When talking films came in, the movie studios had a problem: How to market their product overseas. In the past, it had just been a matter of redoing the title cards in another language. Later on, the equipment would be developed to redub the soundtrack in a foreign tongue. But for a number of years there, an oft-employed solution was to actually film one or more alternate versions. A number of early Laurel and Hardy movies received this treatment. After the standard American version was completed, the crew would go back and film the movie (or at least, the talking scenes) again in French and/or Spanish and/or German. Stan and Oliver would repeat their roles, reading phonetic translations of their dialogue from an off-camera blackboard. Sometimes, their American co-stars would do likewise but more often, other actors would be brought in to play opposite them. Boris Karloff was never in one of their American films but he has a key role in the French version of Pardon Us.
Of special interest to Laurel and Hardy fans is that most of the foreign editions contain scenes that either were never filmed in English or filmed and discarded. This is especially the case when the overseas films were patchwork features, as some were, created by stitching two or more shorts together. New scenes with The Boys were written and filmed to connect and/or expand the shorts…and in some cases, rather elaborate extra scenes incorporated. A film called Politiquerias, for example, is the Spanish version of the American Laurel and Hardy short, Chickens Come Home. A number of popular Spanish variety performers were incorporated into the plot, performing their acts and padding a two-reel short (in English) to more than twice that length.
A few of the French and Spanish films exist but until recently, there were no known prints of any of the movies Laurel and Hardy made for Germany…so it's good news that one has been found. Spuk um Mitternacht was made by uniting Berth Marks (1929) and The Laurel and Hardy Murder Case (1930). In the latter, Stan and Ollie show up at the mansion of Stan's late uncle Ebenezer for the reading of his will. The former is all about them trying to get to sleep in one upper berth on a train…so in the connected version, the idea is that they're travelling on the train to the reading of the will and new dialogue presumably establishes this.
Some reports say that this newly-found treasure may not be complete. The film library that is soon to exhibit it at screenings says it's around 30 minutes, whereas records say the original release was closer to 40. (Berth Marks and Murder Case are each about 20.) Still, any unseen Laurel and Hardy is better than nothing. Heck, any Laurel and Hardy at all is better than nothing. Even when they're speaking German.