Unaccustomed as We Are (1929) on Netflix
Ollie invites Stan to dinner and promises steak and a cigar. Stan asks about the nuts. Mrs. Hardy leaves in irritation, and neighbor Mrs. Kennedy's dress catches fire during dinner preparations.
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- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb7.0/101,544 votes
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Plot summary
Stan takes up Ollie's invitation to dinner, drawn by the promise of steak and a cigar. Cautious by habit, he asks whether nuts are included. At the house, Ollie's wife Mrs. Hardy receives the guests without warmth and leaves in irritation. Their neighbor Mrs. Kennedy comes over to help with the dinner, and a mishap during the preparations sets her dress on fire. Stan and Ollie hide her in a trunk to keep her from being seen.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Unaccustomed as We Are (1929)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Unaccustomed As We Are is the first film in which Oliver Hardy says to Stan Laurel, "Why don't you do something to help me!", a line that became a catchphrase repeated in numerous later Laurel and Hardy films, and it also introduced Stan's distinctive, high-pitched whimper of distress.
- In case talkies did not prove popular, producer Hal Roach hedged his bets by releasing the film in both an all-talking version and a silent version, the silent prints carrying the dialogue on intertitles for theaters not yet converted for sound.
- The film's soundtrack was lost for 50 years until it was traced on disc in the late 1970s.
- It was Laurel and Hardy's first sound film and the first all-talking short film made by Hal Roach; its title spoofed the popular cliché "Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking...".
- The talking-picture technology was so unfamiliar at the Hal Roach studio that the film became a training exercise for its technical staff, with four cameramen alternating on the photography.
- The film's plot was later expanded into the 1938 Laurel and Hardy feature Block-Heads, while its gag of spaghetti landing on Ollie's lap had originally been conceived for their 1928 silent film Habeas Corpus but was left unfilmed.
