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Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Laurel And Hardy Get Biopic

Jon S. Baird (Filth)  is set to direct an as yet untitled biopic about legendary comedy duo Stan Laurel And Oliver Hardy.

Laurel and Hardy first teamed up in the 1921 short “The Lucky Dog,” which turned into features by 1927 while working for producer Hal Roach They worked together om over 100 projects.

Going by the working title "Stan And Ollie" the film will focus on Stan and Ollie's farewell tour of Britain in 1953. Hoping to revive their careers with the the event instead it ended when Hardy had a heart attack.

Screenwriter Jeff Pope, who won an Oscar for Philomena, penned the screenplay.


Baird describes the pic as "a really really, beautiful tale: a love story between two guys who come to realise they can’t live without each other".
 
"It also tells the story of their off-screen personas," he told The Scotsman, "which were quite different to what people would imagine knowing their on-screen ones. Stan Laurel was particularly different from his on-screen persona, and that was the thing I found really fascinating when I started reading the script. Stan was very much the driving force, Ollie was more relaxed, he just loved golfing and betting on the horses. Once he’d finish for the day, he’d be off, and though he would be consulted on the script ideas when they were rehearsing, he didn’t write the stuff, Stan wrote everything, I think he was a real tortured genius."

The project was first announced by the BBC as a TV movie for BBC One last year. It's unclear whether that remains the case--it's possible it may go theatrical

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