As any Laurel & Hardy buff will tell you, Hats Off is one of the most frustratingly long-lost pieces of the L&H puzzle. It and The Rogue Song remain the only missing L&H films (and even a few scraps of Rogue Song have turned up over the years). It's doubly frustrating because its premise provides the obvious basis for the L&H Oscar-winning sound short The Music Box. (In Hats Off, L&H are moving a clothes washer instead of a piano, but most other story elements in the two movies are parallel, right down to the endless hill of stairs [which still exists in Los Angeles].) And so many other elements fundamental to L&H comedy--The Never-Ending Hat Routine, not to mention Anita Garvin and James Finlayson--are present here.
According to remaining notes, the film's opening title tells us that the movie is "the story of two boys who figure that the world owes them a living--but is about thirty-five years behind in the payments." Any reverential L&H buff figures that the world owes him Hats Off but is about 80 years behind in the payments.
(For a couple of interesting reconstructions of the movie's storyline, click here for a collection of the movie's stills, or here for a YouTube video reconstruction of the movie.)
(C) 2009, Steven Bailey.
