The Dancing Masters

**The Dancing Masters** is a *Laurel & Hardy* sound feature film released 19 November 1943.

## Summary

Dancing instructors Stan and Ollie accept a phony policy from two gangsters posing as insurance salesman. At the same time, Grant Lawrence, a young inventor is working on creating a new invisible ray machine that will revolutionize jungle warfare for World War II. Trudy Harlan, Grant's lover and one of Stan's dancing pupils, invites Grant and the boys to her house for tea when her parents are away. Trudy's father Wentworth Harlan almost discovers Stan and Ollie when he returns home but finds Grant and angrily confronts him. Grant is ordered to leave and never talk to Trudy again, whilst the boys narrowly escape.

The next morning, Stan and Ollie are confronted by their angry landlord Mr. Featherstone to pay the rent on their dancing school by twelve noon that day or face eviction. When Ollie declares that he has not got the money, Stan suggests paying the rent with Ollie's nest-egg money. Ollie eventually reluctantly decides to draw the money out of the bank. On their way to pay the rent, however, the boys become sidetracked by an auction. The boys keep bidding against each other for an antique grandfather clock which they merely wanted to purchase for a lady who had left her money at home. While crossing the street with the clock, Stan trips and his hat falls off. The boys lay the clock down in the middle of the street while Stan retrieves his hat, but the clock is destroyed by a passing truck.

Back home, Stan and Ollie decide to help Grant promote his invisible ray gun, by means of Stan posing as the inventor, an eccentric foreign scientist, and with Grant later revealing himself as the real inventor. Although the demonstration is a success at first, Stan forgets to turn the machine off after firing it and it explodes. Grant is dismayed, but the demonstration has earned him the approval and respect of Mr. Harlan.

In desperate need of money, Ollie decides to inflict a series of accidents upon Stan so they can collect on their insurance policy, but these events backfire on Ollie. Meanwhile, Mr. Harlan disapproves of his friend George Worthing, whom he had at first hoped to marry Trudy, attempting to steal Grant's invention, and orders him to leave their home. He also decides to finance Grant's inventions.

Ollie hears from a hospital patient who had gained insurance money after standing up on a roller-coaster and suffering an injury. Stan and Ollie board a bus to the beach, but the bus driver and passengers flee from the bus mid-journey after a cake-eating rabid dog frightens them away. Stan escapes from the bus just outside a coastal amusement park and becomes the victim of a coconut-throwing amusement game. However, Ollie has had his foot caught and is stuck at the top of the bus as it careers onto a roller-coaster track. Ollie rides the bus until it careers off the track just before a sharp turn.

With his leg broken, Ollie ends up in hospital and is visited by Trudy, Grant and Stan. Ollie states that his foot has gone to sleep. Stan asks in a whisper if there is anything he can do to make Ollie comfortable. When Ollie asks Stan why he is whispering, Stan answers, "I didn't want to wake your foot up."

## Cast

* Stan Laurel as Stan
* Oliver Hardy as Ollie
* Trudy Marshall as Trudy Harlan
* Robert Bailey as Grant Lawrence
* Matt Briggs as Wentworth Harlan
* Margaret Dumont as Louise Harlan
* Allan Lane as George Worthing
* Emory Parnell as Featherstone