User Reviews

I know very well the still showing Boris Karloff menacing Stan & Babe, often reproduced in books and magazines, but I have serious doubts about Boris playing "The Tiger" as written in different places, and in the IMDb entry for "Sous les verrous". I think Walter Long played the role in all five versions (American, Spanish, French, German and Italian). In any case, we have now the proof that it was Walter Long in the Spanish and German versions, as the first one exists on video ("De bote en bote") et a segment of the German one has been found, and shown on TV and DVD, and Walter Long plays the same role in this. If Karloff was really in the movie (whatever the version) he would have played a little role. Why ? because he wasn't fluent in French, as proved by the fact he was replaced by other actors for French-language versions of two of his films made at the same period : "The Criminal Code" (he was replaced by Daniel Mendaille in the French version, "Criminel") and "The Unholy Night" (another actor played his role in the French version, "Le spectre vert", directed in Hollywood by Jacques Feyder). So, if Karloff was replaced by French actors for the French versions of two of his movie, it seems highly dubious he replaced an American actor, Walter Long, for the French version of another movie !!! Of course, the only way to solve the problem would be to find this French version, but unfortunately it is "lost" since decades. Since the immediate post-WW2 period, the film known in France (where I live) as "Sous les verrous" is in fact a dubbed print of the American film, NOT the original French-speaking one. To date, the only French-speaking movie of Laurel & Hardy still in existence is "Les carottiers", released on DVD by Universal, which is "Be Big" and "Laughing Gravy" combined together (same thing for the Spanish versions, "Las calaveras", also available on DVD). The Italian version of "Sous les verrous" is apparently lost too.