Big Business

James Wesley Horne was an early American actor, screenwriter and film director. He began his career as an actor under director Sidney Olcott at Kalem Studios in 1913 and directed his first film for the company two years later. During the silent-era Horne specialized in staging thrill scenes for... features and serials. On the strength of Horne's work in The Cruise of the Jasper B, Buster Keaton hired him to direct his 1927 comedy College. From there he moved to the Hal Roach studio, where he worked with Roach's leading stars, Laurel and Hardy, Charley Chase, and Our Gang. Horne's Laurel and Hardy comedies Big Business and Way Out West are acclaimed as classics. Horne also displayed an aptitude for directing Roach's foreign-language versions; the American version might be staged by James Parrott, for example, but the international version would be entrusted to Horne. Horne left Roach in 1932 during an economic downturn that eliminated many jobs. He was hired by Universal Pictures where, for the next few years, he directed the studio's now-obscure two-reel comedies.
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Thomas Leo McCarey was an American film director, screenwriter and producer. During his lifetime he was involved in nearly 200 movies, especially comedies. French director Jean Renoir once said that "Leo McCarey understood people better than any other Hollywood director." Born in Los Angeles,... California, he graduated from the University of Southern California law school and began in the movie business as an assistant director to Tod Browning in 1920, but honed his skills at the Hal Roach Studios for the rest of that decade. Hired by Hal Roach in 1923, McCarey initially wrote gags for the Our Gang series and other studio stars, then produced and directed shorts, including two-reelers with Charley Chase. While at Roach, McCarey cast Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy together and guided development of their onscreen characters, thus creating one of the most enduring comedy teams of all time. He only officially appeared as director of the duo shorts We Faw Down , Liberty and Wrong Again , but wrote many of the screenplays. By 1929, he was vice-president of production for the entire studio.
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