Series: Laurel and Hardy Director: Lewis R. Foster Producer: Hal Roach Titles: H.M. Walker Photography: George Stevens Editor: Richard C. Currier Stars: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Edgar Kennedy, Charlie Hall Company: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Released: 14 December 1929 Length: 2 reels Production No.: L-22 Filming dates: March 8-14, 1929 Rating: 4/10

Angora Love

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The owner of a pet store is outside hanging birdcage onto a display hook when his goat frees herself from the nearby lamp-post where she is tied and wanders off without him noticing. He summons a policeman and wrongly tells him the creature has been stolen. Next, Laurel and Hardy are seen leaving a confectionary store each eating a donut, purchased with their last dime. The goat stops by for a sniff of the food and Stan happily obliges its request to be fed, before the boys walk off, followed shortly therafter by the animal. Ollie advises Stan to leave the goat alone, as they are bad luck. A young boy who works at the pet store sees Stan and Ollie with the goat and tells them the police are looking for it and that he intends to inform the police the boys have stolen it. Afraid of being done for kidnapping, Ollie entices Stan for them to make a break for it but the goat follows them at speed before Ollie falls into a large puddle in the road. Two nights later in St. Paul, the boys enter their hotel room after smuggling the goat past the landlord (according to the title cards). Ollie starts to get undressed by attempting to place his clothing on a hook on the back of the wardrobe door as Stan innocently does the same - a gag which was later repeated in a similar sequence in Be Big! (1931). The landlord of the hotel (EDGAR KENNEDY) sleeps directly below the boys so Ollie reminds Stan to be quiet, despite the goat trampling around and breaking furniture.

Complaining that his feet hurt, Ollie sits on the bed and attempts to relieve the pain by massaging his aching foot (another scene which was later re-worked into Be Big! (1931). Naturally, Ollie ends up stroking Stan's foot for some time before Ollie even notices. To add to his annoyance, the goat has now taken to stripping the wallpaper with its teeth. Stan tries to stick the ripped piece back to the wall by licking the reverse side of the paper and re-attaching it, but when this fails he removes a tack from the wall and uses his shoe to hammer it back to the wall, waking up the landlord below. Ollie warns Stan to be quiet and reminds him of the landlord's bad temperment, before they both attempt to retire to bed when Ollie realises the goat has started to eat an armchair across the room and gets up to attend to it. The landlord knocks on their door and the boys scramble to hide their new pet - under the bed. He gives the boys a talking to about the noise and how reputable his hotel is before leaving them to it. Now in bed Ollie goes to turn off the overhead light but manages to pull it down, smashing it over his head in the process. Just when things are starting to get 'normal', Stan gets back out of bed, takes a pair of braces over to the kitchen door and starts doing some stretching exercises (!?) The landlord is again awoken by the noise and again ascends the stairs to remind his noisy guests he is displeased with them. Stan has by this time got into the bed whilst Ollie demonstrates to Stan the technique of "exercising quietly" just as the landlord walks in. Angered by the continuous noise, he demands the boys get to bed and in his temper manages to rip off the door when he pulls the braces away from the hook before leaving for the second time. As Stan and Ollie lie in bed the goat begins to graw its way through the mattress from underneath when Ollie notices a strange smell. When he realises its the goat, Ollie tells Stan to get out of the bed and bathe it. Stan obliges and goes to the kitchen to prepare a bath for the animal, waking the landlord for a third time with a loud crash of the pan on the floor. Ollie accidentally steps on a mouse-trap in the kicthen before carrying the bucket of water into the bedroom where Stan has taken the bathing tin. He moves it just as Ollie tips the water, creating a large puddle of water on the floor which of course seeps through the landlord's ceiling below. Stan, then Ollie struggle with the goat before more water is poured (by Stan this time) over Ollie who is now sitting in the tin pan. Finally the boys get to bathe the goat when there is yet another knock at their door. Suspecting it to be the landlord Ollie quickly grabs Stan and sticks his head under the water, pretending to bathe him. The knock at the door turns out to be a tenant (CHARLIE HALL) who has the wrong room, apologies and leaves. Relieved at not being detected by the landlord, the boys get back to the real job of washing their goat. Meanwhile the landlord has telephoned the cops warning them to get over to the hotel now because there is going to be a murder!

He storms back up the stairs and bursts in on the boys in the middle of their act on the goat (!) Stan realises him standing there and quickly dunks Ollie's head under the water, repeating the previous decoy, but Ollie reacts strongly and launches the bowl at Stan; missing, and giving poor Edgar Kennedy a complete soaking. Not to be outdone, the landlord returns the favour to Ollie. This time a bold Ollie fills up a bowl and chucks it back into the landlord's face. Cue the landlord who retaliates, this time missing Ollie and instead drenching Stan. Stan retreats to the kitchen and fills up the bowl and returns to launch it at the landlord, but insetad hits Charlie Hall, who has for some reason wandered back into their room. Surprisingly, Charlie doesn't react and just decides to leave it at that (or so we are led to believe). Landlord Edgar takes another trip to the kitchen to fetch more water and returns to find Stan doing a boxing dance. Just as he is about to hurl yet another soaking upon Stan, Charlie Hall re-appears and gives Kennedy a drenching (despite the fact it was Stan who got Hall wet in the first place). Just when things couldn't get any worse (or wetter), the landlord blindly chucks one last pale of water... hitting the policeman (HARRY BERNARD) who has just arrived. The cop spots the goat hiding in the room and deducts that it was the landlord who has kidnapped the creature and takes him away. Ollie confesses he hopes he never sees another goat, just before three young lambs emerge from under the bed...

Favourite bit Landlord Edgar Kennedy reminds tenants Stan and Ollie that they are guests in his respectable hotel. Just at this point a young lady walks past the open door, followed shortly by a man in a sailors outfit, who makes a subtle movement of his hat to imply his intentions!

Trivia • Copyrighted September 3, 1929. • Previewed in late March 1929 - nine months before it was released! • Released with a synchronized soundtrack. • This was the last silent film made by Laurel and Hardy to be released by Hal Roach. • This film was released in Argentina in 1930 after some talkies by Laurel and Hardy (either in Spanish or English) were shown. The original MGM titles were replaced with Spanish language equivalents and the title was translated to "Amor de Angora". • The name of the pet shop in the opening scene is "The Elite Store" and has the numbers 14_1 (the _ is obscured by the lamp-post). • The goat's name is Penelope. • A calendar with a steam locomotive hangs on the wall of the boys' hotel room. • Regan's Pool & Billiards is the building behind the sink puddle Ollie falls into in the street. • The boys' hotel room is number 13. • Ollie has a gaping hole in his left sock. • The whole bathing of the goat in a hotel room is reminiscent of the same scenario with the dog in Laughing Gravy two years later. • There is a continuity error between shots of Ollie tipping the water on the floor and subsequent shots where the floor is completely dry, and then wet again. • The calendar that hangs in the hotel room has the word Pennsylvania printed on the bottom, but it is hard to read the rest of it. However, with a lot of help from Jon R. Kennedy, he writes: The calendar in the pair's room is a 1929 Pennsylvania Railroad calendar titled "Harnessing the Plane and the Iron Horse" This was advertising the short period when the PRR teamed up with airlines to provide faster coast-to-coast service. It wasn't considered safe enough then to fly at night, so the train would leave New York City in the evening bound for Columbus, Ohio. Passengers would then fly from there to St. Louis, Missouri and on to Dodge City, Kansas during the day. From there they would catch an overnight train to Las Vegas, Nevada and then fly on to Los Angeles. Below the artwork by noted railroad artist Griffith "Griff" Teller (1899-1993) of a PRR K-4 steam locomotive is a map of the route and calendar pages below that. My opinion • The last silent comedy made by Stan and Ollie is quite mediocre and hardly thrilling to say the least, though it does have a selection of scenes which the boys later used to good effect in subsequent films, most notably "Laughing Gravy".

	Stan Laurel Stan
	Oliver Hardy Ollie
	Edgar Kennedy Landlord
	Charlie Hall Neighbor
	Harry Bernard Policeman
	Ford West Mr. Caribeau
	Buddy Moore Boy
	Richard Belfield Policeman
	UNIDENTIFIED Hotel guest
	UNIDENTIFIED Sailor

CREDITS (click image to enlarge)

POSTER (click any image to enlarge)

Acknowledgements: Laurel And Hardy: The Magic Behind The Movies by Randy Skretvedt (book) Randy Skretvedt (identification of Ford West, Buddy Moore and Richard Belfield) Jon R. Kennedy (details about the calendar) Steve Wright (image for synchronized soundtrack) Doug Gerbino (original title card) This page was last updated on: 19 October 2023