over the years this board discussed just about everything you can think about. one thing I don't remember is who wrote BL? was it Hal Roach himself which I doubt since he was running his studio. someone said laurel or hardy had some input. I imagine they had a pool of writers to do the various stories. whoever it was should get an Oscar.
shareAs far as I know, they had a couple guys who wrote these shorts two or three with influence or direction by Roach and Stan Laurel getting involved from time to time. I always thought they had more than just a few writers. Recently someone told me that "Beginner's Luck" was a remake of Shakespere's "Taming of the Shrew" and I was shocked as I never heard of this or even thought of it before. As I started to think it over It started to make perfect sense as this is where the idea came from.
shareDoug You told me this story a little while ago and I have to agree with it .Surely Spanky's mother was quite a Shrew but we never really know if this incident really tamed her.
shareas far as I know BL wasn't on the schedule for the 1934-35 season.The theater owners demanded they do more more shows like the giant hit "Mike fright" so Roach had no choice but to add a new short involving the kids in a show of some kind.The word is they pulled a script off the scrap heap which may be close to "Glove taps" with spanky's mom loosing her dress to the rascals under the canvas and they being pulled out in the open and loosing all her clothes and falling into a barrel filled with water. It would make sense that making this short into the one they needed took a joint effort.
shareI wonder why they didn't do more diddressing of Mom's in other situations? Like the three stooges and Benny Hill did. Also wasn't there a script where Kitty gets caught in a steam washer and comes out in her slip?
shareI guess they didn't want to get caught up doing the same stuff all the time. Allegedly there was plans to have Spanky's BL family to reunite in another short and Kitty was supposed to be put into a steam cabinet and have her dress shrunk.
shareNot familar with Glove Taps, but sounds awesome, can you elaborate on the script and why it was never made.
shareSpanky is challenged by a bully to fight. His mom has forbidden him from fighting but the gang comes to the rescue with an idea of using an old dillapadated real boxing ring where the gang try to trip the bully up from underneath the canvas. The mother finds out and rushes to the ring.The manager there is looking at all the kids that came to see this fight.The mother pleads with him to stop the fight just like in BL.She winds up running onto the canvas and getting shocked by the bully and she sees stars on the ropes. As she is there the gang try to hook the bully by his shoes and knock him down but the catch her dress hem and drag her under a hole in the canvas and rip her dress off in the process. AS she is under the canvas the gang put a electric razor up which winds up going under her slip and she jumps up and tears thru the canvas so all can see her.Spanky runs over and tries to pull the razor out only to rip off her slip and she falls over the ropes into a barrel to wind up (maybe nude but nothing showing) emerging with an apple in her mouth.
Or so the story goes.
That would of been awesome and erotic at te same time.
sharein another short "lucky corner" a electric shaver gets the best of a father saving his son--a perfect short to sub Kitty and see what Spanky pulls out from under moms dress--also seeing Kitty scoot along with the razor down the back of her dress as it rides up revealing all to the crowd.
shareI always liked one of the older episodes with Miss Crabtree teaching school and a jar of ants gets loose. They climb all over her and she screams as they bite her all through her dress. How about Kitty filling in one day for the teacher and same thing happens. Another teacher hears her screams runs in to help Kitty and rips her dress off in front of the whole class by accident. She is standing there in a tight slip. With her garters showing a open bottom girdle seen through the slip
shareWow sounds awesome, but not sure if that's true, how they would have gotten that past censor's, sounds a little much for a supposed kids flick. What I wondered is if BL was so succesful, why didn't they make more shorts with similar theme, some mom or woman getting the works..
shareIn the short "Honky Donky" the one with Wally, the gang and Algebra the mule--the up tight mother comes home and gets chased by the mule. She slides down the banister to get away. Substitute Kitty and have her dress get snagged at the top of the stair case and have her slide out of her dress. The mule laughs at her with that crazy laugh at the bottom of the stairs--Kitty catching a breeze in her slip sneezes and has Algebra chase her though the front yard to the fountain. Just as she jumps into the fountain, Albebra rips her slip off with that crazy laugh again and the camera pans to Kitty with her head thrown back shooting a water stream out of her mouth.
Well, first of all the script was rejected. The part where her slip gets pulled off her and she falls into the barrel wouldn't be shown and where she comes up in to barrel it's only her from behind and only up to her lower armpit area .
sharelet me go back and try to help the guy who wrote the original question----Who wrote BL??
Well as I have they took this rejected short with the boxing. Roach and I'm sure with the help and his brain trust they started BL on it's road to the short we all love.
Firstly they wanted a pretty, blonde and most importantly attractive young woman to portray the mother. She must be a strong female character who is a stuffed shirt but more important a stage mother. The whole plot has her setting Spanky to act in the show, and be completely oblivious to the plot the gang and Spank have set and her pissing off the MC. The character is to fall victim to the gang as everything she set into motion falls apart. She is to be humiliated and loose her dignity on stage .
My thought is that when they changed the ending with Stan Laurels ideas this changed BL in a major way. I believe originally only showed the hook heading towards her dress and snagging it and a bit of her trying to keep her dress on .
Laurel made them show her after the stage prop went into place and we saw her in her slip (a little,as she kneels) then we see her as the audience sees her with her head on the top of the prop.
I believe that Laurels changes really made BL much much more sexier. So the mother's character is a sex symbol that I believe was never intended.
I think your pretty close to the fact with most of your ideas. The actual writing team was only two guys and they seemed to have a good deal of help from Roach himself and the people her listened to (Stan Laurel). Also that "Beginner's Luck" was another script that had been sent to the scrap heap and the theater owners ( who were the ones who actually paid the bills by keeping shorts playing in their theaters. I'm sure it wasn't like any regular short they did.
One point you brought up was they wanted a young attractive blonde to portray the mother character must be true as initially they went with Ruth and then turned it over to Kitty. So many guys have told me when Kitty stands up and walks over to sit on the arm of the chair the grandmother is on that they get to really check her out and watch her giggle a bit.
I agree that Laurel's changes really "sexed it up " much more than they could have ever dreamed.
One last point Laurel's changes which he did several times in different shorts and films. His idea was to have a young pretty girl or in one case girls have their dresses torn off them, the girls being knocked senseless and become frozen or scared stiff and are unable to move as some picture of an animal winds up under their chins. I have read several times in those days it was said
never use women in a slapstick situation and never use women where there get involved in a sight gag.
WELL!!!!! I can't say for all Laurel's changes but certainly regarding " Beginner's Luck" both were used and were a major success.
I'm glad you brought up the women in slapstick and the sight gags. Certainly as the camera shows you slowly want is on the stage prop for the first time the viewer bursts out with laughter at the pure shock element of what the mother looks like to the theater audience.
shareI wonder if the folks backstage got to enjoy seeing Kitty stripped of her dress by only seeing her shapeley bum.
shareAnother point that no one brought up as why " Beginner's Luck" was probably written as a joint effort was it was used as a slap back at the type of stage moms they had to deal with all the time over the yrs.
It's been reported ( ????) that some of Spanky's mother were actual lines used by stage mothers on them over the yrs.
Lastly I have to agree where people said you can't use women in slapstick or with sight gags -well " Beginner's luck " sure put that one away!!!!!
Yup, that's a major reason I believe that BL was a collaboration of Roach, his top guys and the two writers. They wanted to do a do a work where they got to hit back at the type of stagemothers they had to deal with over the years even giving her similar lines to ones that actual stagemothers used on Roach and Company. They wanted to get even and they did in a huge way.
Also going back to the first post by Spankyfan where he says BL 's writer should have won an Oscar. Well you must realize that it has a cult following for sure and there is a portion of the population that see nothing in BL and I know a whole bunch of people that seriously hate BL as they see it as TOO MUCH or mean spirited or anti female.
Not sure I got answer to this, If BL was so popular at the time as has been reported, why wasn't more shorts made with the same theme. Seemed there were plenty of story lines that could have been used to put someone in the same postion as Kitty.
shareWell---------- In a way they did do many shorts like it, that is the children acting in shows and the like. You must realize before "Mike Fright " there was only a few shorts involving he kids in plays and shows. They didn't ever strip a mother of her dress in public again but they did humiliate or teach people a lesson in many shorts. I think they never fell back on their old shorts and repeated them again.
You question is one that many folks ask and it comes up all the time.
I wonder why many of the sitcoms of the earlier 70's and 80's didn't due a theme simliar to Beginer's luck? There were plety of T.V moms kids would of loved to seen on stage like Kitty
shareGood Point CPS617!!
I too wondered why they never used the BL idea on their shows.
on the old "Danny Thomas" show in the 60's--Danny was on stage in acting school and being made fun of by the teacher and classmates, when his wife tried to "save him". In the process she had her skirt torn off, reveaing her in a sexy slip. Unlike Kitty, she didn't freeze when she relized her skirt was gone and was able to run off camera. That is about the closest I can remember any using the BL theme.
shareGetting back to why no one of the 60's-80's sitcom moms really got the Kitty treatment in their day is something I've spoke to many people about. Ones that came close was Elizabeth Montgomery who went to a event with Darrin and Aunt Clara after Aunt Clara whipped up outfits to wear. At the dinner the dresses as well as Darrin's tux start to become undone .Darrin and Aunt Clara completely loses their clothes but Sam is able to find a replacement and misses a slip scene.
Also Barbara Eden pulls a switch on Mrs. Bellows and 5 other wife's of Tony's friends as she zaps their dresses and they all run around trying to cover up and hide as their husbands try to help and everyone else laffs their heads off at them.
The most wanted woman in the 70-80's was Meredith Baxter probably as she was the most beautiful but alas she escaped . It's very interesting that the most wanted woman of the late 50's and early 60's was Whitney Blake ( who was the real mom of Meredith Baxter) Whitney played the TV mom on Hazel. Whitney was a very beautiful woman with blonde hair and a real nice rack.
One that didn't escape but was involved in one strange episode was Joanna Kearns of Growing Pains. Joanna's character played a TV reporter on the show and in one episode while out on an assignment her car breaks down she calls home and the only one there was her son's friend Boner.he drives out to help her but when he arrives he only finds her car,no Mrs.Seaver. He calls out and she emerges fromthe bushes without her dress which has been caught and ripped off her and destroyed. She is a bit out of it and is wearing a very short black slip .Boner gives her his coat and tells her to wait in his car. The kid has a tow truck take the broken car away and he takes his best friends mother home. There is no one home and she runs upstairs to get proper clothing. Carol thanks him and gives him a big hug and kiss for acting like a gentleman and not taking advantage of her.
Critics had a field day saying they humiliated Joanna for ratings and they pointed that the previous yr. she was shown in the same black slip at ratings time. She had a line "I'd like to that you boner" which they jumped all over.
The sight of Joanna in that slip was awesome to say the least and I'm not sure wht the average kid would have done with his best friend's mother caught in that situation.
Do you remember what season this happened in? Would of loved to see it. Merideth Baxter would of been a awesome Mom to recieve the B.L. treatment
shareSpeaking of Bewitched, what I found always closest to stirring me up like BL, was episode called Snake In the Grass where Sam uses her powers to strip Darrin's ex the snobby Shelia at a party. While it did not have the howling audience, it did show Sheila sweater unravel and her pants split open while she runs away in humilation!! I loved Sam's expression when it was all done.
shareCorrection I believe the title was Snob in The Grass!!
shareThe concept of a woman being stripped-humiliated may have had it's run and it's day is over.Certainly the Queen of loosing her dress and being made the o0bject of laughter was Lucille Ball who made it her signature in 1940's movies she even did one on I Love Lucy when her skirt gets caught on a bike and she has to remove he skirt but the very last one she did was on the later Lucy Show after I love Lucy. She is saving to buy her son a bike for his birthday and even makes her own dress. At work she arranges to buy the bike and she has to go over to the store to pick it up but her boss needs her to get signatures on contracts and then take them to a restaurant where he is lunching.
Getting the bike she is told to go to the basement and the bike is down there her hem gets caught in the elevator and spins her around and around until it's the dress is all gone and Lucy must deliver the contracts wearing a kangaroo costume.
This was the early 60's and nothing like it has happened since.Stripped humiliation pops up here and there but in small parts . There is the scene in Forrest Gump when he goes to see his "girlfriend " sing in a show.The audience is shown she has no clothes on and brings up some good belly laughs.
Nothing like Kitty's episode has ever happened again and I doubt it will ever happen in the future.
I remember the mother from a terrible sitcom called "Small Wonder" had her dress ripped off. But happened in her home. I think there were two more recent scenes similar to Beginner's Luck. Not a Mom but a step mom to be, but more of a villain. Actually played by the same actress. Two kids movies from the 90s, It Takes Two and Au Pair. In both, her dress was ripped because of the kids and in front of the kids and numerous other people.
shareYes I Takes Two actually had her dress ripped off as she was storming out of a wedding, in front of a admiring and laughing crowd, a very good scence. Actress was Jane Sibbet. Played part to perfection in both movies.
shareI never heard of either scene before. Was the woman stripped to a slip or what .I'd love to hear more of these scenes .
shareShe had her wedding dress stepped on and she was revieled in a short girdle briefer from the waist down.
shareIt Takes Two - Woman is evil and father decides at the wedding that he doesn’t want to marry her. She storms out. She then says “I have never been so humiliated”. And continues to storm out when the daughter steps on her wedding gown. The bottom half of the dress is ripped exposing her panties.
Au Pair - A rich father has two devious kids. The father hires an Au Pair and the kids are mean to her. The father’s fiancé doesn’t like the kids and really wants the father for his money. They are at a formal function for the father’s work. The boy decides to put glue on the Au Pair’s chair. But before she sits down the father tells the Au Pair that she can take a break from the kids and sit at another table. He then pulls the chair out for his fiancée. Later they get up to dance, and as she stands the dress rips. She panics and runs out of the room making it worse as the entire dress rips off as she runs out in bra and panties. Next scene shows her in a bath robe sobbing and holding the remnants of her dress.
But I think the movie with an ending most similar to Beginner’s Luck was a terrible movie from the 80s called Screwballs. Takes place in a High School. One woman is a real prude and teachers pet type. She gets five boys detention. While in detention they decide they will all attempt to see her topless. Each attempt fails. They team up at the end and devise a plan. She is to sing at the assembly in front of the whole school and is making her own dress in school. They sew her dress with wire and hook up a device to the basketball polls to make them large magnets. As she finishes the song they throw the switch and her dress is ripped off along with her bra. Leaving her frozen and stunned on the stage with just panties and garter belt.
There was a show called easy street back in the 80's about a bunch of hobo's moving in with some very rich relatives. At a dinner party one of the hobo's zipper on his jacket gets stuck on a high society nob's dress and ripps it off in front of everyone at the party. She runs out wearing a strapless black slip
shareIn my humble opinion there is only one and that's Beginner's Luck. You can't top it. it's so perfect. The unexpected curtain rise , the stage prop and the look on Spanky's mother's face ---- not even to mention the great sounds which I think are key in making it so great.
shareWithout a doubt Doug that's why were all here on this board for the love and fascincation with this short
shareI have to agree with Doug and cps617 there is only one "Beginner's Luck " !! I have a high regard for others opinions on the stripped humiliation but not one of them can ever compare to "Beginner's Luck" .
shareI agree, BL is the best and can't compare with the others--that being said, if they had shown more of Kitty in a undressed manner--more in her slip or less, bra and panties, would BL be such a fascination? By showing just bits and pieces of Kitty's dilemma did our brains(our largest sexual organ) ingrain(sp?) more sexuality into the short then actually exists? Kinda less is more. any opinions?
shareGreat question Spankyfan2
I, long ago asked why this short had such an appeal as it did when really they don't show that much at all. I knew so many guys who had a "Beginner's Luck" fetish in their young lives. There were so many more explicit scenes in films as we were growing up and certainly porn went all the way and was readily available to most young guys. So many times I heard guys talking about how to improve it or who would you like to see get the BL treatment or something like that.
When I first came to this board I used to say to the early posters here what the hell is so incredibly exotic about this short over everything else and I was told over and over "LESS IS MORE" was the general answer.
I never actually understood it to be honest but had a general idea.
I spoke to many guys about BL over the years. In general I'm going to agree with spankyfan2 that our brains see things that are not there and things are implied that really don't happen on film. I've heard people say the way Kitty's body giggles when she is shocked and her breasts and her hindquarters giggle about a lot and I have to say I really don't see that much of it .
Others have told how exotic it is to see the hook glide up her legs as it approaches her dress hem. I've been told you can see her panties as she tries to stand to try to stop her rising hem. While others told me it had something to do with the fact she is a mother and an authority figure and no one comes to her aid and it just gets worse and worse for her as it goes on. I'll go along with "less is more " idea myself but I thinks there's a lot more than just that.
Time for me to jump in. As a kid I rushed home everyday to watch the rascals and I don't think I knew the name of "Beginner's Luck" but when I saw Spanky walking around with the WW1 helmet on and he's reciting "The village Smitty" I knew it was it. To me it was a pure POWER thing. The concept of the stripped humiliation (BL had a little stripping but huge humiliation factor) is just plain awesome to say the least.
When I became aware of what was happening what happened here happening to pretty teachers and classmates moms. The thought of kids seeing these women humiliated and made laughing stocks really excited me. It was a pure power thing having the ability for these women to get somewhat stripped then that extreme humiliation couldn't be beat.
We went so far as to find a kid who had no friends , His mom loved us as was we were this kid's only friends ever! WE talked over the plan get his mom underneath a stage curtain and have her get some stripped humiliation. My friends and I came up with the idea of having him recite to bring him out of his shell .The mother loved the idea and fell for our plot hook line and sinker. She had him reciting every day .We tried everything to get him onstage and of course his pretty mother with her head on a stage prop. Nothing ever came of it ,I still think about this today what a wild fantasy if we could have pulled this off but since I got older What if we really pulled this off?????? How could this kid ever get over this happening onstage to his mother?
I think the idea of stripped-humiliation is very powerful, combined with the taking out of an authority figure takes it over the top. Almost certainly there is more that our brains put into this short than there actually was. Our brains run wide with what is happening or not happening. That's why we see some things that aren't there in reality but it's there in our heads.
shareYes I believe being stripped in front of the entire audiende adds to the erotic factor. I so wish they should her ladies group laughing at Kitty. I thought after the M.C. got up from being dazed on stage he should of placed a first prize ribbion on Kitty's prop telling the audiende she wins first prize.
shareSomething happened a few days ago regarding this post- When discussing this who wrote B/L one of the posts I put up said it was reported that some of Spanky's mother's lines were actual lines used on the Roach team by real stage mothers.
Well a friend of my was on the phone with me and asked me about this and said which line s were really used by stage mothers? Well to be very honest it was something I had read not only lines buy also mannerisms used by Spanky's mother were from real experiances .
My guesses said that " My son is too much of an artist to open a show"
another one "Well it's about time"
another one "Pay no attention to him it's part of his act"
another one although not a line how she is trimming his costume and the MC asks is he ready yet and the way she sheepishly smiles at him and says not yet
Another line "Why don't you give him some lights" MC 's response "What for?" and her's " so he can act"
These are just my guesses maybe someone can help us out
Interesting though!!!!
Well when I first read your post I thought of all her lines and I even looked at the DVD again to check out her mannerisms. I was going to jump in and post all the lines and the mannerisms she had which I would have believed that were real life ones. Then I thought about it and we can't now ever say which were real and then check it to see if we're right. There is no one left to say which were real and others that weren't real.
shareIt took long enough but I have the answer.
The team consisted of Frank Butler, Gordon Douglas, Nick Grande, Charlie Hall ( who also plays a stagehand) Carl Harbaugh, Hal law, Robert Mac Kenzie, James Parrott, Frank Tasblim, Frank Terry, Hal Yates.
This is incredible how did you ever get this information?/????
shareA couple of years back I heard about "Beginner's Luck" being made for foreign audiences and some of these versions still exist. To date I've seen it in the Russian ,Italian, Spanish, Japanese, French and German. The film is always the same but it's the sound that differs . So far it's been pretty much of a let down. One of my contacts called me the other day and asked me questions about a colorized version that's on Youtube. I had checked Youtube for "beginner's Luck" before and was disappointed. At work I asked a friend with a large cell phone to lend it to me to watch. I was floored by the print it was so clear and the sound was the best I've ever heard. I listened to it 5 or 6 times and low and behold at the end there is a list of credits and lists this writing team of 11 names.
shareI can't believe this at all. I checked out youtube and to be honest I had seen that one several times and I was taken by the great sound. I cut it off before the credits came up.
shareThis was a great find Richard!!!!! But if you check these shorts all shorts from the same yr you'll find the same groups of writers . But that doesn't mean they were the writers of BL. It could be Roach himself! But it could be all these guys too.
shareI read a book about the Roach studios and I remember a part about the writing of the shorts and feature films and they said Roach did a lot of it and Robert McGowan helped and that was about it.
share