Movie studios in the 30's had a problem. Once they were producing talkies,
the dialogue cards could no longer be translated for easy exportation to other
markets.
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[I]n the very early days of talkies, dubbing
and subtitling for foreign versions had not yet become standard. Sometimes
entire films would be re-shot in different languages, frequently with changes of
cast and variations in content. On occasion the foreign editions of short
comedies would be expanded to feature-length by the addition of deleted scenes
and/or by the combination of two films into a single entity. Laurel & Hardy
remade several shorts (and one feature, PARDON US) in this fashion, speaking
their own dialogue with the aid of language coaches and off-camera prompting
boards. Most of these remakes were in Spanish, though several were in French and
a few others done in German
Glenn Mitchell,
laurelandhardy.org
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Here's the opening from the Spanish version of Chickens Come Home
(1931):
Other studios took to shooting entire films in parallel, working
on the same sets with the same script, but an entirely different crew at night
with the English team working during the day and the other team at night. This
practice produced good results, but resulted in some interesting variations such
as the Spanish version of 1931's Dracula where the director decided to fill the
castle with armadillos.
