Perfect Day (1929 film)

1929 film

Perfect Day is a 1929 short comedy film starring Laurel and Hardy.

Two familial units embark on a Sunday outing, utilizing a Ford Model T as their mode of transportation. However, their journey is fraught with challenges stemming from the unreliable nature of the vehicle. Laurel, Hardy, their respective spouses, and the cantankerous Uncle Edgar encounter a series of mishaps necessitating repeated exits and reentries into the automobile, punctuated by the refrain "goodbye." Tensions escalate when a dispute with a neighbor escalates into a potential conflict involving thrown projectiles, prompting the intervention of the local clergyman to diffuse the situation. Despite these setbacks, the families persist in their excursion, only to encounter further adversity in the form of an unexpectedly deep pothole, derailing their plans yet again.

Perfect Day was written in May 1929 and filmed between June 1–8, 1929. The original 1929 release of Perfect Day contained no music other than that used over the opening credits. The Roach Studios would reissue the film in 1937 with an added music score being utilized at the time in other Roach comedies. The 1929 version was considered lost until the 2011 DVD release Laurel and Hardy: The Essential Collection, when the original Vitaphone disc track sans the incidental music became available. The script for Perfect Day originally concluded with the family partaking in their picnic, but this was discarded when the extended gags centering on the troublesome Model T provided enough comic material to sustain the entire film. Despite the fact that the film industry was still adjusting to the making talking pictures, Laurel and Hardy mastered the new technology early on; the overall excellence and high reputation of Perfect Day bears testimony to the team's fruitful use of the new medium. Using sound effects to punctuate a visual gag — a technique The Three Stooges would build their entire film career around — was still in its infancy in 1929. The loud, ringing CLANG heard when Stan is beaned on the head with the Model T's clutch would be termed by a 1929 film reviewer as "the funniest effect so far heard in a comedy."

Chapters — called Tents — of The Sons of the Desert, the international Laurel and Hardy Appreciation Society, all take their names from L&H films. The Perfect Day Tent is in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.