In 1870, Dr. Henry Tibbett, a Mississippi country doctor is called on by a travelling circus trainer to cure his sick elephant. After the doctor heals the grateful beast, the elephant becomes so attached to him that it starts to follow him everywhere. This leads to the trainer suing Dr. Tibbett for alienation of affection.
The presence of the elephant also endangers the engagement of Dr.Tibbett's daughter Mary to the son of the prominent Carter family,
who are social snobs looking for an excuse to call off the wedding.
Things are resolved to everyone's satisfaction when the "male" elephant is discovered to be pregnant; and Dr.Tibbett helps deliver a healthy baby pachyderm.
Zenobia is one of the few films after the teaming of Laurel and Hardy that features Hardy without Stan Laurel,[3] the result of a contract dispute between Laurel and producer Hal Roach, who maintained separate contracts for each performer, rather than a team contract, which would have offered them more control over their careers. Zenobia was Roach's attempt to create a new comedic pair without Laurel, and a series of films with Hardy and Langdon was planned. The dispute was short-lived, however, and Laurel and Hardy were reunited shortly thereafter.[4]
"...[was] a rough idea of what would happen to Gone With the Wind if Hal Roach had produced it ... an antebellum, costume romance in slapstick, in which an elephant adopts Oliver Hardy and, it appears, Harry Langdon has adopted the partnership perquisites formerly reserved for Stan Laurel."
Then—playing on the potential for a new comedy team of Hardy and Langdon—the reviewer said:
"Harry Langdon's pale and beautifully blank countenance ... has probably already excited the professional jealousy of Mr. Laurel."[6]
The film is mentioned quite frequently (referred to as "the elephant movie") during the Stan and Ollie biopic. In the film, Laurel begrudged Hardy for doing the film; however, this was not the case in real life, as it was Laurel himself who encouraged Hardy to continue at Hal Roach Studios without him. After his contract was up, Hardy refused to form a new team with Langdon, left Roach, and followed Laurel to 20th Century Fox.
The 35mm nitrate stock was digitally restored, and released on dvd in 2018.
Unrestored and restored comparisons of the same scenes appear side-by-side in the menu's 'Special Features'.
Millions of imperfections were removed.
^Ward, Richard Lewis (2005). A history of the Hal Roach Studios. Southern Illinois University Press. p. 213. - figures are producer's share from US/Canada
