In the early days of the talkies, Laurel and Hardy were extremely popular around the world due to the universality of their silents. However, Hal Roach Studios wanted to continue marketing the team abroad and hit upon the idea of making versions in other languages. The problem was that dubbing wasn't yet perfected and so the team had to recreate their films--saying the dialog phonetically. Versions were made in German, Italian, French and Spanish (like this one). Oddly, these international versions often were longer and had significant padding--sometimes for the worse and sometimes for the better.
Here we have the duo recreating BELOW ZERO with, again, an extra reel of film compared to the original. Interestingly, the song "In the Good Old Summertime" is translated to "In the Beautiful Springtime"--though the sentiment is much the same as is much of the film. There are, due to some padding, a few differences. I don't remember the blind man from BELOW ZERO or the snowball fight, but my memory could just be a bit hazy. But what was obvious is that this is still a terrific short--perhaps a touch less so than the original--but not much.
FYI--If you watch, often the bass is playing and Ollie isn't plucking! Also, the snow that the lady smears in their faces looks like ice cream, not snow.
Here we have the duo recreating BELOW ZERO with, again, an extra reel of film compared to the original. Interestingly, the song "In the Good Old Summertime" is translated to "In the Beautiful Springtime"--though the sentiment is much the same as is much of the film. There are, due to some padding, a few differences. I don't remember the blind man from BELOW ZERO or the snowball fight, but my memory could just be a bit hazy. But what was obvious is that this is still a terrific short--perhaps a touch less so than the original--but not much.
FYI--If you watch, often the bass is playing and Ollie isn't plucking! Also, the snow that the lady smears in their faces looks like ice cream, not snow.