The Case For Atoll K
 Many a Laurel and Hardy aficionado will wonder: "A book on a single Laurel and Hardy film, let alone on their last feature, Atoll K?" Should not this film be dismissed as a sorry effort, or, as Laurel himself described it to his biographer John McCabe, an "abortion"? Naturally, most Laurel and Hardy research has dealt with their whole body of work, including major efforts to close the last gaps in their filmography by locating the few missing films of the duo, as well as complete prints of those existing only in part. Most urgent has been the desire to find the comedy Hats Off! (1927), which has apparently been missing since the early 1930s. After a 16 mm copy of a film with the same title was offered in the catalogue of Library Films of Manhattan in 1947 [most likely a sound movie of the same title], and following persistent rumours that a 9.5 mm copy was guarded by a private collector, a new claim emerged in October 2001, when a fake report from the equally fake email address "rpsutcliffe@hotmail.com" of a certain Booby [yes, not Bobby] Sutcliffe claimed: "I have found a copy of Hats Off!" The search for the missing phonetic versions of Laurel and Hardy films was no less intense and revealed a number of substantial finds during the last three decades, resulting in the availability of about half of all these alternate versions. The latest rediscovery to hit the news was that most of the 1930 German variant Spuk um Mitternacht (combining Berth Marks and The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case) had been found in Moscow in 2004 and subsequently reconstructed by the Munich Filmmuseum. Of course, this inspired some jokers to claim that copies of Glückliche Kindheit (Brats, 1930) and Hinter Schloss und Riegel (Pardon Us, 1931) also had been recovered in Moscow, this time in complete copies in good condition. The last of these "reports" proved to be an April's Fool joke, not just by their audaciousness but the date they reared their head: April 1, 2005. Furthermore, searches continued for the missing fragments of the Charley Chase two-reeler Now I'll Tell One (1927), as well as lost elements from the Laurel and Hardy classic The Battle of the Century (1927). For years only a mere three and a half minutes of the latter were available, but the rediscovery of the first reel brought the running time up to approximately ten minutes of its original 18-minute length. Much attention has also been devoted to The Rogue Song (1930), an operetta in which Laurel and Hardy provided comic relief. While the soundtrack discs still exist, the film remains incomplete, despite widespread searches on several continents. Only a few scenes (including some Laurel and Hardy bits) and a trailer still survive. Even though it seems to be nothing more than an acceptable American film version of the Franz Lehár operetta Zigeunerliebe (Gypsy Love), no one would even dream of giving up the search for the rest of The Rogue Song. Compared to The Rogue Song, Atoll K is at least a true Laurel and Hardy feature. While the former restricts the two comedians to cameo appearances, Atoll K is, in fact, their final starring role on the silver screen. The poor reputation of Atoll K may be due to the fact that the film has rarely been seen as it was originally intended. Considering all the research that has been done in the past four decades on the works of Laurel and Hardy, it is astonishing that no one has tried to research the fate of the complete version of the youngest surviving film of the duo, shot in 1950-51. In his essential study Laurel and Hardy. The Magic Behind the Movies (1987), Randy Skretvedt first presented research on the making of every known Laurel and Hardy film. While focusing on the Roach films, he also included background information on the preparation of Atoll K and its chaotic development. Scott MacGillivray's excellent book Laurel & Hardy. From the Forties Forward (1998) was the first to compare different versions of the film, exploring in particular the marketing of the mutilated American version Utopia. In my own Dick und Doof Buch (2004), I studied the German adaptation of the film as well as the box-office success it enjoyed in Germany. And for the November 2005 issue of the Laurel and Hardy magazine Nieuwe Blotto, Bram Reijnhoudt, Chris Seguin and I compiled a dossier on Atoll K. So has everything worth knowing been said about Atoll K? The answer is a clear "no"! The genesis of Atoll K as a French-Italian co-production with English-speaking stars has never been explored, nor have the differences between the release versions in their respective languages. It is in fact still unknown how long the original version really was and what kind of derivative versions the film premiered in different countries. U.S. American publications usually refer to a review in "Variety", in which the November 1951 Paris premiere is reported to be 100 minutes long. However, this information is incorrect. And claims that the film was a complete flop need to be rectified. Unfortunately, sources as accessible and conclusive as those on Laurel and Hardy's Hal Roach Studios output do not exist for the production of Atoll K. Consequently, research for the book became a jigsaw puzzle of outlines, treatments, scripts, versions, running times and film print lengths. In the end, a picture emerged that filled in the kind of omissions, misunderstandings and missing data which affected previous books, including my own as far as the original versions of Atoll K were concerned. Finally, it was even possible to reconstruct the original shape of the film (at least on paper), as well as to supplement the previously sketchy information on the cast and the crew. However, the international research conducted for this study did result in a broader picture of the making of Atoll K. It is a rather complex story due to different handling in the various countries. Previously unknown original files from the production, the financing, as well as unknown photos of the filming and interviews with Sylvette Baudrot, Suzy Delair and Pierre Nivollet made this possible. And, at long last, the elusive British version Robinson Crusoeland has resurfaced. The poor reputation of Laurel and Hardy's final film may be the reason that some Laurel and Hardy fans actually refuse to watch Atoll K, let alone embark on a quest for missing film material. But I am not alone in contending that Atoll K does not deserve this unconditional dismissal. Certainly the film is not Laurel and Hardy's masterpiece, but it is their final feature film after all. In fact, it was the most elaborate production of all their films, with the largest budget of their career as well as an international cast. I invite the reader to join in the discovery of an ostensibly well known, but actually largely uncharted island in Laurel and Hardy's oeuvre; a production unlike any other Laurel and Hardy movie - not even the chaotic production Babes In Toyland, which seemed to spell the end of collaboration of Laurel and his producer Hal Roach in 1934. Norbert Aping |
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