It’s January 1937 and we
need to be entertained. For two shillings or one and nine pence you could take
your date to the Stephen’s Green Cinema and watch the latest treat from Laurel
and Hardy, ‘The Bohemian Girl’. But what if you couldn’t go? Ireland’s radio
station had the answer, they would broadcast the film, full of visual gags, on
the radio, yes on the radio.
According to the film’s plot
summary[1],
“A group of gypsy caravans set up on the edge of a
wood. They realise they are camped on the estate of Count Arnheim who will not
tolerate their presence. The gypsies sing and dance to entertain themselves.
Stanley Laurel and Oliver Hardy are the misfit pair
of Gypsies in the group. When hen-pecked Oliver is out pickpocketing,
fortune telling or attending his zither lessons, his wife Mae Busch, has
an affair with Devilshoof played by Antonio Moreno. A cruel Nobleman,
Count Arnheim, persecutes the Gypsies, who are forced to flee, but Mrs
Hardy, in revenge for Devilshoof being lashed by the count's orders, kidnaps
his daughter, Arline (Darla Hood), and Mrs. Hardy fools Hardy into thinking she
is their daughter since he believes everything she tells him. She soon elopes
with Devilshoof, and leaves Oliver and "Uncle" Stanley holding the
toddler.”
The film also starred
Thelma Todd, but more about her shortly.
In Ireland one of the
most unusual aspects of showing this film was that despite the slapstick antics
of the duo and the visual gags, the film became the first to be ‘shown’ on
Radio Eireann.
‘As
some of it is silent, the reaction of the audience to the antics of the stars
should prove amusing listening to the listeners.’
That night, Friday
January 15th, the station was celebrating the fact that 100,000 wireless
licences had been taken out in the state, a decade after the launch of 2RN
later to be Radio Eireann.[2] A microphone and telephone
line from the cinema speakers relayed the show to the GPO. But despite the
publicity surrounding this first, only the second reel of the 71 minute film
was broadcast in the thirty minute slot at eight o’clock.
The Irish Press reported
the following day
‘a
running commentary was given by Mr. Henry[3], of the broadcasting
studio, who described the antic of Laurel and Hardy, the stars. The famous
songs were all rendered over the ether.’
The film generated
additional interest as the film was based on the opera ‘The Bohemian Girl’
written by Dublin born Michael William Balfe. Balfe, Michael was born on May
15th May 1808, at 10 Pitt Street, Dublin, the street later renamed as Balfe
Street in 1917 by the Dublin Corporation in his honour only to be later
demolished completely. He was baptised in St Anne’s, Dawson Street, the same
place where Dracula creator Bram Stoker would be married. He was the third
child and only son of William Balfe, a renowned violinist and dancing master,
and Kate Ryan. Balfe spent the early part of his life in Wexford, and received
his first musical tuition in violin and piano from his father. His first public
performance is thought to have been on May 30th 1817 at a benefit
concert held at the Rotunda, Dublin.
Balfe's career as a
violinist had just begun when in January 1823, his father died. A desire to
improve his music career and relieve the financial burden on his mother, he
moved to London. He secured employment as an orchestra violinist at the Drury
Lane Theatre, at the time under the direction of fellow Irishman Thomas Cooke.
A decisive moment in his personal and professional life occurred in 1825 when
he met wealthy Italian born Count Mazzara, who was taken by Balfe's uncanny
resemblance to his recently deceased son, as well as his musical talent. Balfe
accompanied Mazzara across Europe, where he remained for the next decade,
focused on advancing his musical career.
He composed and produced
his most popular work, ‘The Bohemian Girl’, at the Drury Lane Theatre on
November 27th 1843, which ran for over one hundred nights in its first season.
‘The Bohemian girl’ was performed throughout Europe and America and is the only
nineteenth-century British opera to enjoy a genuinely international reputation.
Balfe died on October 20th 1870 and was buried in the Kensal Green Cemetery,
London. Interestingly due to depiction of gypsies, the movie was banned in Nazi
Germany. A critic at the time wrote of this film, "Composer, wouldn't like
what Laurel and Hardy have done to his play. Then again, being Irish, perhaps
he would."
Thelma Todd was one of
the main cast when the film went into production at the Hal Roach studios. She was
born in Massachusetts to John Shaw Todd, who was born in County Down, Ireland
in 1871, the family emigrating to Boston in 1882. Her mother was Canadian born Alice
Edwards. After winning the Miss Massachusetts pageant, she was spotted by
Hollywood and initially signed by Paramount Pictures before joining Hal Roach
who had Laurel and Hardy on his books.
The Bohemian Girl was
Todd's last screen appearance before her controversial, suspicious death at aged
29. She died on December 15, 1935, just two months before the film was
released. In an attempt to avoid associating the film with the notoriety
surrounding the event, the plot was altered and many of her already-filmed
scene clips were re-filmed. Her only featured scene that remains is her musical
number, "Heart of the Gypsy", near the film's beginning, even here her
singing voice is dubbed. Despite the coroner deeming the death accidental, she
had been found in her car in her garage and the medical examiner said it was
death by carbon monoxide poisoning, there was speculation that she had been
killed by a former lover or a mafia linked small time gangster who had married
her and was her business partner in a successful restaurant.
Off course Laurel and
Hardy themselves would be no strangers to Ireland, staying at the Royal Marine
Hotel in Dun Laoghaire for a month as they performed at the Olympia Theatre in
1953.
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