Category: movies

(1929; director: Lewis R. Foster)

Beautiful weather in a peaceful park in the Jazz Age. A glittering pond on which happy couples float lazily in rented canoes. Flowers everywhere. Pretty girls strolling in the sun. Lively chatter around a gazebo. Not one hint of a whisper in the air about any coming Great Depression. What a nice day.

Until Laurel and Hardy show up to ruin everything, God bless ’em. This is funny stuff, though the best joke is that Stan and Ollie are sailors on furlough. Can you imagine them being on a boat that they don’t manage to sink? Or going in for their military physical and not somehow setting the office on fire?

So in this one, our heroes meet a couple of man-crazy young women due to a mildly racy misunderstanding that involves ladies undergarments that accidentally fell off a passing pile of laundry.  Next thing you know, they’ve scored a double date in an old-fashioned soda shop (the guy behind the counter is past and future frequent L&H foil James Finlayson in his first sound film ) and then in a rowboat for what should be a romantic paddle across the water, but that goes completely wrong. It’s no spoiler to say that boat’s going underwater, somebody’s getting smacked silly with an oar and everyone’s going to start fighting.

The gags here are expert with the most valuable player award going to Oliver Hardy. He’s still a riot almost ninety years later, whether in awkward flirtation with comely flappers, dealing with man-child Stan or trying to maintain something that resembles dignity but losing it so easily.

(1929; director: Lewis R. Foster)

This is one of the lesser lights among Laurel and Hardy’s dozens of two-reeler talkies, but it’s still funny with that all-important mean streak. Our heroes hop a passenger train—just barely making it, of course—and chaos ensues. The centerpiece gag is a bit that runs a little too long in which they slapstick their way in and out of a berth for a much-needed nap after a long day of being complete idiots.

Still, the funniest thing here is that Stan Laurel is a musician, lugging around a cumbersome upright bass, and Oliver Hardy is his manager. Just the idea of that is funny. They’re blundering bohemians on their way to a vaudeville gig in Pottsville. THAT’S the movie I want to see. Stan screwing up his performance, breaking a string or two, accidentally knocking over the rest of the orchestra with his instrument. Then, Ollie struggling to get paid after the show, arguing with the shyster theater manager, finally getting what he and Stan are due, after which he steps outside and trips over the bass. The money flies in the air and is carried away by the wind.

And maybe they made that one. I’m still making my way through the 10-DVD box set. Bear with me.