Saps At Sea (1940)

There are many Laurel & Hardy fans around the world, and rightly so. The two stand tall as one of the best comedy duos of all time. And I have barely scraped the surface of their filmography, despite treating myself to a nice boxset of their work some years ago. There are two reasons for that. First of all, so far, I don't love them quite as much as the other stars from that era (Chaplin, Keaton, and Harold Lloyd got to me first, and Abbott & Costello delivered verbal routines I am still impressed and amused by to this day). Second, they're not the easiest films to discuss and review. The plots are often very slight, and fans of the stars will already know much more about their work than I do.

As is so often the way, Stan and Ollie play, well, Stan and Ollie, this time around trying to keep themselves employed in a horn factory. Unfortunately, there's one horn that tends to drive workers into a nervous breakdown when it is tested too often, and this happens to Ollie, leading to a doctor ordering him to have a break. The two men treat themselves to some time on a small boat, but the peace is ruined by the presence of an escaped criminal.

Fans of the magnificent, and superior, Modern Times may already get the feeling that this is wandering through similar territory, and that's quite correct. That's not to say that one film was aiming to copy the other, however. It's just that factory roles made up a large part of the employment sector at that time. It's the same way now, although I hope that most people can work in slightly safer conditions, and watching films from this time can serve as a depressing reminder of how little progress we have really made when it comes to forcing workers to keep up with the optimum output of various machinery and automated processes.

With a quartet of reliable writers having worked on the screenplay, as well as input from our leads (of course), director Gordon Douglas, who did a lot of work with the "Little Rascals" before helming only a couple of Laurel & Hardy films, knows that he can generally sit back and relax while his stars make the material shine, and that's exactly what happens. Douglas doesn't do a bad job, and I don't want to minimise his contribution here, but a Laurel & Hardy movie rests on how often Laurel & Hardy create the laughs. This 56-minute feature has a very healthy gag rate.

As for the cast, Richard Cramer is suitably menacing as the dangerous escapee, Ben Turpin is good fun as a cross-eyed handyman, there's a goat added to the small ship's "crew" to add to the fun, and our leads are (as expected) effortlessly brilliant throughout. 

This is great fun for fans of the leads, but also could serve as a nice introduction for anyone who has yet to explore the rest of their filmography. I am not sure how it is viewed by those who are already familiar with the entire Laurel & Hardy filmography, but I thought this was pretty great.

8/10

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April Fools: Sons Of The Desert (1933)

I have to begin this review by confessing that, somehow, up until now I had never seen a Laurel & Hardy movie. Not a one. Oh, I'd seen some clips and may have seen one or two of their shorts in my youth, though I can't recall, but this was going to be a first for me.

Laurel & Hardy have enough fans. They're titans in the field of comedy, and don't need me defending or criticising them, so please bear that in mind when I proffer up my unworthy opinion after the following brief plot summary.

It's quite a simple tale. Stan and Ollie have taken a solemn oath to join their brothers from the Sons Of The Desert lodge at a convention in Chicago. Unfortunately, they didn't run it past their wives first of all. Stan is very upset, whereas Ollie thinks it will be easy. They are the men of their respective households, after all, so it shouldn't be a problem. Funnily enough, it's a problem, which leaves both men having to work together to come up with some excuse that will allow them to attend the convention without their wives ever finding out. Knowing Stan and Ollie, that can only end badly.

Recommended to me, along with a number of other titles, by fans of the duo, perhaps Sons Of The Desert wasn't the best movie for me to start with. It's good, don't think that I didn't enjoy it for the entire runtime, but I was somehow expecting something more. The slapstick felt, to me, forced and overdone. How many times can Stan forget how to open a door, for example, or how much water can he spill by constantly moving a tub full of the stuff into the wrong position? Having said that, there were plenty of solid laughs coming from both the dialogue and the entire situation as it unfolded throughout the film. The premise is, of course, a classic one that would be used, or so it seemed, by every sitcom throughout the fifties, sixties and seventies.

William Seiter is the director, and keeps things nice and simple for most of the movie. Just lock the camera down and watch Stan and Ollie work with one another. Simple. The story by Frank Craven has about half a dozen uncredited helping hands listed on IMDb, but I guess that many developments and set-pieces were shaped by the stars, allowing them to play to their strengths.

Laurel & Hardy are almost beyond criticism, and it seems redundant to heap more praise on them at this point, so I'll just say that Charley Chase was also fun in a small role, while Mae Busch and Dorothy Christy were both simply fantastic as the wives of the hapless leads. Christy is as sweet to Stan as he deserves. Busch, on the other hand, doesn't hold back when dealing out any punishment to Ollie.

A film worth seeing, and most Laurel & Hardy fans will have already seen it, but if you're new to the duo, as I am, then it may be one to push back, just until you've eased into their filmography with one or two other adventures.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Laurel-Hardy-Collection-21-disc-Box/dp/B0001K2KE8/ref=sr_1_5?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1397281650&sr=1-5&keywords=laurel+and+hardy