Laurel & Hardy in "The Devil's Brother" (1933)

The first of Laurel and Hardy's operetta films, and quite possibly the best, adapted from the 1830 show by Daniel Auber. The boys play down-on-their-luck vagabonds in 18th century Italy who reluctantly become the bumbling assistants to the notorious bandit chief Fra Diavolo ("The Devil's Brother"). Comedy highlights include Laurel's "kneesy-earsy-nosey" finger games and Laurel becoming intoxicated while filling bottles in a wine cellar. The soundtrack retains a number of the songs from Auber's original score. Singer Dennis King brings the perfect mix of menace and charm to the title role, supported by a fine cast including Thelma Todd as the bored noblewoman, James Finlayson as her cuckold husband, and Henry Armetta as the long-suffering innkeeper whose inability to imitate Laurel's "finger games" causes him no end of frustration. One of the only Laurel and Hardy films directed by their long-time producer Hal Roach.

Movie Soundtracks & Frame Blow-up Books

Going through my collection of movie soundtrack albums tonight, I came across these two old favorites. One is a collection of recordings of routines by W.C. Fields (subtitled "...His only recording"), also featuring eight songs by Mae West, and the other is a collection of scenes from the films of the Marx Bros., featuring "the original voice tracks from their greatest movies". These albums were extremely popular during the height of the nostalgia craze in the early '70s, and were also quite useful in the pre-home video days, when such albums were the only way to re-visit favorite scenes from these films.

There was also a series of books, many by Richard J. Anobile, that served a similar purpose and included frame blow-ups and dialogue transcriptions from famous films. I have one called Why a Duck?, which consists of scenes from the Marx Bros.' comedies. Anobile wrote others, too, including Who's on First, A Flask of Fields, A Fine Mess, plus individuals volumes on classics such as PSYCHO, THE MALTESE FALCON and FRANKENSTEIN, among others. He even wrote one on THE GENERAL, though it's hard to imagine how his scene-by-scene frame blowups would work for a silent film.

I wonder how many people still collect these? Home video eventually rendered these kinds of books and albums obsolete, but as classic film comedy fans know, it's hard to ever pass up a chance to spend time with your favorite comedians, no matter what the format.

Unfaithfully Yours (1948)

Preston Sturges' final classic was this farce comedy about a temperamental symphony conductor (Rex Harrison) who suspects his wife (Linda Darnell) has been unfaithful to him, and his overheated imagination gets the better of him as he concocts various schemes to exact revenge on his wife and her supposed lover.

An interesting blend of Sturges' characteristic comedy-of-manners laced with slapstick, and a strong dose of dark comedy, UNFAITHFULLY YOURS is an uneven but highly interesting and often quite funny film. It is filled with Sturges' sharp observations about human behavior, offering a wry commentary on how the best laid plans often go awry.

Professor Beware (1938)

Of the major silent film comedians, Harold Lloyd's transition to sound was in some ways the most seamless. Whereas Chaplin continued making silents throughout the 1930s, and Keaton was assigned by MGM to a series of increasingly uncharacteristic (albeit financially successful) farce comedies, Lloyd took something of a middle-ground approach, gradually adapting his character and scripts to better suit changing tastes in screen humor, without sacrificing the best qualities of his silent work. This approach resulted in such superb films as The Cat's-Paw and The Milky Way, both of which demonstrated that Lloyd still had what it took to remain a top comedy star in the '30s.

Professor Beware was Lloyd's final independently-produced feature, and marked his retirement from film acting (with the exception of his return in Preston Sturges' nostalgic The Sin of Harold Diddlebock a decade later). Lloyd plays Dean Lambert, a timid Egyptologist who becomes convinced he is the victim of an ancient curse, and sets off on a cross-country chase from Los Angeles to New York in order to join an expedition departing to Egypt, where he hopes to find the missing tablet that will remove the curse.

This picaresque plot provides an excuse for lots of fun if loosely-connected sequences built around the professor's misadventures on his cross-country journey, peppered with a colorful cast of character actors such as Raymond Walburn, Lionel Stander, William Frawley, Thurston Hall, Cora Witherspoon, Sterling Holloway, and many other familiar faces. There is also a pleasant romantic plot involving Harold and a young heiress (Phyllis Welch) on the run that, as others have pointed out, bears more than a passing resemblance to It Happened One Night.

Often cited as a highlight of the film is the extended chase scene in which Lloyd and his traveling hobo companions (Raymond Walburn and Lionel Stander) have to keep running along the top of a moving train headed toward a low tunnel. Perhaps in 1938, when there was such a dearth of good visual comedy on the screen, this sequence would have seemed like a welcome throwback to the best of silent comedy, but seen today, it feels rather clumsy and is marred by the overuse of unconvincing back-projection.

Much more satisfying is the action-packed climax, in which a newly-invigorated Harold finds the courage to rescue the heiress from her father's yacht. The scene is like a throwback to the ending of his silent comedies such as For Heaven's Sake and Speedy. Harold rounds up a gang of various tough guys by taunting them and egging them on to give chase, which they do -- following him right on to the yacht and unwittingly acting as Harold's personal army as they engage in an all-out brawl with the yacht's crew. It's a well-timed and expertly-constructed sequence that demonstrates Lloyd's still-considerable skills for physical comedy even at this late point in his career.

Other highlights include a sequence with Harold hiding a stolen chicken under his coat and being forced to engage in some amateur ventriloquism to assuage the sheriff's suspicions, and a memorable sight gag of a frost-bitten Harold emerging from a refrigerated train car in which he has just spent the past several hours traveling across the state.

Overall, however, Professor Beware is far from Lloyd's best work. Too often the pacing lags between set-pieces, some scenes (particularly the clothes-changing sequence with William Frawley) go on too long, and Lloyd himself is just a bit long-in-the-tooth to be playing the overeager young professor getting worked up over superstitions around an ancient curse. But it's hard to dislike the pleasant, silly humor of it all, and there are still enough flashes of brilliance, particularly in the exciting climax, to make it a worthwhile and enjoyable effort from a master comedian.

Great Guns (1941)

Weak service comedy, clearly inspired by the blockbuster success of Abbott and Costello's BUCK PRIVATES earlier the same year. Laurel and Hardy are valets to a wealthy, pampered young man who gets drafted into the army, and enlist with him in order to protect him. The young man quickly adapts to army life, proving there is absolutely nothing wrong with him, but Laurel and Hardy cause no end of troubles for their long-suffering sergeant.

GREAT GUNS must rank as one of the least inspired of the team's post-Hal Roach comedies. There are too many scenes that portray the boys as idiots and simpletons, scenes crafted to make the audience laugh at them, rather than with them. The romantic subplot (involving the young man's romance with an army base shopgirl and his rivalry with the sergeant for her affections) is -- thankfully -- actually not as intrusive as it could have been, but Laurel and Hardy still have too few scenes to themselves, instead often being forced to carry the exposition and fawn over their young master. The "war games" finale allows them a few moments of the old slapstick, however, which give the film a bit of energy toward the end. What they really needed were a few relaxed, extended scenes where they could do the kind of leisurely-paced routines that they did better than anyone else.

Produced by Sol Wurtzel's "B" unit at Fox, it is sloppily constructed with a plodding script which works against the lightness and relaxed pacing that marked their best work. The team would go on to make marginally better films for the studio, though none of them approached the quality that they had achieved with Hal Roach.

The Crazy World of Laurel and Hardy (1967)

A feature-length compilation of highlights from Laurel and Hardy's films, produced by Jay Ward and written by Bill Scott, and obviously modeled on Robert Youngson's anthologies, such as The Golden Age of Comedy and Laurel and Hardy's Laughing '20s. With its more focused approach and drawing on fresh material, it actually works a bit better than the later Youngsons, since the narration (by Garry Moore) is less intrusive and Jerry Fielding's music score is a bit more effective. It also makes good use of clips from the sound shorts, albeit with new underscoring and sound effects (and in some cases, voice dubbing of supporting players!)

Working with the cooperation of Hal Roach Jr. and Raymond Rohauer, Ward and Scott were able to gain access to clips that had not been previously used in any of the Youngson compilations, most notably the silent Bacon Grabbers, as well as highlights from numerous sound shorts and features, including extensive extracts from The Music Box, Towed in a Hole, Way Out West, The Bohemian Girl, and Swiss Miss, which represent some of Laurel and Hardy's very best work. Though there's nothing new here that won't be familiar to long-time Laurel and Hardy fans, it's nevertheless a sincere tribute and a solid collection of some of the team's best scenes.

Le Roi des Champs-Elysees (1934)

Following the disastrous and crushing end of his association with MGM in 1933, Buster Keaton appeared in this film in France for producer Seymour Nebenzal. On the surface, it might seem that such a project -- a Hollywood star, on hard times, accepting work in a foreign picture -- would be a step down for a star of Keaton's magnitude. For even following his period of fertile creative independence during the 1920s, his talking films for MGM -- while certainly a far cry from the brilliant work he'd been doing just years earlier -- still did well at the box office. Audiences had not forgotten his immense talents, even if studio executives seemed to. But there were Keaton's personal and professional problems behind the scenes that really came to a head in 1933, contributing to his swift downfall and acrimonious departure from MGM, which must have made his fall from grace seem all the more devastating, then.

But Keaton was very much what the entertainment industry now calls a "survivor". Where others might see a comedown, Keaton saw opportunity. Le Roi des Champs-Elysees is, at its best, a whimsical, visual comedy that contains much of the old Keaton magic. It is the tale of a hapless young man, Buster Garner, who lives with his mother and bounces from job to job trying to make something of himself. His most recent endeavor involves posing as a millionaire, in top hat and tails, and walking down the Champs-Elysees passing out bills of money that are actually coupons for a large company. However, when he accidentally gives away a stack of five million francs  -- set aside to cover the company's debts -- he is quickly fired. In the process of passing out the money, he has inadvertently saved a young woman from eviction, for which she is eternally grateful. Her sudden appearance at an outdoor cafe, where Buster has planned to consume poison in order to put an end to his failures, rejuvenates Buster's will to live, and he sets out to make good. As in most of Keaton's films, the girl is merely a plot device, their "romance" another goal that he works toward accomplishing throughout the film. Though the circumstances of their meeting and subsequent encounter at the cafe are played with a degree of pathos and sympathy uncharacteristic of Keaton, their remaining scenes underline the arbitrary nature of the relationship, as there seems to be little doubt (and therefore little dramatic tension) over the fact that Buster has already earned the girl's affection (their first kiss even causes Buster to display one of his very rare on-screen smiles!)

Fortunately for Buster, his mother works as a prompter in a local theater, and gets him a job in the company as a bit player in a prison drama. This leads to another set of complications, however, as Buster is the exact double of crime boss Jim La Balafre (Keaton, in a dual role), who has just escaped from jail and is waiting near the theater to be picked up by his old gang. Predictably, the two get switched, and Buster finds himself trapped in Jim's elaborate hideout. The last half of the film deals with the clever mix-ups and confusions that the appearance of the exact doubles cause for the gangster's moll and henchmen. When Jim finally discovers the inconvenient doppelganger, Buster has to escape with his life intact, and make it back to the theater in time to deliver his line in the play.

This plot has echoes of a number of Keaton's earlier films. The whole case of Buster being mistaken for a criminal formed the plot of his 1921 two-reeler The Goat. The criminal element also recalls the gangsters and crooks in his earlier two-reelers The High Sign and The Haunted House, as well as the features Sherlock Jr. and Spite Marriage. Indeed, with its elaborate passageways, trapdoors and revolving walls, the criminal lair here is strongly reminiscent of the similar contraptions in the gang's hideout from The High Sign. Keaton demonstrates his remarkable physical skill and timing in these scenes, proving that he had not lost the dexterity that he had used to such astonishing effect in his silent classics, and which had only been too rarely allowed to show itself in his MGM talkies. There is also some really impressive trick photography, too, with the two Busters appearing in the same frame. It is far more sophisticated than similar split-screen effects used in Hollywood films of the time, enhanced by expert editing, and more than once I had to pause and re-watch a certain shot to try and figure out how it was accomplished.

The film also gives Keaton a chance to demonstrate what a really fine actor he was. In essaying a dual role, he gets the chance to play both his usual characterization of the aimless young man, slightly befuddled by the world around him but always able to resourcefully adapt to the obstacles the universe puts in his way, and an uncharacteristically tough "heavy" role of the crime boss. In this latter role, Keaton achieves a striking balance in making the character both genuinely menacing but also funny, such as the moment he runs and clips his head on a rising gate, knocking him flat on his back -- an impressive bit of slapstick played with Keaton's typical flourish.

As "Buster", Keaton's character is a bit older and slower than his screen incarnation of a decade earlier, but still possesses the grace and poetic movement that defined his character. He certainly appears to be in better condition here than he had in his past couple MGM films, though his face is visibly aged and worn. He still moves with the youthful zeal and energy, though, which makes his portrayal of the bumbling boob funny rather than pathetic. Interestingly, because his lines are dubbed by a French actor, there is a disconnect between Keaton's body and his voice. This has the effect of showing how superfluous speech really is in Keaton's comedy, and distancing the audience from the unfamiliar voice while simultaneously focusing our attention on his inimitable physicality. The dubbing can be distracting at times but because so much of the performance is purely physical, it scarcely matters.

There are some wonderful moments taking place behind the scenes in the theater, including Buster getting caught on a set that rises to the top of the stage, swinging across the stage on a rope and disrupting the act, and the final on-stage melee between Buster and the gangsters, all of which recall the backstage antics of his earlier shorts The Playhouse and Daydreams, as well as his MGM features Spite Marriage and Speak Easily, both of which involve Buster inadvertently wrecking a show.

The best scenes, however, take place in the very opening of the film, in which Buster parades down the Champs-Elysees, dressed as a millionaire, throwing away wads of cash. His movements, not to mention the behavior of throwing away money, immediately create a funny contrast with his the station and status implied by his fancy costume. It is just that: a costume. We immediately wonder who this empty-headed millionaire really is. Keaton's appearance and behavior immediately bring to mind his turns as wealthy idlers in films such as The Saphead, The Navigator, and Battling Butler, where he drew a sharp, comic contrast between the character's apparent stupidity and helplessness, and the resourcefulness and cleverness with which he triumphed over adversity when confronted with it for the first time. Here, however, it soon becomes apparent that Buster is no millionaire, he's simply playing one for the sake of a publicity campaign. Like his theatrical role, and like his being mistaken for the crime boss, it is just another part he must play.

Ultimately, this is a comedy of identity, or rather multiple identities, with Buster forced to play many roles and succeed at each one in order to achieve success.

Book Review: "The Marx Brothers: Their World of Comedy" by Allen Eyles

I was first introduced to Allen Eyles' writing on the Marx Bros. with his book "The Complete Films of the Marx Bros.", one of the late entries in Citadel's "Films of" series. His book was more involved than most in that series, providing in-depth analysis of each of the Marx Bros. films (rather than just the customary credits, synopses, and reviews as so many others did). I was delighted to learn that Eyles had written an earlier book on the team, which I finally tracked down a copy of a couple months ago at my local used bookstore.

"The Marx Brothers: Their World of Comedy" takes a quite similar approach as "The Complete Films of the Marx Bros." in providing critical analyses of each of their movies from THE COCOANUTS (1929) through LOVE HAPPY (1949), and indeed some of the sections of this book seem to have been adapted into the entries on the films in the later book. However, the level of analysis is, overall, deeper here, as Eyles thoughtfully examines the routines and gags of each film, providing real insight into the team's humor and how it works without getting lost in the mire of trying to explain why it's funny.

Eyles deserves much credit for giving equal attention to all of the films, not just the acclaimed classics like DUCK SOUP and A NIGHT AT THE OPERA, but also such lesser efforts as ROOM SERVICE and LOVE HAPPY. In his analysis of the former, Eyles is especially interested in detailing the differences between the film and the stage play on which it was based, as well as examining where the film falls short as a Marx Bros. vehicle. And in writing on the latter film, he offers a nice appreciation of how the film serves as a showcase for Harpo's talents, despite its other shortcomings.

Even when I found myself disagreeing with Eyles (for example, he really likes THE COCOANUTS, and considers its comedy scenes, when taken as a whole, superior to those in ANIMAL CRACKERS, which I consider to be one of the very strongest comdies), I am still drawn in by his superb writing and commentary that allow me to look at these old favorite films, which I've seen countless times, in a fresh light.

Some readers may find Eyles' writing style a bit dry or clinical in talking about this madcap comedy team, but the seriousness of his approach is certainly warranted given the brilliant insights he reveals about their work. He avoids a straightforward research approach, which may disappoint readers looking for facts about the performers or production histories behind the films. However, with his thoughtful and interesting analysis of these rich and delightful comedies, the book stands as one of the essential works on the Marx Bros.

Luke's Movie Muddle (1916)

Typically rough, knockabout early Harold Lloyd "Lonesome Luke" one-reeler, with Luke running a movie house. The cinema setting provides a fun backdrop for the comedy, with Luke finding time to flirt with his pretty female customers while interacting with a parade of eccentric moviegoers who cause him no end of trouble.

Snub Pollard -- Lloyd's frequent co-star in these early comedies and later a star in his own right -- lends fine comic support as the projectionist, and there is a clever moment when Pollard furiously overcranks the projector, causing the film-within-the-film to race by breathlessly. Generally, though, the gags feel routine and uninspired, showing no real flashes of the brilliant construction that would mark Lloyd's mature work. Lloyd was cranking these comedies out at a staggering rate while still learning the craft and developing his character. He was still basically aping Chaplin at this stage of his career; despite superficial differences (a split mustache, a loose-fitting jacket), many of the mannerisms and gestures are reminiscent of Chaplin. It would be another year or so before he'd find the character that was to become his trademark, and another year or two after that before he really found his style as both a performer and filmmaker. Early shorts like this provided Lloyd with his training ground, and can still hold surprises in their fast-and-furious gagging.

Six of a Kind (1934)

Delightfully zany, madcap comedy that serves as a vehicle for no less than six fine comic talents, the charming domestic comedy of Charlie Ruggles and Mary Boland, the verbal nonsense of George Burns and Gracie Allen, and the great character humor of W.C. Fields and Alison Skipworth. For its freewheeling, loose 62 minute running time, the plot is actually rather complicated: Bank clerk Ruggles and his wife Boland are setting off by car on their second honeymoon, and have advertised for another couple to travel with them to help share expenses. To their horror, they get stuck with Burns and Allen, who intend on riding with them all the way to California and proceed to turn the trip into a nightmare. Meanwhile, a fellow bank clerk has stolen a small fortune and smuggled it out of the bank in Ruggles' suitcase, and follows the couple on their journey in pursuit of the loot. The characters and situations all run into one another in a small-town hotel, run by Alison Skipworth and watched over by W.C. Fields as Sheriff "Honest John" Hoxley.

This fast-paced road comedy is directed with characteristic skill by the great Leo McCarey. It's the kind of leisurely--paced comedy where the plot can be put on hold for several minutes at a time while W.C. Fields regales long-time stooge Tammany Young with his rambling story of how he came to be known as "Honest John" (due to his returning a man's lost glass eye), or while Gracie Allen explains to George Burns that her niece has three feet (since she last saw her, she grew another foot). Rather than distracting from the plot, these isolated sequences provide some of the film's biggest highlights. Even with these interludes, the pace and energy never lag thanks to McCarey's expert direction, and when the routines are this good, who cares about the story?

Although he doesn't appear till nearly the last third of the film's running time, Fields very nearly steals the picture. This film was made during the height of his creative powers at Paramount, when he was alternating between his own series of starring vehicles, and appearances in ensemble comedies in which he shared the stage with other fine talents. His assured performance provides so many really funny moments, many of which appear to have been improvised or at least suggested by Fields, that he becomes the most interesting part of the film to watch. It's a tribute to the Great Man's talents that he was able to find so much to do with this role, which amounts to little more than a supporting part, and to inject so many memorable bits of business into his scenes.

Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935)

MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE is a masterpiece of construction and a comic study in frustration that must rank among the very finest of W.C. Fields' screen vehicles, produced at the height of his creative powers at Paramount in 1935. Fields plays Ambrose Wolfinger, a henpecked family man whose only desire is to take the afternoon off work (for the first time in 25 years) to attend a wrestling match for which he's scrimped and saved to buy a front row ticket. What begins as a white lie to get out of the office for the afternoon quickly snowballs into total chaos, bringing Ambrose's world crashing down around him. Aside from possibly IT'S A GIFT, this is Fields' most minimal comedy in terms of plot. The simple set-up -- based on a story by Fields and his good friend Sam Hardy -- provides an endless parade of indignities, frustrations, setbacks and humiliations, which make the well-fulfillment ending -- when the worm finally turns and Fields' antagonists get their comeuppance -- all the more satisfying.

It is perhaps only less successful than IT'S A GIFT in its use of larger-scale gags, such as Fields chasing a tire down the street and across a train trestle (a sequenced either aided or marred, depending on your perspective, by patently phony back projection), which lack the poetic simplicity of the sleeping porch sequence or the shaving scene in the earlier film. The best moments are the smallest: Fields wracking up four parking tickets in quick succession, his interaction with his hostile family at the breakfast table, and his seemingly endless preparation for bedtime. But Fields and director Clyde Bruckman so expertly escalate the events into a comic crescendo that they take on a kind of epic quality. The deliberate pacing allows the frustration produced by the situations to simmer below the surface, brewing uneasily like the calm before a storm.

Fields is also greatly supported by a fine ensemble cast that deserves special mention: Kathleen Howard as his shrewish wife, Mary Brian as his sympathetic daughter, Vera Lewis as his harridan of a mother-in-law, and Grady Sutton as his lazy, oafish brother-in-law, all of whom contribute immeasurably to the film with their fine performances. One can see, too, the affection Fields clearly had even for writing minor characters and giving expert character actors the opportunity to flesh them out and turn them into memorable roles in their own right, such as Oscar Apfel as the blustering boss, Lucien Littlefield as the toadying manager, Lew Kelly as the weary beat cop, and Walter Brennan and Tammany Young as a couple of bumbling burglars. There was no such thing as a small part in a W.C. Fields comedy.

MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE was a remake of Fields' earlier silent comedy, RUNNING WILD (1927), and a comparison between the two films reveals the developments he had made with his screen character in the intervening decade. His Elmer Finch in the earlier film lacks the depth of Ambrose Wolfinger, and Elmer's transformation from lamb to lion is brought about artificially through hypnosis, whereas Ambrose finds the courage to assert himself due to the onslaught of indignities he has suffered over the course of the film. As a result, Elmer's ferocious turn of character, in which he is hypnotized to believe he is a lion, feels forced because it is so out of proportion to what has come before, and also has the effect of making his character unsympathetic. Significantly, Ambrose's climactic outburst of anger only occurs when his daughter's well-being is threatened, rather than his own, revealing a paternal, protective instinct that enhances the humanity of his character as well as justifying his outrage.

Along with IT'S A GIFT and THE BANK DICK, MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE stands as one of the greatest of all W.C. Fields' comedies.

Babes in Toyland (aka March of the Wooden Soldiers, 1934)

Charming Laurel and Hardy classic that always makes for fun viewing around this time of the year. The second of their three operettas (coming between THE DEVIL'S BROTHER and THE BOHEMIAN GIRL), it's a little different than the other two in that there are fewer isolated comedy routines and it's less obviously a "Laurel and Hardy vehicle", but the boys are fully integrated into the story, and as a result, it stands as a really fine adaptation of the Victor Herbert operetta, albeit tailored for the team's characters.

I've seen the film more times than I can count, but I am repeatedly struck by just how well it holds up. The musical comedy plotting works quite well here. The songs are all pleasant enough, and there's scarcely a wasted moment (only the "Castle in Spain" number, occurring after the hilarious sham marriage scene, feels like it could be trimmed with little consequence), and each scene builds quite well to the thrilling climax. The finale, with the stop-motion wooden soldiers marching out of the toy shop, is a tour-de-force of special effects that hold up better than those in the Disney remake.

Part of what makes this film so special is its first-rate supporting cast, especially Henry Brandon as the villainous Barnaby. Brandon was clearly having a ball playing the dastardly villain, and he is the perfect foil for Laurel and Hardy -- managing to play the role with both a sense of genuine menace as well as over-the-top fun. Charlotte Henry and Felix Knight are appealing enough as the romantic leads that we genuinely care about the boys' efforts to help them. William Burress, as the toymaker, has a couple of great scenes with the boys that rank among the funniest in the film.

It's a wonder that the film is such a light, fun affair, given the tumultuous production problems behind the scenes. There were fierce creative differences between Hal Roach and Stan Laurel over this film, but the end result is one of the most beloved, enduring classics that Laurel and Hardy ever made.

The Curtain Pole (1909)

Early American slapstick comedy, directed by D.W. Griffith and starring future comedy producer Mack Sennett as a French dandy who goes in search of a new curtain pole to replace the one he has broken. Transporting the pole back through the streets, he proceeds to wreck everything in his path, causing the irate townspeople to give chase.

It is an atypical effort for Griffith, and a rather impersonal one, being just one of the many short subjects he directed for Biograph during this time (and shot on the streets of Fort Lee, NJ). While it demonstrates his penchant for rousing chase sequences, the staging and editing feel loose and rather clumsy compared to his best dramatic efforts of the period, though are certainly moments of effective slapstick (mostly involving Sennett in a runaway carriage). Clearly inspired by the French chase comedies of the Pathe company, it is mainly of interest now as a forerunner of the kind of screen comedy that its star would perfect at Keystone a few years later.

Limousine Love (1928)

Very funny two-reel farce, with Charley Chase -- en route to his wedding -- finding himself stuck in a car with a woman who's lost her clothes, and her jealous husband who would kill them both if he found his wife with another man. The second half of the film, with Chase trying desperately to hide the woman with the help of both her unsuspecting husband and the entire wedding party, is a masterpiece of construction.

Chase milks the comic possibilities of this situation for all their worth, and creates a classic comedy of embarrassment that ranks among the very best of the films he made for Hal Roach. He's expertly directed here by Fred L. Guiol, and supported by a fine ensemble cast including master of the slow-burn Edgar Kennedy as the jealous husband, Viola Richard as the embarrassed wife, and Edna Marion as the suspicious bride-to-be.

The Bohemian Girl (1936)

This comedy version of the Balfe opera starring Laurel and Hardy is not one of the team's best features, but is still quite enjoyable. By this point in their career, they had moved into making features exclusively, and producer Hal Roach was eager to repeat the success of THE DEVIL'S BROTHER from three years earlier by putting them into another lavishly-produced comic operetta.

The result is a funny if uneven film that, despite being based on an established stage property, is ultimately tailored as a vehicle for Laurel and Hardy, and thus is mainly of interest to fans of the team. It follows the general story of the opera with the boys as the gypsies who raise a nobleman's kidnapped daughter as their own, but the comic scenes are for the most part isolated sharply from the main "plot" scenes. It's less a parody and more a straight telling of the story with the comedy sandwiched in.

While it is undoubtedly heavy on plot and music, Laurel and Hardy's scenes contain some excellent comic material. Highlights include the boys' attempt at telling fortunes, Oliver's altercations with shrewish wife Mae Busch, and Stan bottling wine and getting increasingly tipsy in the process (a particularly brilliant scene that ranks as one of Laurel's finest moments in any of their films). The funniest moment is also the simplest: Oliver sees Stan eating a banana and tells him to give him part of it, and Stan casually hands him the peel, which Oliver just tosses away with a resigned shrug. A little gag like that is all they need to reduce me to tears of laughter.

The Laurel and Hardy Sound Shorts (1934-35)

OLIVER THE EIGHTH
A strange little two-reeler, with Hardy answering an ad in the personals to marry a wealthy widow (Mae Busch). He soon learns that she has married seven other men named Oliver before her, all of whom met with death by having their throats cut, and that he is "Oliver the Eighth". English comedian Jack Barty is quite effective as the loopy butler. He plays cards with an invisible deck, and serves the boys an invisible meal (a surreal and funny sequence that looks forward to their synthetic meal in the later SAPS AT SEA). Hardy, ever the gentleman and not wanting to be rude, goes along with the charade, and of course Laurel actually begins to enjoy the non-existent "food".

Next the boys are off to bed, and rig an elaborate set-up to keep eachother awake in case the widow comes in to cut Ollie's throat during the night. Of course, Ollie is soon distracted from the fear of having his throat cut by Stan's constant interruptions and near-fatal accidents with a shotgun ("Isn't it bad enough that I'm going to have my throat cut without you trying to shoot me first!"). This sequence also contains a great line that sums up Stan's ability to convey an odd logic even through illogical-sounding statements: when Ollie finds Stan sleeping instead of watching the door, Stan tells him, "I was dreaming that I was awake, and then I woke up and found myself asleep".

Released in England as THE PRIVATE LIFE OF OLIVER THE EIGHTH, its title a joke on Alexander Korda's hit film THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII, released the year before.


GOING BYE-BYE
Well-constructed and solid comedy with Laurel and Hardy as chief witnesses in the trial of gangster Butch Long that puts him behind bars for life. Butch warns the boys that he will break out and get even with them if it's the last thing he does. Deciding to flee town, the pair advertise for a companion on their journey to help share expenses, and the person who answers the ad turns out to be Butch's girlfriend, who is helping her fugitive boyfriend get away. The ending contains another one of those grim sight gags Laurel liked to include every so often: Butch lives up to his promise of tearing the boys' legs off and tying them around their necks! Despite the grotesque final gag and some pretty brutal slapstick (Walter Long is poked with a drill and scorched by a blowtorch), this is one of the team's funnier efforts.

There's a little moment I noticed for the first time on this viewing, when Laurel opens a window, and a breeze blows the curtains open slightly. It's the kind of thing I have missed through many viewings over the years, and has absolutely nothing to the story or gags, but it's a good example of the care and attention to detail that went into making these films.


THEM THAR HILLS
A top-notch, leisurely-paced little short, with Stan and Ollie taking a trip into the mountains while Ollie recovers from a case of gout. With this film, they returned to the kind of escalating "tit-for-tat" sequence that had appeared in many of their best silents, but which they'd never quite figured out how to adapt to sound. Here, they solve that problem, by reducing the scale and focusing on a smaller situation and the reactions by each character after each new attack has been delivered, thereby avoiding the problem of staging large-scale battles that relied on frenetic action and quicker editing between the various participants.


THE LIVE GHOST
Another "fright" comedy, a format that Laurel and Hardy had pretty well exhausted by this point and that was never particularly suited to their style of humor in the first place. Here the boys are shanghaied into sailing on a supposedly haunted ship. Fright comedy requires a certain degree of broadness that was not really compatible with Laurel and Hardy's more subtle, character-driven approach. In order to work, the "scares" must be genuine and effective enough to really be frightening, so that the comedian's reaction then diffuses the horror, and allows the audience to enjoy a nervous laugh out of relief. Abbott and Costello took one approach in their horror comedies, with Costello usually scared speechless, and wildly mugging and gesticulating in panic when confronted by a monster which would be relieved when Abbott re-entered the scene and the monster would disappear. Bob Hope, in films like THE GHOST BREAKERS, took another approach, delivering clever one-liners to diffuse the spooky proceedings.

Laurel and Hardy never needed such situations from which to derive laughs, as this film demonstrates. They created their own chaos to react to. THE LIVE GHOST is not one of their weakest efforts, however, and in fact contains some very funny moments, but the broad, almost cartoonish material could have been played as well by other comedians.

TIT FOR TAT
A sequel to THEM THAR HILLS, with the boys running an electronics store next to Charlie Hall and Mae Busch's supermarket. Continuing their feud from the previous film, the premise runs out of steam a bit before the two reels are over, but there are still plenty of good gags here. The best is a running joke with an affable little shoplifter systematically cleaning out the inventory of the boys' shop. Contains the classic "Laurelism": "He who filters your good name steals trash."


THE FIXER-UPPERS
I've never particularly cared for this one, although I must admit I find it interesting that the premise is so unusual and rather complex, especially considering that it was the second-to-last short that the team made. It's a romantic farce with the boys as greeting card salesmen that come across an unhappily married woman, whose husband - a temperamental artist - has been ignoring her. Ollie agrees to help her out by allowing her husband to think they're having an affair, which will re-ignite the artist's passion for his wife. Instead, it ignites his fierce temper, as he challenges Ollie to a duel to the death. This one feels like a case of compensating for a lack of ideas by creating an unnecessarily complicated plot with an overwritten script, and with its lackluster ending, is one of their most forgettable films.

THICKER THAN WATER
Laurel and Hardy's final starring short is a charming little domestic comedy that contains a rather disjointed and loose plot, but it's funny enough that it hardly matters. There are two sequences in this film that should be mentioned as being among the finest the boys ever did. The first involves Stan, Ollie, Daphne Pollard and James Finlayson trying to track down what happened to the money for a furniture payment. It requires a verbal dexterity and precision of logic that, like the best of the Abbott and Costello routines, is impressive for the comedians' ability to pull it off successfully. The second is the auction sequence that finds Stan and Ollie bidding against each other, which works so well because it's perfectly in character for them.  The final gag, in which the boys swap personalities after a botched blood transfusion, is a cute wrap-up to their last starring short comedy.

The Laurel and Hardy Sound Shorts (1933)

TWICE TWO
After the classic TOWED IN A HOLE, it's disappointing that the team's next effort should be this forced, gimmicky domestic comedy centered around the concept of the boys playing both themselves and their own wives. It doesn't help any that the voices of Stan and Ollie's "wives" are annoyingly dubbed for no good reason, which only distracts from both the performances and the pacing. The highlight of this otherwise lackluster short is the scene in which Stan goes out for ice-cream and uses up all his money calling home to ask what flavors to get. Maybe my least favorite of the sound shorts they made for Hal Roach.

ME AND MY PAL
This is another one of their comedies constructed around milking the potential of a single comic situation; in this case, the piecing together of a giant jigsaw puzzle. The set-up involves Ollie preparing for his wedding to his boss's daughter, which will catapult him into the social stratosphere, when Stan surprises him with a jigsaw puzzle as a wedding present. Before long, the boys get distracted trying to put the puzzle together, and eventually everyone from the butler to the local cop join in, and the wedding is delayed as they search for a missing puzzle piece. It sounds funnier than it is, however, for once the writers establish the situation, it never really quite builds enough momentum as it nears its rather weak and anti-climactic conclusion.

THE MIDNIGHT PATROL
Since their characters were frequently if often inadvertently finding themselves on the wrong side of the law, it was an interesting departure to cast Laurel and Hardy as policemen. There are some very clever moments here, such as officer Laurel coming across a safecracker at work, and - not comprehending the situation - offering to help him open the safe. When Hardy finally intervenes and issues a summons for the charges, the safecracker argues with the boys over which day best suits his busy schedule to appear in court! The second half of the film is an extended slapstick sequence with Stan and Ollie attempting to apprehend the Chief of Police, whom they've mistaken for a burglar trying to break into his own home. Not top-tier Laurel and Hardy, but very funny.

BUSY BODIES
Certainly one of the team's finest shorts. The premise of Laurel and Hardy working at a sawmill is all the set-up they need for one brilliant sequence after another. The opening scene, with the boys happily and casually driving to work, exemplifies the kind of joyful simplicity that marked their best work. This one also contains an exceptional number of really funny and inventive sight gags, from Hardy being caught in the debris disposal system, to the boys' car being sawed in half. Like TOWED IN A HOLE, this one demonstrates the kind of material that Laurel and Hardy excelled at more than anything else.

DIRTY WORK
Almost certainly the strangest film the boys ever made, right up there with OLIVER THE EIGHTH. Laurel and Hardy are chimney sweeps called out to the home of a mad scientist (Lucien Littlefield), who is experimenting with an age-reversal formula. The scenes of Stan and Ollie cleaning the chimney with characteristically disastrous results are perfectly funny and enjoyable; why they felt compelled to add the mad scientist subplot is a bit of a mystery, as it's neither particularly interesting nor particularly funny. The whole film is really quite uneven, moving between straight slapstick and cartoonish, slightly surreal fright comedy with mixed results.

The Laurel and Hardy Sound Shorts (1932)

HELPMATES
Ranks alongside BIG BUSINESS and THE MUSIC BOX as one of the truly great Laurel and Hardy films. The boys' inability to clean up the house without reducing it to a shambles in the process sums up the essence of their comedy, and the endless succession of assaults on Hardy's dignity take on epic proportions here. Perhaps the highest compliment one can pay is that they make it look so easy.


ANY OLD PORT
Never cited as one of the team's better efforts, usually due to its grim tone and unpleasant atmosphere. With its story of the boys rescuing a cleaning girl from a forced marriage to brutish Walter Long, the film plays like a send-up of old melodramas. The unpleasantness of the first half is offset a bit by the comic boxing-match that takes up the second half, though this scene too is a bit of a disappointment, and lacks the grace and timing of the prizefight sequence from their earlier THE BATTLE OF THE CENTURY. Overall one of their least inspired efforts, not helped by the uncharacteristically dark tone.

THE MUSIC BOX
1932 was certainly a good year for Laurel and Hardy. The team managed to produce not one but three of the very best works of their entire career. So much has already been written on this film that it is difficult to add anything new. From as simple a situation as trying to move a piano up a staircase, Laurel and Hardy mine the depths of the comic possibilities to be found in the eternal struggle of trying to succeed at a task and failing. Like some of the best W.C. Fields comedies in this respect, the boys' humor remains as fresh and relevant as ever because it speaks to something universal and timeless.


THE CHIMP
One of the team's stranger efforts, though still pretty funny. When James Finlayson's circus closes down, the employees each get to take home a part of the show in lieu of payment. Laurel gets the flea circus, while Hardy is stuck with Ethel the performing chimp. Looking for a place to stay, the boys sneak Ethel into a seedy boarding house while hiding her from the landlord. A slight re-working of their earlier comedies ANGORA LOVE and LAUGHING GRAVY, this one works as well as it does because of the expressive and funny performance of Charles Gemora, Hollywood's number one gorilla impersonator, in the title role. Other highlights include Hardy in a tutu being chased by a lion, Laurel's flea circus getting loose in bed, and Ethel's impromptu ballet number, which borders on the surreal. It also contains some decidedly risque pre-code humor, such as the landlord believing that the boys' are hiding his wife in their room, and the chimp snuggling with Hardy in bed.


COUNTY HOSPITAL
This one gets less funny with each viewing for me. The idea of Stan visiting Ollie in the hospital is loaded with potential, but they just never quite make the most of it. And the finale, with the wild car chase shot entirely in front of a process screen, fails to deliver either the necessary thrills, or the kind of reflexive humor that W.C. Fields got out of similar back projection scenes in THE FATAL GLASS OF BEER or MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE. Still, it's a solid if minor effort, and there's plenty of fun moments to enjoy here -- it just doesn't hold up as well for me over repeated viewings compared to their best work. It does contain one of Laurel's best "food" sequences, where he manages to reduce me to hysterics just by eating a hard-boiled egg on screen.

SCRAM!
Like OUR WIFE, this is another one of the team's situation comedies that tends to get overlooked when mentioning their funniest films. It's an expertly written and performed farce, and is one of their few films that feels almost like an ensemble piece, with the fine supporting performances of Vivian Oakland, Rychard Cramer and Arthur Housman contributing greatly to the fun.


THEIR FIRST MISTAKE
Another one of those films that seems to be as much about Laurel and Hardy exploring their characters as it is the gags and situations. Ollie adopts a baby thinking it will help save his marriage; however, when he comes home with the baby, he finds his wife has left him, and he talks Stan in to staying to help him raise it. Not one of the team's more inspired or memorable efforts, and the situation never quite builds much comic momentum. Contains the classic pre-code exchange in which Ollie tells Stan that his wife complains that he thinks more of him than he does of her. "You do, don't you?", Stan asks. Ollie replies, "Well, we won't go into that."


TOWED IN A HOLE
The third Laurel and Hardy classic released in 1932. The boys are fish sellers who decide to cut out the middleman by catching their own fish, so they pick out an old boat to restore and go about repairing it with predictably disastrous results. Watching this film, one gets the sense that the team really had reached an artistic peak around this point, at least as far as their sound films are concerned (certainly their work in the late silent period of 1928-29 achieved a remarkable consistency of high quality, and produced at least two classics). Every movement, every gag and every bit of slapstick is so perfectly choreographed, timed and executed that you really do get the sense of watching two great artists at the very top of their game, working with utter confidence and mastery of their craft. Due in no small part to Laurel's creative guidance and expert filmmaking craftsmanship, it's remarkable how seamless the formal aspects of their films had become by this point compared with their earlier talkies of just a couple years prior. Their best directors achieve a real invisibility of style that never calls attention to itself and always works to emphasize the performances and gags.

The Laurel and Hardy Sound Shorts (1931)

BE BIG!
One of the team's least inspired efforts. This is another film frequently cited as a contender for their weakest, specifically for its protracted sequence with Stan trying to remove a tight boot from Ollie's foot. Usually they could mine a simple situation like this for all its comic potential, but in this case, the results are only mildly amusing and wear thin quickly. The fact that it's a three-reeler doesn't help the pacing issue. Unlike an early talkie such as BERTH MARKS, say, where they were still adapting to sound film, this one feels like a step backward after they had already made great progress in the new medium.


CHICKENS COME HOME
This is one of Laurel and Hardy's more interesting films, and probably their best film from 1931. It's a remake of their silent LOVE 'EM AND WEEP (1927), with Hardy as a mayoral candidate who finds his campaign threatened by the re-appearance of an old flame. Laurel has to keep her at bay while Hardy entertains important political guests at his home. Mae Busch is especially effective here as the woman from Hardy's past, and James Finlayson has one of his funniest roles as Hardy's suspicious butler. Usually in their comedies, the boys start out with nothing and end up with nothing again at the end of the film, whereas this one begins with them as successful businessmen in positions of power and prestige, providing an added gravity to the pitfalls they encounter.


LAUGHING GRAVY
A re-working of their silent ANGORA LOVE, this is another poignantly funny comedy, like BELOW ZERO before it, that focuses as much on their characters as it does the gags and situations. The premise is simple: the boys try to hide their beloved dog in a seedy boarding house whose landlord has a strict "no dogs allowed" policy. Charlie Hall, playing the landlord, brings the perfect mix of humor and menace to the part. It does contain one of those grim endings - with the landlord blowing his brains out after learning that he and the boys will have to be quarantined inside the house together for two months - that represents the kind of dark comedy the team dabbled in occasionally. An alternate ending was discovered in which Laurel inherits a fortune on condition that he sever all ties with Hardy, which is another indication that they were just as interested in exploring the characters here as they were in creating solid laughs.


OUR WIFE
An oddly overlooked title in the Laurel and Hardy canon. It seems that their farce comedies tend to inspire less passionate reactions from fans and critics, probably because they do not contain the kind of really dexterous slapstick and distilled, almost poetic simplicity of shorts like HELPMATES or THE MUSIC BOX. But this is one of their very best in the farce tradition. Unlike ANOTHER FINE MESS or CHICKENS COME HOME, the situation here is simple: Ollie can't marry his sweetheart because her father (James Finlayson) objects, so they decide to elope (with Stan's help, of course). There's a great sight gag when Laurel hires a tiny car for Hardy and his fiancee to make their escape in, and the three of them are forced to pile inside, with Laurel pressed up against the windshield. But the highlight is the cameo appearance by Ben Turpin as the justice of the peace who performs the marriage ceremony with predictably mixed-up results.

COME CLEAN
Of all the Laurel and Hardy comedies, this was one of the very last ones that I saw. For some reason, I never came across it on TV, nor on any of the video releases, and only saw it for the first time a decade ago, in a 16mm print at a Sons of the Desert tent screening. Perhaps because of this, it doesn't stick in my mind as clearly as their films I've seen many times over the years. The pacing lacks the requisite energy, and the situations feel underdeveloped and even tired. It also features one of those strange, surreal endings the team employed occasionally, with Laurel disappearing down the bathtub drain after Hardy pulls the plug. Contains the classic "ice cream shop" routine, where the boys proceed to ask Charlie Hall for every flavor that he's out of.

ONE GOOD TURN
One of the Laurel and Hardy's more interesting efforts, if not one of their funniest. The exposition required by the plot contrivances slow things down a little, but the comedy is good-natured and gentle, at least until the unexpectedly violent climax! Here the boys are even more down-on-their-luck than usual, victims of the Depression, which gives the comedy an air of pathos.

BEAU HUNKS
In order to forget the lover who has jilted him, Hardy enlists in the Foreign Legion, and insists that Stan join up with him. Much of the humor is pretty standard service comedy stuff, combined with very mild satire of legionnaire pictures such as BEAU GESTE. The best scenes are the boys' interactions with stern commandant Charles Middleton. There doesn't seem to be enough material to really justify the four-reel length, and the ending is disappointingly weak stuff, though the running joke of all the men joining the legion to forget the same woman results in a funny wrap-up gag. Overall, it's one of their weakest efforts. The basic premise was later re-worked as THE FLYING DEUCES (1939).

The Laurel and Hardy Sound Shorts (1930)

NIGHT OWLS
This one has a lot of potential, but never seems quite as funny as it could have been. Officer Edgar Kennedy is warned by the Chief of Police that unless he makes an arrest soon in the string of burglaries that have been occurring in the neighborhood, he's out of a job. So he recruits vagrants Laurel and Hardy to break in to the Chief's home and will save the day by arresting them. The idea of the boys as burglars and their various failed attempts to enter the house without making a sound seems like the kind of thing that could have resulted in a minor classic, but for some reason the gags never quite pay off. This one was also shot simultaneously in a Spanish-language version titled LADRONES, which features an alternate and slightly extended ending.


BLOTTO
This is one of my favorites. The boys sneak off for an evening to a swanky new nightclub that's just opened in town, and bring along a bottle of Mrs. Laurel's best liquor (not realizing that she's swapped its contents with raw tea, as revenge for their little scheme). Watching it this time around, I was struck by the comparatively high production values that Hal Roach put in to these short films. The Rainbow Club set is an elaborate Art Deco affair, filled with extras, and Laurel and Hardy's entrance into the club is shot with a high-angle dolly shot that takes advantage of the full scope of the production design. It also contains one of the boys' most infectious "laughing" routines, as they become intoxicated by the phony liquor. The surviving copies derive from a 1937 reissue print, featuring the musical underscoring that would become standard. A simultaneously-shot Spanish language version, LA VIDA NOCTURNA, features extended nightclub acts among other differences.

BRATS
Despite its gimmicky premise (the boys play both themselves and their infant sons), this one works very well, and is impressive for its forced perspective in shots involving oversized props. Another example of the extreme care and expense that went in to making these films at this time. Contains one of the best "Laurel-isms": "You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead." And the build-up to that final gag, with the bathtub overflowing, delivers big on its payoff. One of the Laurel and Hardy comedies that was reissued later in the '30s with a new bed of musical underscoring, featuring the familiar LeRoy Shield tunes that had become a staple of Hal Roach comedies. The difference between the new soundtrack and its 1930 counterpart reveal how much those melodies contributed to the films and worked with the image to create a unique rhythm all their own.

BELOW ZERO
One of the strangest, and yet also one of the most interesting, comedies the team ever made. It's one of those films that is as much about their characters as anything else, a poignantly funny examination of their friendship. This is also perhaps the first of their films that clearly presents their characters as childlike outsiders alone in a cruel world, a dynamic they would explore more often especially in their features. The setting is a particularly tough and seedy part of town, where Laurel and Hardy attempt to scrape together enough to eat by working as street musicians. Their luck turns when they find a lost wallet, but this quickly attracts the attention of local pickpockets. Saved by a policeman, they offer to take their new friend out for dinner to show their gratitude, but it turns out the wallet they found just happens to belong to the cop. Unlike Chaplin's Tramp, who would have immediately been suspicious of the cop and would never have invited him to dine in the first place, or Keaton, who would have accepted the situation with a bemused shrug, Stan and Ollie are much more trusting, and see the officer as a friend and protector in their rough surroundings, which makes the final outcome all the more poignant. Contains one of those surreal sight gags Laurel was so fond of: dumped in a barrel of water, he proceeds to drink the entire contents, emerging with a giant, swelled belly.


HOG WILD
One of their very best. Taking as simple a premise as trying to install a rooftop antenna, the result is a sublime masterpiece of construction. Not much more to say about this one except that it's one of the few truly perfect comedy films. This is the kind of material Laurel and Hardy could do better than anyone else and that made them so special.

THE LAUREL-HARDY MURDER CASE
This one gets a bad rap in some quarters, and indeed I've frequently seen it cited as the worst film the team ever made. I'm certainly in the minority on this one, but I find it to be a quite funny send-up of the "old dark house" genre that was so popular at the time. I must admit I'm partial to "fright humor", and when it's done right (Abbott and Costello were masters of it, and Bob Hope's THE GHOST BREAKERS and Don Knotts' THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN are classics of this kind), it leaves me in stitches. The boys go to an old mansion to hear the reading of the late Uncle Ebenezer Laurel's will. A detective (Fred Kelsey, of course), suspecting foul play was involved, places the guests under house arrest while he investigates. When Laurel and Hardy retire to their room for the evening, they are so jumpy and on-edge that every little creak sends them into hysterics. Some may find this tiresome, but the atmosphere is genuinely creepy and spooky enough that it works for me. The funereal pacing is eerie and unsettling, taking its cue from the kinds of films it was sending up. The "dream" ending is certainly weak, though. Certainly not a minor classic or anything, just funnier than its reputation might suggest.

ANOTHER FINE MESS
A remake of their earlier silent DUCK SOUP, itself based on a music hall sketch by Laurel's father. The premise is a bit more complicated than usual, and even at three reels, there is still a lot of plot to cram in. Laurel and Hardy are tramps on the run from the cops, who seek refuge in a house belonging to big game hunter Col. Buckshot (James Finlayson). While Buckshot's away on safari, the servants have put the place up for rent, and an interested wealthy couple have come to take a tour of it. To avoid capture, Ollie is forced to pose as Col. Buckshot, and Stan pulls double duty as both his butler and maid. They get a lot of mileage out of the comic role-playing, but it runs out of steam by the end. Laurel's appearance in drag as Agnes the maid is a lot of fun, and his scenes with Thelma Todd are a delight, but all in all, the premise wears thin by the time Finlayson shows up at the end and a chase ensues.