February 1998
Stan (with some hard-boiled eggs and nuts) visits Ollie
County Hospital
(1932)
February 1998
Stan (with some hard-boiled eggs and nuts) visits Ollie
County Hospital
(1932)
Stan visits Ollie at the hospital, bringing him some hard-boiled eggs and nuts. As usual, Stan causes some trouble there, which prompts Ollie's doctor (Billy Gilbert) to throw both Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy out. On the way out, Stan sits on a needle filled with sedative, which causes him to fall asleep at the wheel while driving Ollie home.
County Hospital is one of Laurel & Hardy's funniest shorts, right up until the finale, where some unconvincing process shots are used. Stan is certainly the dominating performer in this short -- most of the laughs are given to him, though Ollie says a memorable "hard-boiled eggs and nuts...mmmph!" William Austin plays a funny Englishman who's a patient in the hospital, a type similar to Charles Gerrard's Plumtree in Another Fine Mess.
(1928)
When Stan's wife finds out that he's been secretly saving up some money behind her back, she replaces the bills with cigar coupons. Stan and Ollie, oblivious to the fact, go to a fancy restaurant with two girls and after finishing a big meal, are unable to pay. The usual chaos ensues, ending with a pie fight in the kitchen.
Not one of Laurel & Hardy's best silents, but amusing nonetheless, Their Purple Moment is one of Stan and Ollie's first shorts that finds them in trouble with their wives. This anticipates such later films as Sons of the Desert. The finale, like in County Hospital, is a letdown; a forgettable pie fight is not what someone would expect from such brilliant comedy craftsmen as Laurel & Hardy.
(1925), Starring Charley Chase
Charley Chase's suspicious wife thinks he's having an affair -- he isn't, but he keeps getting into situations which make it look like he is! Charley is reluctantly invited to a party by his friend, and is given a girl who can't stop following him. He meets (and tries to avoid) a house detective (Lucien Littlefield) who is hanging around his apartment, and tries to convince his wife that he's innocent of all of her accusations. Eventually, he tries to set her straight by going to a seance she attends and, acting as some of her dead relatives, telling her that he is faithful to her. She 'gets wise' to his scheme, but forgives him anyway. At the film's conclusion, he is about to sit on a trunk in his apartment, hugging his wife, when the trunk opens and the house detective walks out sheepishly. Charley now becomes suspicious!
One of Chase's first two-reelers, and a prototype of later silent and talkie shorts, Innocent Husbands is a masterful, fast-paced farce and one of his best silents. Lucien Littlefield, who played the house detective, later appeared with Laurel & Hardy in Dirty Work and Sons of the Desert. This film was directed by Leo McCarey, one of Chase's best collaborators, and the man who had the inspired idea of teaming up Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.
(1929)
Vaudeville performers Laurel & Hardy are on their way to a show in Pottsville. On the train they cause their usual brand of havoc, and they try to survive in the same upper berth while putting on their pajamas.
Not a great Laurel and Hardy film, in fact, along with Be Big and The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case, one of their least enjoyable. It shares with Be Big the element of an exploitation of a single, not quite funny, gag. The best comedy bits in the film are found in the opening before they get on the train, especially the part when they can't understand the man working at the station. A below-average short.
(1933)
Stan and Ollie are chimney sweeps who are start working at Professor Noodle's house. Professor Noodle is a mad scientist, in the Three Stooges vein, and creates a rejuvenation formula. Laurel & Hardy make a mess of his house, and at the end, Ollie accidentally falls into the Professor's formula. He turns into a monkey, without losing his derby, and says, what is a running gag in this short, "I have nothing to say."
An average L&H short, with some good business with cleaning, or rather, attempting to clean the chimney. The gags with Jessup are also funny, notable is the line "an electric chair is waiting." Dirty Work is, in a way, similar to another Laurel & Hardy short of 1933, Busy Bodies because it has them, for most of the time, working with various tools and not succeeding in their job, as usual. The ending, with the Ollie monkey, is what you could call a "freak ending", but is certainly memorable and somewhat inspired.