USA 64m Dir: William A. Seiter Key Cast: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy
This was my first exposure to Laurel and Hardy, the comedy duo who have arguably not aged as well as other comic stars of their age like Chaplin and Keaton.
The premise here is that Laurel and Hardy (they use their real names) are members of the Sons of the Desert fraternal lodge and are required to attend the lodge convention in Chicago. However, they are refused permission by their wives to go and so concoct a plan for Hardy to pretend to be ill and have a doctor say he needs to go on a cruise (his wife gets seasick) as a cover for really going to the convention.
Having become pretty familiar with comedies of the era now, Laurel and Hardy's work seems to sit somewhere in the middle of the silent comedies like Chaplin and the fast-paced jokes of the Marx Brothers. There's loads of slapstick humour here but also plenty of jokes, many of which made me laugh out loud. It feels like more than anyone else of their era their style is simply being funny and they are happy to use any technique from falling over to quick wordplay to get a laugh.
The plot is well-constructed here and keeps shifting the boundaries. The ship the pair were supposed to be on sinks and when they arrive home complete with leis around their neck they discover this and then have to come up with a new plan. They prepare to come back claiming they've been in a nautical disastor unaware that their wives see footage of them galivanting at the convention. I just thought it was nicely written to constantly keep these characters on the back-foot.
The domestic stuff in this film feels really outdated. For a start there's an attitude that the men should rule the women and there's no notion of the husbands and the wives having a sensible conversation about the men attending the convention. Even worse though is the fact that Hardy's wife Lottie (Mae Busch) is abusive towards him and throws a range of crockery and other items at him. From a modern perspective this is simply domestic violence and it's difficult to get your head into the mindset of a 30s audience who find that amusing.
In many ways it's rather dated but it still had the ability to make me laugh repeatedly.
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