The Big Noise

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The Big Noise
Theatrical poster for The Big Noise (1944)
Directed by	Malcolm St. Clair
Produced by	Sol M. Wurtzel
Written by	Scott Darling
Starring	Stan Laurel Oliver Hardy Doris Merrick Arthur Space Veda Ann Borg Robert Blake Frank Fenton James Bush
Music by	David Buttolph
Cinematography	Joseph MacDonald
Editing by	Norman Colbert
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	September 22, 1944
Running time	74 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

The Big Noise, released in 1944 and directed by Mal St.Clair, was one of the feature films Laurel and Hardy made at 20th Century Fox after they had left Hal Roach four years earlier. Over the years it gained a reputation as one of the team's poorest films, even meriting an entry in the notorious book The Fifty Worst Films of All Time A statement made by Stan Laurel himself in a reply to a fan letter ('Note you saw the film THE BIG NOISE recently... NUFF SAID!!!') has generally been taken as an incisive criticism, but other information suggests Stan actually liked the film. One thing is clear: it isn't actually as bad as its reputation.

[edit] Trivia

When it was released, this movie created a stir in the US War Department which caused the FBI to investigate everyone involved with the production. In the film, "The Big Noise" was the name of a new kind of bomb that could destroy an entire city; a year later, the US Army Air Corps destroyed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the atomic bomb. No evidence was ever found linking the film to the Manhattan Project, the similarities being chalked up to coincidence.

A recent DVD release had a running commentary by the eminent Laurel and Hardy historian and writer Randy Skredtvedt.His book The Magic Behind the Movies was highly dismissive of the film,as virtually all before it,but Skretvedt now thinks the film is nowhere near as bad as he originally thought,and he now rates it as one of the better Laurel and Hardy films at Fox.

The film reworks material from many earlier films,such as Berth Marks, Habeas Corpus, Wrong Again, Oliver the Eighth and Twice Two.The phrases Habeas Corpus and Hog Wild (the title of a 1930 short made by the team) are also incorporated into the film's dialogue.