1935) Starring Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Charlie Hall, Mae Busch, James C. Morton, Bobby Dunn. Directed by Charles Rogers. Screenplay by Stan Laurel, Frank Tashlin. Produced by Hal Roach. Runtime: 19 minutes. USA Black and White. Comedy

The story for Tit for Tat actually starts a couple of years earlier with Them Thar Hills (1934), in which Stan and Ollie co-starred with Mae Busch and Charlie Hall, both who were contract players at Hal Roach Studios. In Them Thar Hills, the boys travel to the mountains for Ollie’s health. They park their caravan next to a well used by moonshiners to dump their stash. While they’re there, they make the acquaintance of a married couple, the Halls played by Busch and Hall. The Halls’ car has run out of gas and Stan lends him his spare can of petrol. Left alone with the Boys, Mae shares supper and ladlefuls of water from the well. They get roaring junk and upon his return, Hall fears that something more has happened. There is a tit for tat sequence which culminates in Mr. Hall being tarred and feathered with a toilet plunger stuck on his head and Ollie being violently ejected from the well when he jumps in trying to put out his pants which are on fire.

In Tit for Tat, Stan and Ollie open an Electric supply store next door to the grocery store owned by, who else, the Halls. On opening day, Stan and Ollie go next door to introduce themselves to their neighbors, not realizing they’d already met. Leaving their store wide open, the miss a customer (Bobby Dunn) who enters the store.

Charlie Hall has not forgotten Laurel and Hardy from their first meeting in the short Them Thar Hills.

Ollie may have forgotten they’ve already met but Charlie Hall has not. He rebuffs Ollie’s overtures to prompt each other’s store and orders him out of his store and warns him not to return. Going back to their store, the customer leaves with a waffle maker tucked under his arm. The Boys don’t seem to notice and are pre-occupied with getting the lights up on their sign.

While Ollie is high on the ladder, Stan goes into the basement to get more light bulbs and uses the sidewalk elevator or dock lift to get up to street level. Too bad its right below Stan and launches the ladder up into the air, landing Ollie on the window sill outside the Halls’ living quarters above their store. Mae, who has gone upstairs, is only too happy to oblige Stan, letting him through their window and down their stairs.

Charlie worries that something is going on between Oliver and his wife (Mae Busch).

Charlie isn’t happy to see a man coming down from their apartment and tells Ollie not to even look at his wife or he’d hit him so hard, Stan would feel it. While they figure out what to do, the customer exits carrying a clock and a lamp, which doesn’t seem to warrant Ollie’s attention. To him, it’s more important that his character has been besmirched.

They go over to tell Charlie off, and as they leave, Ollie causes the drawer in the cashier to open, hitting Charlie on the chin. As if to add insult to injury, Ollie eats a marshmallow from an open container on the counter as they leave.

Oliver eats one of Charlie's marshmallows out of spite.

Charlie comes over to tell Ollie off, picking up a hair curling iron on the counter. As he’s holding it by the curler, Stan plugs it in, burning his hand. The Boys laugh at him, to which Charlie uses the iron to pinch and burn Stan’s nose before storming out. Stan tries to help, but ends up spraying himself in the face with the seltzer bottle.

Charlie uses a curling iron on Oliver's nose.

Back over at the Grocery store, Ollie splats Charlie in the face with shortening that is on the counter.

While Charlie fumes, Ollie and Stan leave, stopping once more to help themselves to a marshmallow each. Charlie starts to follow them but stops to sprinkle the marshmallows with powdered Alum, a colorless astringent compound used in baking powder and pickling, just in case they come back.

On their way back into their shop, the customer exits carrying a floor lamp with him, as if he were taking it out for a walk.

Charlie sees the milkshake maker and gets an idea.

Charlie comes over and takes several $1 pocket watches and puts them in a milkshake blender, obviously destroying them before storming out.

The watches are ruined after Charlie runs them through the milkshake maker.

In their tit for tat, the boys return to the grocery store and pour honey into another of the grocer’s cash registers. Charlie doesn’t waste time and takes Ollie's derby and runs it through a meat slicer, taking off the top of his hat. The boys up the ante by placing a vat of lard over Charlie’s head. This time on their way out, the Boys each take two marshmallows, not knowing they’ve been tainted.

Oliver pours honey into one of Charlie's register.

On their way back to the store, they pass the customer who has taken to using a dolly to remove an appliance and another floor lamp. Back behind the counter, the Boys realize they can’t speak until Ollie sprays their mouths with seltzer.

Neither Oliver or Stanley know that Charlie has sprinkled Alum on the marshmallows.

But Charlie isn’t done. He comes into their store and wreaks havoc, destroying any and everything that he can. He even manages to break all of the lights dangling from the ceiling and even smashes one of their front windows.

Charlie puts shortening in Oliver's and Stanley's faces.

With a crowd gathering, Stan and Ollie march next door with the idea to get an apology. But Charlie isn’t in the mood and splats them both in the kisser with shortening like they had done to him. The Boys pick up a large container of eggs but before they can do anything, Mae comes back downstairs to try to stop them. But Charlie tells her to mind her own business just before the boys push him down on one container of eggs and pour another one down over his head much to the laughter of the crowd outside.

A crowd gathers and watches as Stan and Ollie pour eggs all over Charlie.

A policeman (James C. Morton) finally moves in to stop them. When he asks what started it, Ollie and Stan proceed to tell him that Charlie had accused him of a clandestine rendezvous with Mae, a charge to which Ollie pleads his innocence. They finally shake hands and let bygones be bygones.

A policeman (James C. Morton) finally tries to put an end to the squabble.

By now, having received no resistance, the mysterious customer has pulled a rented truck up to the store and has cleaned them out.

The short ends with the policeman, having taken a marshmallow for himself, finds he has trouble talking to disperse the crowd.

Shot in December of 1934 and released on January 5, 1935, Tit for Tat would be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film (Comedy), losing out to Robert Benchley’s How to Sleep.

The film is very funny, something a dry synopsis can’t really capture. Much of it is due to the physicality of the performers. There is some very humorous dialogue, but the real source of the humor is involved in the "reciprocal destruction," wherein one little act of vengeance leads to another until all hell breaks loose. This is something that is seen over and over again in Laurel and Hardy films, going back to some of the earliest films, such as The Battle of the Century (1927), wherein a pratfall on a banana peel leads to a pie fight. This comedy technique was also utilized in Them Thar Hills as described above, which is not really required viewing to get the jokes.

This is not a film showing the development of Laurel and Hardy but rather a testament to their genius. They show that they are a finely tuned comedy team adept at both physical humor and witty dialogue. Tit for Tat is one of their funnier efforts and well-worth watching.