Laurel and Hardy fans unite
"The thought of grown men playing Laurel and Hardy games is disgusting. In an age when there is so much that needs to be done, the idea of going to a motel to watch old movies seems to be some sort of bottom point of ducking responsibility. What’s the matter with these people? Aren’t their homes good enough for them?"
These immortal words of one Mildred Jamesworth were printed in the Sunday Record on Jan. 17, 1971. The Sons of the Desert Flying Deuces tent, the Ramsey chapter of the official Laurel and Hardy appreciation society, decided to make its highest recognition the "Mildred Jamesworth award," a trophy purchased at a garage sale that year.
According to Carlstadt resident and Flying Deuces member Rob Cassella, when the Sons of the Desert was founded in 1965, Stan Laurel was still alive and requested the most important rule of the group be "Don’t take yourselves seriously."
"The Sons of the Desert as a whole is an international group that are film buffs of Laurel and Hardy and their comedic style," said Cassella. "Everything was to be enjoyed and everything was to be conducted in a half-assed manner."
Cassella joined a Sons of the Desert group in the late 1970s and found it to be too serious. "They were very serious and very stuffy and I didn’t want to join the Laurel and Hardy society to take some sort of scholarly approach to their films," he said.
While reading the Sons of the Desert newsletter, the Intertent Journal, he began reading a column written by Ramsey resident Dean Cartieh.
Cassella introduced Mike Stevens to the group two years ago. After working together on a project in Carlstadt, the two found they had a similar sense of humor. Cassella took Stevens along on a visit to the grave of Patsy Kelly in Brooklyn, an actress who typically performed as a wife or girlfriend in Laurel and Hardy movies.
Stevens had not seen many of the films since he was a child and some of them, he had never seen at all. To him, many of the jokes seemed brand new. "Mike’s laughter engenders the whole group to start laughing," said Cassella.
The Sons of the Desert have over 100 groups around the world, in North America, Australia and Europe. Each group takes on the name of a Laurel and Hardy movie, like the Flying Deuces. The Flying Deuces was formed in 1968, making it the eighth oldest in the world. On Friday, the Flying Deuces celebrated its 40th anniversary at the Glen Rock Inn.
The Sons of the Desert took its name from a fictional group Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy belonged to which mirrored an Elks club or other men’s fraternity. In one particular movie, Laurel and Hardy told their wives they were going away on vacation to Hawaii but instead attended a "Sons of the Desert" convention in Chicago against their wives’ wishes.
Footage of them wearing fez hats and waving to the camera at a parade aired back at home, and Hardy heard it from his wife. "Hardy’s wives were always battle axes," said founding member Alan Hembrough.
Like the actual Sons of the Desert, the Flying Deuces is an all-male group; the only all-male Sons of the Desert group in existence, according to Hembrough. The group stayed that way out of tradition.
The group began to take shape while Hembrough was serving in the military. As a training sergeant stationed in Lodi, he was instructed to show the troops films with titles like "Care and Maintenance of Latrines Under Battle Conditions" and "Mother Russia." So instead of training videos, he would show Laurel and Hardy films. "We certainly wanted to keep this thing going, so we officially joined the Sons of the Desert," said Hembrough.
A monthly meeting at Cartieh’s house in Ramsey involves hanging out and viewing Laurel and Hardy films on an antique slide projector. In addition, the group visits area libraries to talk about Laurel and Hardy history and hold screenings. "We spend more time trying to make each other laugh. That’s the number one goal of the meeting," said Cassella.
The group also gets together for weekend getaways and camping trips as well as family outings in the summer with members’ wives, children and grandchildren.
There are between 12 and 14 regular members and the majority of the group are over the age of 60, according to Hembrough.
In addition to the shared appreciation for Laurel and Hardy, the group members have become lifelong friends. When Hembrough underwent quadruple bypass surgery 13 years ago, he recalls a fellow member visiting him in the hospital. "We always check on one other. We’re a close-knit group," he said.
Hembrough and founding member Steve Cesareo have known one another for 54 years and, along with founding member Bill Hamill, joined the armed services in 1962.
Cassella said his passion for Laurel and Hardy comes from the duo’s "pure, innocent lovable comedy" and the way they play off one another. "They were never mean-spirited toward one another," he added, distancing Laurel and Hardy from the comedy of Abbott and Costello.
"There was a lot of yelling and slapping and hooting and hollering at one another [in Abbott and Costello’s comedy]," said Cassella.
Laurel and Hardy’s comedy has been imitated by other comedy duos, most noticeably Jackie Gleason and Art Kearny in "The Honeymooners" and Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble in "The Flintstones."
