Simply put, the problem with even the best of the Stan Laurel/Oliver Hardy features is that the boys’ act was built for two-reelers.* At feature-length, a bit over an hour at seven-reels, even the barest of narrative logic fights against the distinctively slow working tempo of their signature routines. Stranded oases of mirth amid storylines that only stood in the way. That said, this, their antepenultimate feature (not counting UTOPIA/’51 after six dry years) is probably the best of their late work. For plot, ‘Babe & Ollie’ play bodyguard to an eccentric bomb-maker threatened by a criminal gang living right next door. Setting themselves up as a target with a phony facsimile of the real bomb, cleverly hidden inside a concertina ‘squeezebox,’ they soon realize they’re carrying the real bomb. Yikes! Actually, the real highlight has little to do with explosives, but was ‘borrowed’ from one of their own early Talkies (BERTH MARKS/’29*) where the boys fight for space in a shared single berth in a train’s sleeper car. The 1929 short is largely about changing their clothes in ridiculously tight quarters; here it’s mostly fighting for sleeping space in their nightshirts. (There’s also a drunk who forces his way into the upper.) Best of all, director Malcolm St. Clair (a vet with roots in light silent fare) shoots most of this roly-poly play in a long single take. And with Hardy at his heaviest, it’s pretty funny stuff.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/LINK: *The year before BERTH MARKS, Buster Keaton improvised a similar bit with Edward Brophy, sharing the narrow changing cubicle at a Public Pool. Funny here with L&H; a humbling display of comic genius when Keaton’s involved. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-cameraman-1928.html
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *Breaking my own dictum, possible the greatest of the Talkie shorts, THE MUSIC BOX/’32, is a three-reeler. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/music-box-1932.html
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