Oliver the Eighth - Location Shooting
Sound recording on the opening barber shop scenes is not up to the usual technical standard. The dialogue is heard as being "tinny." That's the first sign a production unit was not filming on a closed soundstage. Then looking through the door and window of the shop one can see natural light. The Laurel & Hardy company was filming inside the false street fronts on the back lot, a rare practice. When Hardy walks out to mail his letter, the most prominent landmark to be glimpsed is the stretch of sidewalk where Dorothy Coburn had her derriere painted in THE SECOND HUNDRED YEARS (l927).
Hardy's letter was postmarked January 8, l934. His return address was given as 20l Spring Street. 200 Spring Street was City Hall in downtown Los Angeles, erected in l928 and famous as THE DAILY PLANET newspaper building in the SUPERMAN television series. There is no 20l Spring Street today, but in l934 it marked an office building housing attorneys who preyed on City Hall. Possibly one such lawyer gave counsel to Stan Laurel, although it couldn't have been Ben Shipman, whose offices were elsewhere.
-- by Richard W. Bann --