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Sons of the Desert
Laurel and Hardy are members of the California branch of the Sons of the Desert lodge, and intend to go to the lodge conference. However, when their wives object, Hardy is forced to pretend to be ill and in need of an ocean voyage in order to get away from the wife and get to the conference.
It was an interesting experience watching Laurel and Hardy. I used to love them as a kid, but haven't watched any of their material in 10 or 15 years. I enjoyed it, but not as much as I expected.
The film has three very definite stages to the film, and it was only the last part where I really felt the film came together. The first part, with the two trying to plan to attend the conference, had some wonderful little sequences - Stan being locked out, or Oliver's supremely unconvincing efforts to play sick. But there were as many bits that didn't work as did work, and I was astonished at the way the two mugged for the camera. Quite off-putting. But still, some good stuff.
The middle section, with the two attending the conference, was pretty dire. Pretty much laugh-free, it is fortunately pretty short. The worst part - a potentially amusing part where Oliver ends up talking to his wife on the phone without realising it, ended up going nowhere and played no part in the film.
But the third part of the film redeemed all of its faults. A great extended sequence has the two returning home, only to discover that they need to hide their return for 24 hours, unaware that their wives have discovered their deception. It's a delightful part of the film, impossible to describe without spoiling it, but an absolute must-see. It is on sequences like this that L&H have built their reputation, and after an unimpressive first two-thirds, the two completely justified their position as comedy greats.
The film is in the Laughs list, and also the Quotes list, for Hardy's line, "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!". The interesting thing for me was that I remembered that it was Laurel who would always mess things up, but it was Hardy that would suffer the consequences - hence the fanmous line. What was interesting in the context of the film was that it was all Hardy's fault - it was Hardy that forced Laurel to go to the conference, who decided to go with the fake cruise story, who at every point made the decision that would lead them inevitably to that nice mess. So the line's not just about the mess teir in, it's about diverting blame away from the person responsible. Which I found interesting.
And, incidentally, the disc I watched also had a colour version. I glanced at it for 30 seconds out of curiosity, and had to turn it off. Worst colourisation effort ever. Words cannot describe how ghastly it was. he thought that people would prefer to watch that over a nice clean B&W print fills me with dread.
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