Stan Laurel Movies

Back at Hal Roach Studios for the first time since 1938's Block-Heads, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy star in the uneven but generally rewarding A Chump at Oxford. The boys are cast as street-sweepers who hope to better their lot in life by attending night school. Fate intervenes when Stan and Ollie are instrumental in the capture of a bank robber, whereupon they are rewarded by the bank's grateful president (Forbes Murray) with an all-expenses-paid education at England's Oxford University. Arriving on the venerable old campus dressed in Eton jackets, our heroes are pounced upon by a group of prankish students and subjected to all manner of practical jokes. After spending most of the night trying to escape from a maze, Stan and Ollie are installed in their "new quarters"-which turns out to be the bedroom of the Dean (Wilfred Lucas). This sort of collegiate nonsense comes to an end when it is discovered that simple-minded Stan is actually Lord Paddington, the brainiest student and finest athlete that ever attended Oxford. According to Meredith the valet (Forrester Harvey), His Lordship wandered away from the university upon being rendered an amnesiac by a blow on the head. An accidental tap on the noggin restores Stan to his aristocratic Lord Paddington status, whereupon he beats up a crowd of bullying students and deposits them one by one in a nearby ditch. Though Ollie is aghast to learn that Stan-er, His Lordship-has no recollection of their previous friendship, he decides to stay on at Oxford as Paddington's manservant. After having been humiliated once too often by his vain and condescending employer, Ollie angrily packs his bags and prepares to head for home, when yet another bop on His Lordship's skull causes him to revert to lovable, bumbling old Stan again. Originally intended as a four-reeler (running approximately 45 minutes), A Chump at Oxford was completed in the spring of 1939, whereupon Laurel and Hardy were loaned out to producer Boris Morros to star in The Flying Deuces. When shooting was finished on the latter film, the team was summoned back to Roach to film a 2-reel "prologue" for Oxford, bringing the film's running time up to 63 minutes. The new footage consisted of a reworking of the boys' 1928 comedy From Soup to Nuts, with temporary servants Stan and Ollie unintentionally wrecking a dinner party held by Mr. and Mrs. Vandevere (played by veteran L&H supporting players James Finlayson and Anita Garvin). The patchwork stucture of A Chump at Oxford works against its overall effectiveness, but the scenes in which Stan Laurel undergoes a complete change of character as the genius-level Lord Paddington more than make up for the film's earlier shortcomings. One of the students (the tall, mustachioed one) is played by Peter Cushing, in his second Hollywood film appearance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Although this Stan Laurel one-reeler is based on a very simple premise, it's quite funny. Adding to the mirth is the presence of James Finlayson, who always worked well with Laurel, and became an even greater comic antagonist when Laurel teamed up with Oliver Hardy. Laurel plays a none-too-bright young man who is riding a streetcar. When he asks the conductor how to get to his destination, the conductor suggests that he follow a young woman who is going the same way. The problem is that Stan winds up following a different woman wearing a similar dress. As a result, he winds up all over town, part of the confusion being that there are a lot of women who are wearing that very same outfit. During his travels, Stan goes into a department store and is pursued by the store's detective (Finlayson), who finds his behavior suspicious. The lady Stan is following also thinks he's a suspicious character and sets a cop on him. Stan finally gets away from both the detective and the cop and is about to leap onto a waiting streetcar -- except as his head is turned to bid adieu to his pursuers, the streetcar leaves and a paddy wagon pulls up. He leaps on the back of the wagon and the cops pull him inside. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Set in wartime (WW II), this film finds the fat guy, skinny guy comedy duo not much good at any attempted professions; they can't even enlist in the war effort. None of the services want them. But they do become air raid wardens, at least for a while, until their misadventures continue. They get all boozed up and are kicked off the air raid squad, too! But things get better when they thwart a spy ring and save the day. ~ All Movie Guide

The 1930 Laurel & Hardy 3-reeler Another Fine Mess is a remake of the team's 1927 effort Duck Soup--which, in turn, was based on "Home from the Honeymoon", a vaudeville sketch written in 1908 by Stan Laurel's father. Escaping from an angry cop, Stan and Ollie take refuge in a posh East Side mansion. It turns out that this is the home of great white hunter Colonel Buckshot (James Finlayson), who has just gone on an expedition to Africa, leaving his butler and maid with instructions to rent the mansion in his absence. But the servants have snuck out for the weekend, leaving Laurel & Hardy alone to contend with potential renters Lord Plumtree (Charles Gerard) and his sexy American wife (Thelma Todd). To avoid being arrested, Ollie poses as Colonel Buckshot, while Stan does double duty as both butler and maid (complete with flaxen wig). Originally lensed in black and white, Another Fine Mess was computer-colorized in 1986, but you'll enjoy it anyway. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

March of the Wooden Soldiers is the 1952 reissue title for Hal Roach's 1934 film version of Victor Herbert's Babes in Toyland. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy star as Stannie Dum and Ollie Dee, bumbling apprentices to the master toymaker of Toyland. This joyous fairy-tale community is populated by all the colorful Mother Goose characters we know and love; the one sour apple in the barrel is mean old Silas Barnaby (portrayed by Henry Kleinbach, aka Henry Brandon). Barnaby holds the mortgage on the outsized shoe where Widow Peep (Florence Roberts) and her daughter Little Bo Peep (Charlotte Henry) reside, and where Stannie and Ollie pay room and board. Bo Peep will be forced to marry the odious Barnaby if the rent isn't paid, so Stannie and Ollie try to raise the money by asking the toymaker for a raise. But the boys are fired when Stannie messes up an order from Santa Claus: instead of making six hundred toy soldiers one foot high, the dumb Mr. Dum makes one hundred toy soldiers six feet high. The wedding between Barnaby and Bo Peep goes on as planned--except that it's Stannie, disguised as the bride, who ends up walking down the altar. Publicly humiliated, Barnaby vows revenge. He steals one of the Three Little Pigs and places the blame on Bo Peep's boy friend, Tom-Tom the Piper's Son (Felix Knight). The penalty for pignapping is banishment to Bogeyland, a fearsome subterranean world populated by hideous bogeymen (look closely and you'll see the zippers on their costumes!) Stannie and Ollie expose Barnaby's perfidy and rescue Tom-Tom from Bogeyland, whereupon Barnaby rallies the bogeymen and leads an all-out attack on Toyland. Taking refuge in the toy warehouse, Stannie and Ollie activate the 100 6-foot wooden soldiers (a neat bit of stop-motion photography, courtesy of Hal Roach's "fx" wizard Roy Seawright), who vanquish the Bogeymen and save the day. One of the best of all the Laurel and Hardy features, March of the Wooden Soldiers has been a television holiday perennial ever since the cathode tube was invented. Only a handful of Victor Herbert's songs are utilized, but these lilting compositions more than compensate for the omissions (one song, "I Can't Do That Sum", is used as the leitmotif for the clueless Stannie and Ollie). For years available only in the 70-minute reissue version, March of the Wooden Soldiers has recently been fully restored to its full glorious 78 minutes. The parent property Babes in Toyland was remade by Disney in 1961 (with Gene Sheldon and Henry Calvin as Laurel and Hardy wannabes) and for television in 1986, with new songs by Leslie Bricusse. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While this isn't one of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy's best shorts, its premise is very similar to one of their finest features, Sons of the Desert. In both films, the hapless duo is trying to sneak around their wives' backs to join a group of club mates. In Sons of the Desert, they're going to a convention; in Be Big, it's an evening in their honor. The boys have just agreed to go to Atlantic City with their spouses (Isabelle Keith and Anita Garvin), but one of the club men calls Ollie with such enticing details of the celebration that he just has to attend...with Stan in tow, of course. With the help of some talcum powder, Ollie looks pale enough to convince the wives to leave on the trip without him and Stan. Then they hurriedly get into their club outfits, but trouble ensues when Ollie puts on Stanley's much smaller boots and can't get them off. The pair's various attempts to get the boots off Ollie all but destroy Ollie's apartment -- and Ollie. The wives miss the train and return home to discover that they've been tricked. Their panicked husbands try to hide in the folding bed, but the wives pull out their shotguns (a common prop for Laurel and Hardy wives) and start blasting away. Originally filmed in black & white, a colorized version was released in the late 1990s. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This Laureland Hardy four-reeler is very loosely based on Beau Gest. It opens with Oliver Hardy singing a sweet love song. He's feeling sentimental because he's about to marry his girl, Jeanie-Weanie who, he tells his friend Stan Laurel, "has been all around the world and everyone loves her." Unfortunately, a "Dear John" letter arrives from the girl just then. In misery, Ollie decides that he -- and Stan, of course -- must join the Foreign Legion so they can "forget." Once they get to the camp, they discover that Ollie's not the only one forgetting Jeanie -- the other new recruits are all weeping over the same girl's picture. Ollie decides that perhaps the young lady wasn't worth all his trouble, but the irascible commandant (Charles Middleton) informs him and Stan that they're in the Legion for life. As Ollie and Stan leave his office, they see a photo of Jeanie-Weanie on his wall, too.

The boys, along with the other recruits, are sent to Fort Arid, which is under siege by Arabs. Even though Stan and Ollie get separated from the rest, they are the first to arrive and are promptly used as sentries. They handle this, and their other duties, in their usual inept way, and the Arabs sneak into the Fort. A knife-wielding Arab chases the boys into a storage room, where Ollie accidentally overturns a barrel of tacks and the Arab is rendered helpless when he steps on them with his bare feet. So Stan and Ollie take more tacks and spread them out at the Fort's entrance. This keeps the Arabs hopping (literally) until the rest of the recruits arrive. When they capture the Arab leader, there is one thing he has that he does not want to give up -- a photo of Jeanie-Weanie.

The photo of Jeanie-Weanie is actually a picture of Jean Harlow from her days at the Roach Studios; in fact, the outfit she's shown wearing is a costume from the 1929 Laurel and Hardy film Double Whoopie. The actor portraying the Arab leader is credited as Abdul Kasim K'Horne. This is an alias for director James Horne, who did the role as a cameo. Laurel and Hardy made one other Foreign Legion film, Flying Deuces, in 1939. Once again Charles Middleton plays the Commandant. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Laurel and Hardy's second two-reel talkie is made up of a few very simple scenes -- Oliver Hardy goes to meet his partner Stan Laurel at the train station. They have a vaudeville act which involves a bass fiddle and are on their way to their next performance. They just barely make the train and are led to their berth, wreaking havoc amongst the other passengers in their wake. With much difficulty, they undress in their berth. As soon as they're ready for bed, they arrive at Pottsville, their destination, and have to hurry off. Once the train has left the station, they discover that they have left their bass fiddle on board. But the situations aren't important, it's what the boys do with them -- the way Ollie wanders around the station in search of Stan, just missing him several times, and the various contortions the pair try to get into their upper berth -- that give the film its fun. Especially nice is the interchange between the boys and the conductor. When Ollie describes himself and Stan to the trainman as a "big-time vaudeville act," the old man dryly replies, "Well, I bet you're good!" Originally filmed in black & white, a colorized version was released in the late 1990s. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Not to be confused with the 1929 Laurel and Hardy classic of the same name, the silent, two-reel Our Gang comedy Big Business was originally released on February 10, 1924. This time, the Our Gang kids go into the barbershop business, with Joe Cobb as head shearer, Mary Kornman as cashier, Allen "Farina" Hoskins as bootblack, Sing Joy handling the laundry concession, and "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison handling all the mechanical devices. The shop's most daunting assignment is to remove the sissified curls from the head of rich kid Mickey Daniels. This done, Mickey is immediately accepted into the gang, much to the dismay of his hoity-toity mother and to the delight of his down-to-earth father. The film does not so much end as stop, with a revival of the tried-and-true "skunk" gag. According to "Little Rascals" historians Leonard Maltin and Richard W. Bann, Big Business was based on a story idea by none other than Stan Laurel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this especially amusing Laurel and Hardy short, the boys are planning a night on the town. Standing in their way is Mrs. Laurel (Anita Garvin). Ollie telephones Stan with a scheme: Stan will send himself a bogus telegram, calling him away on "business." Unfortunately for the duo, Mrs. Laurel hears all on the extension and upon learning that they intend to take the bottle she's been saving, comes up with a scheme of her own. She takes the bottle, pours out the liquor and replaces it with every disgusting thing she can find in her kitchen -- spices, hot pepper sauce, etc. Stan and Ollie take this concoction to the Rainbow Club and proceed to have a grand time, impressed by the fire of their brew. They find out the truth -- and suffer instant sobriety -- when Mrs. Laurel shows up to tell them the bottle's actual contents...and brandishes a shotgun. While Blotto was originally three reels long, several scenes have been lost, shortening its length by a few minutes. It was shortened even further in the late 1990s, as well as colorized, for the cable TV "Laurel & Hardy Show". This is also one of Laurel and Hardy's films that was made when foreign versions of Hollywood pictures were commonly shot. In Blotto's foreign versions, the night club scene is extended, with several added acts, including a balloon dancer, and showing the boys singing a drunken rendition of "The Curse of an Aching Heart". ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play both the fathers and their unruly children in this two-reel comedy. The really funny thing about this film is that as the kids, Laurel and Hardy don't behave much differently as they generally do as adults. The relationship is basically the same between the two youngsters, and little Ollie usually suffers the most damage. The father/son effect was created by making two sets exactly the same, with one set being more than twice normal size, to make the kid Laurel and Hardy appear child-sized. The two sets are seamlessly combined in several scenes, so we can see, for example, the fathers playing checkers while their sons are a few feet away, playing with alphabet blocks. There's not much plot -- the kids misbehave and are sent to bed early, but before they crawl into bed, they create more havoc -- and an overflowing bathtub that Ollie doesn't discover until it has flooded the whole bathroom. Because not every theater was yet wired for sound, a silent version of Brats was made, which still exists today, in addition to a colorized version released in the late 1990s. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide