Series: Stan Laurel Director: Hal Roach Producer: Hal Roach Titles: Photography: Robert Doran Editor: Thomas J. Crizer Stars: Stan Laurel, William Gillespie, Bud Jamison, Margaret Joslin Company: Pathé Exchange Released: 05 January 1919 Length: 1 reel Production No.: R-1 Filming dates: June 11-15, 1918 Rating: 4/10

Do You Love Your Wife?

Available on DVD:

Wife (MARGARET JOSLIN) brings her husband (BUD JAMISON) their pet dog for its grooming, with Bud brushing the pet's teeth with a toothbrush in the lounge. Cue the vamp (MARIE MOSQUINI), lounging around smoking. Cut back to the married couple, and the wife telling Bud to take the dog for a walk. Dressed in his robe, he dutifully obliges and paces up and down the room with the poodle on a lead. Bud does all the walking, whilst the dog remains motionless! Elsewhere in a small hotel, janitor Toby (STAN LAUREL) is asked by a couple to post a letter on their behalf. The janitor then empties a post box in the lobby and spills the contents over the floor. As he attempts to sweep them up, a gentleman reads a newspaper and hinders the janitor's progress, so he gets swept off his feet too. The vamp's faithless husband Elmer (WILLIAM GILLESPIE) comes home to his sneezing, seductive wife; whilst Toby spends half a minute trying to remove a vacuum nozzle off his chin. He then proceeds to suck up Belle Mitchell's skirt and then Margaret Joslin's hat. Toby then tries to suck up the letters dropped in the foyer but the vacuum blows them across the floor instead. A pretty young lady ("Vermicelli" - MILDRED FORBES) appears in the hotel, dramatically over-acting and hugging all the walls (?!) before knocking at the vamp's door, where she finds her husband (Gillespie) with the vamp and threatens to shoot him. The janitor is asked by Margaret Joslin to take a bottle of milk up to her apartment to give to her husband, which he does but then finds the maid sitting outside the room of the other couple across the hallway. Gunshots are fired from inside the room and the jilted wife aims to shoot her cheating husband whilst the vamp watches on helplessly.

Trivia • Copyrighted November 21, 1918. • This was the first film Stan Laurel made for Hal Roach, though it wasn't his first to be released by the studio. • When we first see Marie Mosquini she does have some cleavage on show. • The dog's name is Vivian. • The scenes involving Marie Mosquini are, in my opinion, very poorly edited into the film. • The janitor is so lazy that he tries to use a vacuum cleaner to pick up the letters from the floor, rather than just bend down and pick them up with his hands. My opinion • It's a terribly unfunny film, with Stan Laurel appearing to be more annoying than he is funny; a trait which unfortunately, tends to run through most of his solo films.

	Stan Laurel Toby, the janitor
	William Gillespie Elmer, the faithless husband
	Bud Jamison Husband
	Margaret Joslin Wife
	Marie Mosquini The vampire
	Charles Stevenson Detective
	Noah Young Cop
	James Parrott Hotel guest
	Bunny Bixby Hotel guest
	Dorothea Wolbert Hotel guest
	Gus Leonard Hotel guest
	Lois Neilson Switchboard operator
	Mildred Forbes Vermicelli
	Belle Mitchell Knitting lady
	William Peterson Guest with monocle
	James Fitzgerald Tall arresting officer
	May Burns [?]
	UNIDENTIFIED Maid

STILLS (click any image to enlarge)

Acknowledgements: https://archive.org/stream/motionpicturenew19moti_3#page/386/mode/1up (Motion Picture News, 18 Jan 1919) Jesse Brisson (help and assistance; ID of James Fitzgerald and others) Christin Gleditzsch (identification of Lois Neilson) - and Richard Bann for confirmation This page was last updated on: 29 April 2022