(no subject)

Last night we watched L&H in Pack Up your Troubles, their second feature-length movie. This one had a 'Little Miss Marker' kind of plot. It is problematic that the script never actually gives the toddler a name, but maybe their army buddy, her late father, never named her; the story does require him to have been extremely unhelpful with information (Stan and Ollie try to find her grandparents, knowing only that they're named Smith, and live somewhere in Manhattan....)

However the whole thing was made less saccharine than it could have been by the little girl, who was not a polished Shirley-Temple-type child actress, but just an ordinary cute kid who seemed to have wandered into the picture; the scenes between her and Stan especially come off very natural, perhaps because he did have a daughter around the same age at the time. Here's the scene most reviewers list as a favourite (starts at 3:53 in) - she tells Stan a bedtime story, and he falls asleep.

Also, Charles "Ming the Merciless" Middleton as a villainous Children's Aid official...