(1930; director: James Parrott)
Depression-era comedies such as this one feel freshly relevant in today’s Age of the Pandemic, when many of us are teetering on the edge of ruin. Who knows? Maybe this winter, I’ll be on the street with an instrument that I have no idea how to play, busking for pennies, and having snowballs thrown at me.
The opening title card explicitly sets this mean and funny little short in the winter of 1929. Money is scarce, but snow is plenty. It falls in harsh blankets on the city where Laurel and Hardy have set up shop as street musicians. They play one song over and over again (“In the Good Old Summertime”, hilariously). One suspects that it’s the only song that they know. Or at least Stan Laurel knows it, sorta kinda. He plays a hint of the main melody repeatedly on a portable organ while Oliver Hardy plucks random strings on a stand-up bass like it’s the first time he’s ever touched one, or any other musical instrument, in his life.
Everyone hates them, of course–and those instruments don’t have long to live.
That’s the first half.
Almost to the exact second, the next half of this twenty-minute film turns on a moment of sudden good fortune when our heroes find a wallet in the snow. It’s the first money that they’ve made all day and they decide to indulge on an extravagant meal.
That doesn’t end well, either, for reasons that I don’t care to spoil except to say that it’s another lesson in how life is shitty when you’re broke.
This film is a frosty, unforgiving and very funny gaze over one bleak precipice. Learn to laugh at your fears, this film argues. Laughter might someday be all that you have left.
As with many Laurel and Hardy shorts during this time, there’s a Spanish-language version. It’s called Tiembla Y Titubea and it’s not as good as the English cut and not just because of Stan and Ollie’s awkward phonetic attempts at Espanol. No, for some reason that market needed the films to be longer. The Spanish version tacks on eight extra minutes. It extends some gags that didn’t need to be extended and spends more time than we ever needed with one of the side characters.
You watch the Spanish version only if you’re very serious about your Laurel and Hardy exploration. Or if you, like me, have the 10-disc Essential Collection DVD box set and are determined to watch everything on it.