‘D’oh!’

Sometimes it is the fragments, the small details, that provide the magic: Ginger and Fred dancing up close in a Venice which never existed, smoke from a steam train billowing through Carnforth Station, the opening credits from Les Quatre Cent Coups). Can I also have that most essential of all comedy sidekicks, James Finlayson and his famous slow burn ‘double take and fade away’, which appeared in every Laurel and Hardy film worth its salt? My favourite one is in their 1937 masterpiece Way Out West. Finlayson is the owner of a saloon bar, the apotheosis of all Western saloon bars with a noisy and raucous audience of cowboys and cabaret showgirls. He rings his cash register, then frowns and turns to one of his bar staff. ‘Hey’, he says, ‘this thing ain’t working right.’ ‘It’s working alright for me’ comes the response. Finlayson nods, as if to say ‘oh’, turns back to the till, realizes the undertone to what has just been said and darts his head back around. It all lasts about a second, yet it is pure cartoon, an inimitable physical movement that is the essence of slapstick. As an aside, actor Dan Castellaneta, who does the voice of Homer Simpson, says the character got his ‘D’oh!’ from Finlayson, which is a lovely tribute.