This is the 250th post on this blog. It looked pretty unlikely for years that we would ever get this far. But now we have the familiar swing back for a while, and if you have followed my back catalogue, some old story formats will make a comeback in the near future. We'll see how long this will last, but let's just make the most of what we have now.
One of the first films "reviewed" here was a short film of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy called Laughing Gravy. It's certainly among their best, and features a truly nasty ending gag. Recently, I realized that this was just in the two-reel version of the short. There's also a three-reeled version that replaces the end gag with minutes of Laurel & Hardy arguing about their friendship. It's really limp compared to the tight gag-fest of the shorter version, and of course not nearly as funny gallows humour.
Since I've been watching a few Laurel & Hardy compilation dvd's while in quarantine, I thought it would be of good public interest to make a list out of my favorite shorts. After all, while they were prolific and usually maintained a good quality throughout their team-up with producer Hal Roach, there are some gems that warrant a more closer look.
Big Business (1929)
Directors: James W. Horne, Leo McCarey
This silent-era flick has basically everything you would want from a L&H short. It has an interesting premise, snowballing situations and lots of property damage. Moreover, the film pits the duo against the hot-tempered moustache-man James Finlayson, who had a supporting role in many of the Roach-era films. He had a very silly bug-eyed rage face, which made him an excellent foil to Laurel & Hardy's tomfoolery.
In this story, sales tactics for a christmas tree fail to impress Finlayson, but L&H keep pushing it, making the angered customer destroy one of the trees. This causess L&H to retort and begin to do damage on the occupant's house, which in turn makes Finlayson attack Laurel & Hardy's car. At the point where the car is exploded and half the neighborhood is out to see the epic battle, a policeman arrives.
A lot of laughs are mined out of the characters trying to appear innocent as they have just busted a window wide open and destroyed just about everything inside. The cop is portrayed here as a mere observer, not even attempting to stop the wonton destruction but just biding their time to get to punish the people responsible.
Liberty (1929)
Dir. Leo McCarey
Probably taking a page from the book of Harold Lloyd, this silent one sees the pair escape the police in a skyscraper construction site. But what really drives the plot is the fact that the pair has dressed each other's pants on and they try to switch them back.
The gag-work is beautifully laid-out, with Ollie getting a live lobster in his pants near the beginning, that snips his bottom at key turns, making him almost drop again and again. The film works as a time-piece of a time where cities were building up almost overnight, and the unexpected adventures they could provide for the hapless wanderer. The cop chasing them with quite lethal means also gets his comeuppance in the end with a supermarioesque squashing.
Brats (1930)
Dir. James Parrott
There are several films like Twice Two (1933) that see the actors do a dual role as their usual characters, and in that case both of their wives. But I find it funnier when grown men play children than women. It also requires a bit of trick photography as Stan & Ollie's kids in this one are a lot smaller than their grown-up counterparts.
Juniors won't go peacefully to bed, running amuck and pulling pranks well after their bedtime. Meanwhile, their dads attempt to play billiards and of course wreck their own story as well. Upstairs, Ollie Jr. gets shot in the butt and Stan Jr. makes the batroom overflow. The end gag could have been an even bigger one, with some consequences shown, but it is splendidly set up with Ollie's usual dismissiveness of Stan and cocky demeneour.
The Music Box (1932)
Director: James Parrott
One of their best-known films, this one sees Stan & Ollie as movers, set to deliver a piano into a fancy hilltop mansion. Of course even the staircase to the house proves to be a big obstacle, never mind getting the box containing the instrument inside the house. It is a good example of the farcical nature of snowballing destruction, as well as utilizing all manners of sight gags as well as the knowledge of the myth of Sisyphos.
The film's lofty reputation would let one to expect an even more outrageous finale as the owner of the house arrives to find a piano he didn't want as well as most of his property demolished. While this is one of the smoother-running shorts with good gags throughout, I also have a soft spot of shorts that have an even more outrageous ending. For instance, the silent short Wrong Again (1929) has a landowner fed up with shenanigans take out his shotgun and say to his mother to read about the murder (of Stan & Ollie) in tomorrow's newspaper.
Busy Bodies (1933)
Director: Lloyd French
This one sees Stan & Ollie in a new job at a woodshop. They soon annoy their co-workers and bumble about cluelessly as to make the whole plant turn against them.
It is a great piece of prop comedy that uses all sorts of power tools and building materials to make Ollie's day worse and worse. It even has a more painful version of Chaplin's Modern Times gag where Ollie is sucked into the gears of a major machine and spat out. And as I love the destruction of cars in particular, the final gag sees their car being sawed in half by a giant buzz-saw. It has been said that the filming of this stunt was dangerous as all hell and could have easily killed our beloved duo.
Dirty Work (1933)
Dir. Lloyd French
Now, having Laurel and Hardy act as chimney-sweeps that manage to soot up the house and demolish the chimney is by itself funny, but not that remarkable. What makes this short so notable is that the house they're called to is also the house where a mad professor is acting out some strange experiments on a formula that rejuvenates ducks back into eggs.
These two sides of the movie have very little to do with one another, mainly a disgusted butler going in an out of the two ordeals going on at the time. Intercut together they create quite a lot of intrigue and even suspense. It's obvious Stan & Ollie will mess up the place and get turned into test subjects, and the waiting is a part of the fun, as well as all shotgun-related shenanigans. It does pay off in the end. It was rare for the Laurel & Hardy films to turn to straight-out science fiction, but in this case it makes for a memorable experience. Beyond that, "I have nothing to say!"
Thicker Than Water (1935)
Dir. James W. Horne
As moviegoing changed, there was no more need for short films and Laurel & Hardy moved on to feature-length films. But they gave their one last shot in this one, that is probably the best one that deals with martital troubles and the friendship between the two characters. I often find the nagging wife -films to be a bit too much like boomer humor for my tastes, even if (or especially when) they get cartoonishly violent. But they also tend to give the impression that Ollie prefers Stan over his wife, which causes jealousy. Read what you will out of that.
Nevertheless, this film is conceptually quite inventive. Characters break the 4th wall literally, since the only way they can move from one location to another is to physically drag out the next scene over the screen. The film also has a quite unpredictable plot; from marital woes and money troubles we move on to an auction of a grandfather clock, and there to some hospital humor as Ollie needs a blood transfusion.
This is a bit of a SPOILER, but the last scene is something special as the transfusion switches the pairs personalities, and we see the respective actors try each others maneurs on for size. Truly this was well ahead of its time, long before anyone had the idea of Face/Off in mind.
Do you have a favorite Laurel & Hardy joint? I would like to hear from them, so I might maybe make a sequel to this post some day.
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