In 1937, Hal Roach, no longer content with being a legendary producer of film comedy, decided he was going to get into the movie-musical business. Unfortunately, he didn't have the all-star casts that, say, MGM had. (This could be why most L&H buffs prefer the simple comedy Way Out West to the "Big Lavish Musical Superfeature" Swiss Miss.) For Pick a Star, Roach had to settle for a somewhat-star cast of Patsy Kelly, Rosina Lawrence (who had played opposite Laurel & Hardy in Way Out West), and a pre-Wizard of Oz Jack Haley.
Pick a Star concerns star-struck small-town singer Cecilia Moore (Lawrence), who journeys to Hollywood with her wisecracking sister (Kelly) to try and break into the movie biz. With the help of a loving publicity man (Haley), she eventually gets what she wants.
But most people know Pick a Star best these days for its two scenes with Laurel & Hardy. In the first, they film a comedic brawl in a Mexican bar. (Say "Going bye-bye" to Walter Long in his final film with The Boys, as a nasty hombre at the bar.) In the second, Stan and Ollie try to one-up each other on harmonica-playing, with the usual disastrous results for Ollie.
At one point in the 1960's, when distributors were busy slicing and dicing Laurel & Hardy movies for commercial TV, the L&H Pick a Star scenes were spliced together for a makeshift short subject titled A Day at the Studio. Though one can be grateful that L&H's films are no longer butchered the way they were back then, this ersatz short stood pretty well by itself and did indeed contain the feature film's most memorable moments.
(C) 2006, Steven Bailey.
