Helpmates (1932) User Reviews

Hilarious!

[Boba_Fett1138 · 9/10 · 13 July 2006]

This is one hilarious Laurel & Hardy comedy short.

The story is, as always, deliciously simple. Oliver Hardy just had a wild party in his house the other night. The next morning he hears by telegram that his 'lovely' wife shall return from Chicago were she has been with her mother the last couple of days. Of course the house is a total wreck so in all his panic, Oliver calls his good friend Stanley to help to clean the mess up before Oliver's wife gets home. But of course instead of cleaning up, the boys make an even bigger mess.

This is basically the only joke of the movie; the two boys cleaning the mess up. It provides some absolutely hilarious and well executed slapstick sequences. The slapstick moments are amazingly stupid and unlikely but because of that also extremely hilarious. This movie is really filled with great slapstick moments, so fans of slapstick comedy will be absolutely delighted while watching this movie.

This is how I want a Laurel & Hardy movie to be; simple, stupid and filled with well executed slapstick humor.

9/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Stan and Ollie take up home repair

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 21 February 2006]

What would you expect from Stan and Ollie when it comes to making home repairs? Yep, absolute chaos and destruction as well as a healthy dose of violence that's highly reminiscent of a Wiley Coyote cartoon. Any normal person would have been killed by all the terrible things that happen to him, but somehow Ollie survives. And, of course, Stanley is about as helpful as an elephant on roller skates. Time and time again, the viewer is rewarded by good old fashioned slapstick that is, at times, painful to watch! While this may not be their absolute best short, it is among their best and well worth your time. Cerebral humor? Nope. But funny? Absolutely.

Employing Stan's help to clean up - disaster!

[naseby · 8/10 · 1 August 2008]

Ollie's woken up with a sore head after a wild party, (Berating himself in the mirror when we think he was talking to someone else!).

Realising the battleaxe of a wife who's away and due to return, will 'return' to the wild party aftermath and suitably make Ollie's life hell in response, he employs the help of Stan, who was absent from the party because of a dog bite, to help clear up. "What's the matter with it?" (The house) says Stan to Ollie - who then states Stan never met his wife, showing Stan a picture emphasising the impending doom by his wife's sour face if the place isn't cleaned up!

Mishap after mishap happens, with the place getting wrecked due to Stan's ineptitudes and distractions to Ollie, including the gas cooker blowing up the kitchen. In fact, the only clothing Ollie has left as a result of Stan destroying his wardrobe is a military outfit, complete with feathered hat and ceremonial sword. "You can't go out like that," exclaims Stan, "You haven't got a horse!"

The wife rings Ollie, ordering him down to the railroad station to pick her up, leaving Stan to clean up the even newer mess they've created together. Stan is seen standing in the now-cleaned up house, but to add a touch of comfort, decides to light a homely fire for the couple using a generous amount of kerosene.

The next scene shows Ollie return to the front of the house, with a black eye and the ceremonial sword bent - to state his wife was none too pleased with waiting so long for him! As he walks through the door, he falls down a couple of feet to find a smouldering wreck of a house! Stan informs him of his attempt to 'build a nice fire' for his pal. Stan says to Ollie: "Well, I guess there's nothing more I can do." "No," replies Ollie, "I guess 'not'!" (As he's done more than enough!) Ollie then says to Stan to close the door as he'd like to be alone. (All the more stupid of course as the walls don't exist anymore!) It ends with Ollie, roofless, sitting in his armchair as if to strive towards normality, with a storm raining down on his head!

A nice short, especially the calamitous attempts to clean up and have Ollie at the sharp end of Stan, poking his eye out, drenching his clothes, customary getting bonked on his head, covered in soot and flour, sticking his head through a drawer, wrecking his crockery and assisting blowing up the kitchen and the finale of the inferno!

Absolutely the Classic it's made out to be

[royka_act_two · 10/10 · 1 July 2006]

Helpmates has laughs from beginning to end, replete with the slapstick and wordplay that are the trademarks of the greatest film comedy team ever. It's twenty minutes of delight and each gag builds on the one before and sets up the next, a crazy crescendo in a symphony of sublime silliness. The comic Lou Costello was once asked who he thought was the greatest comedy team of all time and he unhesitatingly named Laurel and Hardy. Helpmates is worth many watches. This 1932 short nearly equals their Oscar winning short, The Music Box. See it. Then visit the Boys again and again. Laurel and Hardy - except for their mishandling by Fox in the 1940s -- are, as the great Steve Allen once said - ALWAYS funny.

The funniest line of all time.

[quickdog · 7 August 2003]

This is classic Laurel and Hardy. The origin of Dumb and Dumber and an inspiration for generations of comedians and comedy writers, Laurel and Hardy were the masters of complicating easy tasks beyond the point of minor disaster. Often referred to as the fiddle and the bow, this comedy team started in the silent era with slapstick humor. Many of the comedies revolve around the destruction of cars, for which they found many ways to destroy. Upon the coming of the sound era, many silent stars lost work because of voice flaws (see Singin' In The Rain for a great example) or because they could only do visual slapstick comedy. Laurel and Hardy were able to transcend the silent era of slapstick and successfully incorporate witty dialogue in amongst their visual humor.

This two realer is classic as the Boys try and clean up after Ollie's wild party before his wife comes home. The ending of this short comedy has the funniest line of all time. As usual, Laurel and Hardy are their bumbling destructive selves, which of course leads to one laugh right on top of another. As Ollie says in the beginning while looking at himself in the mirror, "I have two words to describe you. Impossible."

Cleanin' Up The House With Mr. Laurel & Mr. Hardy

[Ron Oliver · 10/10 · 3 May 2000]

Stan & Ollie are HELPMATES, always ready to assist the other out of a jam. So, with his house a wreck after a wild party and his shrew-of-a-wife returning from her Chicago trip in a few hours, Ollie asks Stan to help him clean-up. Perhaps that wasn't the wisest choice...

A funny little film, with lots of slapstick humor. Once again, one can't help wondering how Ollie could take so many bonks on the head without it damaging him.

Possibly their best

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 9 July 2015]

This is a black-and-white, 20-minute short movie from over 80 years ago and it stars early movie legends Laurel & Hardy (both in their early 40s here). I watched Academy Award winner "The Music Box" yesterday, their most famous probably, and I was pretty disappointed. But not so by this one. It starts pretty great already with Hardy's mirror talk and stays strong when Laurel enters the picture. Hardy had a big party and the house is a mess. Unlucky for him that his wife comes home soon, so it's high time to get everything back in order again. He decides to invite his pal Laurel and the two start tidying up. Of course, if you know them, you will not be surprised at all that everything just becomes a bigger mess and, in the end, the entire house burns down. Looks like there is one thing worse than tidying up with Laurel and that is letting him tidy up on his own.

I quite enjoyed this short movie. The first half was certainly better than the second in my opinion, but it's never weak or boring. I even felt a bit sorry for Hardy in the end. He literally lost everything. But he took it like a man. The makers behind this are Parrott, Walker and Roach and this trio worked on many occasions with our two heroes. In my opinion, this may be their best effort. I guess the more they talk, the more I like it and there are quite a few dialogs in here. The jokes are funny and same goes for the physical component of this film. The slapstick and the situations in which Ollie is in so much trouble again are hilarious most of the time. A really good early short film. Recommended.

Bringing The House Down!

[The-Other-Monkey · 9/10 · 2 September 2006]

Another of the boys films that takes an everyday situation and escalates it to destruction on a grand scale.

Here Ollie has been having a wild party in his wife's absence. Now she is returning early and so, with the help of "the other monkey", Stan, he must tidy up. A simple task? Well not quite, as one mishap after another reduces the house to rubble, and Ollie has to wear an admirals uniform, it being the only-items left in his wardrobe.

Although having many slapstick and physical moments, Helpmates also has more than it's fair share of wordplay.

Perhaps the best is a little argument in which Stan loses his cool; Stan; " If I had any sense i'd walk out on you!" Ollie: "Well it's a good job you haven't any sense then isn't it" Stan;"It certainly is!"

As the action continues we get numerous shots of Stan trying to work out who had the last word!

Yet another winner from this two horse stable!!

Meet Laurel & Hardy - THE MESS-MATES!!! A learning chapter for the followers of comedy on how not to waste a single minute.

[SAMTHEBESTEST · 7/10 · 7 August 2021]

Helpmates (1932) : Brief Review -

Meet Laurel & Hardy - THE MESS-MATES!!! A learning chapter for the followers of comedy on how not to waste a single minute. Comedy is a difficult job and those who does it easily are no less than masters. In silent era we had Buster Keaton, Charles Chaplin and Harold Lloyd but in 30s these three legends were not so active. Then, two angles called 'Laurel & Hardy' came to the rescue and made us laugh. In short comedies it is very important to not waste any time in the development of the story and the characters and that's what Helpmates understood clearly and wisely. The film is 20 minutes long but there was not a single moment when i saw film wasting any minute. It is a continuous riot of laughter, some of them are genuine while some are slapstick. Few of them are even in silent mode. After a messy house party, while his wife is away, Oliver asks Stanley to help him clean up the place but free help isn't always a bargain. I have said it many times in my earlier reviews that the storyline doesn't' really matter when it comes to short comedies. It's about how you use it according to your comfort and put your strengths at right place in right manners. Well, here it's all about Laurel & Hardy as these are the only two characters in the film expect for couple of others who just appears to get disappeared withing a few seconds. So, basically they do everything to make you laugh and ask me not if they succeed or not. They do and so accurately and perfectly. And you know what, the storyline is so innocently terrible from male's point of view (I'm strictly considering myself). Director James Parrott provides a wholesale fun ride and a big thank you to him for making it look convincing at every point whether it is beginning, middle part or the ending. In one word, it's Superb!

RATING - 7.5/10*

By - #samthebestest.

20 minutes of legendary genius.

[Prichards12345 · 10/10 · 27 November 2015]

This is surely one of Laurel and Hardy's greatest moments. A masterpiece of disaster and mayhem: of course it's the one where Ollie's thrown a wild party, discovers his wife is coming home unexpectedly, and calls on Stan to help clean up. Yep, you read that correctly. He might as well have called in an earthquake!

The 20 minutes just zips by in a succession of lightning-fast sight gags and slapstick, and from it's wonderful opening (Ollie admonishing someone off camera, only for the viewer to discover he's talking to himself in the mirror!), to its hysterical ending, this is just pure cinematic joy.

Poor old Ollie dressed in his Freemason outfit (for years I thought he was a fancy dress admiral)with black eye and bent sword, brought tears of laughter to my eyes. This film is is 83 years old. The boys have a magic that has never diminished. And I don't think it ever will.

Helpmates review

[JoeytheBrit · 7/10 · 11 May 2020]

Ollie panics when he learns that his wife is coming home earlier than expected the night after he held a wild party, and rashly asks Stan to help him clean the house before her return. The outcome is a level of carnage that even the duo's most devoted fans couldn't have expected back in 1932. Another good outing from the boys who were then at the peak of their careers.

How to unsuccessfully clean up the house

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 29 September 2018]

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were comedic geniuses, individually and together, and their partnership was deservedly iconic and one of the best there was. They left behind a large body of work, a vast majority of it being entertaining to classic comedy, at their best they were hilarious and their best efforts were great examples of how to do comedy without being juvenile or distasteful.

Although a vast majority of Laurel and Hardy's previous efforts ranged from above average to very good ('45 Minutes from Hollywood' being the only misfire and mainly worth seeing as a curiosity piece and for historical interest, and even that wasn't a complete mess), 'Two Tars' for me was their first truly classic one with close to flawless execution. 'Helpmates' for me is up there with their best and certainly among their funniest.

Can't really find anything wrong with it, was past caring this time as to whether the story was standard or not because it gets to the point and has a lot of energy throughout, on top of being riotously funny in its best moments. Whoever knew that attempting to clean up a house, something that can be fairly stressful, could be so entertaining?

From start to finish 'Helpmates' is great fun, never less than very amusing and the best moments, such as the ending, being classic hilarity. It is never too silly, there is a wackiness that never loses its energy and the sly wit is here, some of the material may not be new as such but how it's executed actually doesn't feel too familiar and it doesn't get repetitive. A lot happens yet it doesn't ever feel rushed or over-stuffed. The ending is a sheer delight and it contains one of the best and most priceless lines of all Laurel and Hardy.

Laurel and Hardy are on top form here, both are well used, both have material worthy of them and they're equal rather than one being funnier than the other (before Laurel tended to be funnier and more interesting than Hardy, who tended to be underused). Their chemistry feels like a partnership here too, before 'Two Tars' you were yearning for more scenes with them together but in 'Helpmates' and on the most part from 'Two Tars' onwards we are far from robbed of that. Their comic timing is impeccable.

'Helpmates' looks good visually, is full of energy and the direction gets the best out of the stars, is at ease with the material and doesn't let it get too busy or static. The supporting players are solid, but it's Laurel and Hardy who take the honours here.

In summary, one of Laurel and Hardy's best. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Not The Classic it's Made Out To be

[Theo Robertson · 6/10 · 21 September 2005]

'm slightly puzzled by the high regard HELPMATES is held in . Some people have described it as Stan and Ollie's masterpiece while just about everyone class it as being well above average . BBc 2 showed it immediately after THE CHIMP which had me laughing out loud but this one merely amused me . I guess like so much in life a Laurel and Hardy film is subject to personal opinion

The film starts with Ollie waking up with a hangover finding his house in a mess after a wild party something his wife will literally kill him for so he phones up Stan asking him to come on over and help clear up the mess . It's at this point logic disappears out of the window . If you needed a hand to do something would Stan Laurel be the first name to come to mind ? Likewise there's little evidence Stan attended the party , if a mate asked you to help clear up a mess the day after a party that you weren't invited you what would your response be ? Exactly . The humour then centres around pratfalls and Stan getting bullied by Ollie which comes across as rather unpleasant , of course Ollie might regret his authoritarianism by the end which he does but with the exception of Stan saluting Ollie's change of clothes there wasn't much here that made me laugh

Helpmates

[jboothmillard · 5/10 · 24 January 2009]

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are the most famous comedy duo in history, and deservedly so, so I am happy to see any of their films. Ollie's house is a mess after a drunken party, and he gets a telegram saying his wife (Blanche Payson) will be home at noon, so he calls Stan (getting the phone mistaken for an alarm clock, and then swapping for a statue), who was bitten by a dog, went to hospital and was told by the doctor he might have "hydrophosphates" (hydrophobia), to help clean up. Stan washes the dirty dishes, which he drops, and Ollie manages to use butter as soap, opening the door gets covered in smoke from the breaking pipe, and flour from the near cupboard. After Ollie has changed his clothes, Stan is trying to unblock the sink to tip away the washing up water, but instead throws the water on, and then out the window, on Ollie (twice), and in anger he throws a plant through the house, hitting a neighbour with a hose pipe, which goes through the house (obviously the water going on Ollie). After causing an explosion with the oven gas (which Ollie was using to dry his wet clothes), Ollie changes into his admiral's uniform, and returns home from seeing the wife with a black eye, a house destroyed by Stan lighting gasoline in the fireplace, and getting rained on. Filled with good slapstick and all classic comedy you want from a black and white film, it is an enjoyable film. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were number 7 on The Comedians' Comedian. Worth watching!

Structurally insanity at its finest

[StevePulaski · 8/10 · 25 December 2014]

Finally, at long last, I have stumbled upon a Laurel and Hardy short that perfectly balances slapstick comedy and verbal banter to create a short that is a winning combination of the both, without being too reliant on the former. Helpmates concerns Hardy, who awakens after an evidently-raucous party took place in his apartment, with everything in total disarray and his wife coming home that very day. Hardy - after giving himself quite the hilarious lecture in the mirror - does all he can when he wakes up with a hangover and without a clue; he phones Laurel, who rushes over (after playing the most believable rendition of stupid and witless) to help his longtime pal clean up before the arrival of his wife.

Helpmates is the classic comedy short that derives its humor from the thesis question "just how much can go wrong for these two well-meaning individuals?" So much destruction and chaos is caused by trying to remedy the situation than was in the process of not even caring about the situation or the well-being of the house during the unseen party, it seems. Windows are broken, people are injured, and a cacophony of madness ensues for the boys as they try to do the right thing but end up doing everything completely and totally wrong.

Helpmates delicately balances the insanity with the narratively witty, setting up the short in a "one thing leads to another" manner rather than just having a plethora of ridiculousness cobbled together with no rhyme or reason. There's a structurally insanity to Helpmates that makes it so fun, and the age-old idea of destroying something even more when you're trying to fix it almost never gets old. This is one of the most fun Laurel and Hardy shorts I know, even more so considering it was a recipe for slapstick monotony.

Starring: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Directed by: James Parrott.

His First Mistake

[boblipton · 10/10 · 15 December 2020]

While his wife was away, Ollie threw a wild party. Now she is returning, and the house is a mess. He asks Stan for help cleaning up another fine mess.

It's about a minute of set-up, and after that it's two reels of destruction. How far can that destruction extend? Just be glad this was made in 1933! A dozen years later it probably would have involved nuclear bombs, or at least blockbusters.

I wonder, looking at this, how the kitchen looks to a modern viewer. To me it looks all right, but then I knew that my mother's kitchen was modern and up to date, about thirty years after this was made, That's a big part of why I find these shorts so funny: they refer to a world I can understand, and to the sort of inept friends I have to this day; the sort of inept friend, in fact, that I am.

It's very hard to watch this live-action short in 2018, and not . . .

[oscaralbert · 7/10 · 11 December 2018]

. . . compare the happenings of HELPMATES with the current State of America's Union. Though contemporary audiences may have compared "Ollie's" mustache with that of the Fuhrer, Today's viewers cannot help seeing a similarity between the light bouncing off his slicked-back mop and the gleam emitted by Russian KGB chief "Mad Vlad's" shiny pate. Of course, Ollie has his puppet "Stan" ready to jump through fruit loops at a moment's notice, just as Vlad has his own Oval Office sock puppet eager to make his every whim come true. Throughout HELPMATES, every action undertaken by Stan to put Ollie's house in order backfires, until the once noble edifice is reduced to a charred shambles inside a gutted shell. Sound all too familiar? With so many formerly protected American species now fast-tracked toward Extinction, with the drastic down-sizing of our National Park System, with the current rapid spreading of deadly diseases thanks to the defunding of food inspectors and health boards, with hydro-carbons belching into our air at record rates, with the last of our potable water ear-marked for pollution, with hurricanes and forest fires snuffing out U.S. Citizens at rates not seen since the 1800s, and with overall American Life Expectancy now plummeting, where would YOU rather live: In Ollie's gutted ruins of a home, or in a USA wasteland degraded by Mad Vlad and his fellow-traveling Fifth Columnist minions?

This is why wives give a warning call when they return from a trip.

[mark.waltz · 10/10 · 6 October 2016]

"Hydra phosfates!"

That's what Stan Laurel claims he got from being bitten by a dig, his reason for not coming over for Oliver's wild party. And now the sour pussed Mrs. Hardy is coming home, which causes Oliver to beg Stan to come over and help him clean up, his first mistake. He'll be lucky if the house is still standing, let alone clean, when wifey dear makes it in.

Practically every married couple can relate to this scenario and I recall my mother always giving the warning call to my father when she'd come home, especially if she was traveling with us kids. Everything that can go wrong does go wrong, and I can just hear that female voice from the "Gilligan's Island" laugh track saying "uh oh!" just as Oliver's head prepares to go through a drawer or be conked on the head by a big tin of flower. This is Laurel and Hardy perfection, a total 10 out of 10.

A classic Laurel and Hardy comedy...

[paul_haakonsen · 7/10 · 4 August 2022]

I had the opportunity to sit down and watch some truly olden goldies here in 2022. And needless to say that I needed absolutely no persuasion to do so. And the first one up was "Helpmates".

Amazing that 90 years after it was released, the 1932 comedy short film "Helpmates" is still an enjoyable and hilarious comedy. It is something that can be enjoyed by virtually anyone.

The story in "Helpmates", as written by Stan Laurel and H. M. Walker, is indeed an archetypical Laurel and Hardy story, and it is exactly that which makes this an enjoyable movie so many years down the line.

The physical comedy in this 1932 short film is well-choreographed and equally well-executed on the screen. And that is something that Laurel and Hardy did with such grace and elegance.

Of course "Helpmates" has a small cast ensemble, as these Laurel and Hardy movies did, and it was definitely nice to see Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy on the screen. I don't think I've actually seen one of these classic comedies since around the mid-1980s on TV.

If you enjoy comedy then you most certainly have to sit down and watch "Helpmates", as it is a classic.

My rating of "Helpmates" lands on a seven out of ten stars.

Helpmates

[Prismark10 · 8/10 · 13 April 2018]

Laurel and Hardy showed their greatness in classic shorts such as this. Slapstick with an economy of storytelling.

While the cat's away the mouse comes out to play and this big mouse, Oliver has thrown a party which has left his house in a mess and him with a hangover. Trouble looms as his wife is arriving home from a trip earlier than expected.

Oliver Invites Stan to help him clear up which leads to one disaster to another. Oliver would be lucky if his house is standing upright.

Both are at their bumbling best.

Ollie's lucky day: a slapstick marathon

[weezeralfalfa · 8/10 · 2 November 2018]

Of course, the first part of my review title is facetious. If not the worst day of his film persona, it must have been close. The evening before, he had taken advantage of the absence of his wife in town, to host a wild party, resulting in furniture being overturned, and empty bottles every where, etc. .After giving himself a lecture in the mirror, he calls Stan(who wasn't at the party) to help clean up the mess(Yea, right!). After mistaking the phone call for his alarm clock, he finally answers it, and agrees to come over. They only have a few hours to straighten things up before his wife arrives on the train. But, we never see them making an effort to clean up the living room, where most of the mess is. That probably would have been comparatively dull. Instead , they concentrate on the kitchen, which, surprisingly, looks intact, until Stan knocks over a big stack of dishes that break on the floor. Stan's last significant act is to pour gasoline on the wood in the fireplace, and light a match. Somehow, he survived the conflagration, but nearly all the house burned down(Where are the fire engines?) Ollie arrives from the train station, in his masquerade outfit(everything else being soaked), with a big black eye, and without his wife(perhaps the best news of the day). He walks through the still intact front door, and listens to Stan's explanation. Ollie requests that Stan close the door when he leaves, as he wants to be alone! He sits in a chair, and pretty soon, a rainstorm begins, to finish his 'lucky day'. In between these disasters, there is a continuous barrage of slapstick disasters. Ollie gets in the act of causing some of them. For example, he turns on the oven gas to dry his clothes out, then goes elsewhere for a minute. Apparently, there is no pilot light for the stove. so when he returns, he lights a match, and is blown into the living room, together with a few other items. Sometimes, he's just plain unlucky. As he walks by to the kitchen door, something catches on the stovepipe, which falls apart on him, covering him with soot, like a blackface minstrel. Then, a big can of flour on the top shelve falls on him when Stan opens the cabinet, converting his blackface into the white face of a circus clown.........If a continuous run of stupid and unlucky disasters is what you hanker for, this is the right film. See it on YouTube.

Another Fun Mess

[Snow Leopard · 10 July 2001]

"Helpmates" is one of a number of Laurel and Hardy short comedies based on the simple premise of seeing how much damage two men can do in one home in a short time without really trying. This time, Stan is 'helping' Ollie to clean up his house after a wild party, since Ollie's wife is due home soon. There is a lot of creative slapstick as they get into one mess after another. Most of the gags this time are fairly predictable, but are funny because they're done with good timing and the usual humorous mannerisms. Laurel and Hardy fans won't be disappointed by this one.

Another Fine House!

[Hitchcoc · 10/10 · 13 January 2017]

The boys have been partying away while the cat's away. Oliver's house is an absolute mess. Of course, his wife calls and is arriving early from her trip. That's all it takes to set Stan and Ollie in motion, allowing them to become weapons of mass destruction. Ollie, knowing nothing about the appliances in his own house, causes an explosion. Everything the two of them touch is a disaster. I won't go into specifics but we all know that in reality, there would be no recovering from this. Of course, this is like a modern cartoon where the characters land on their feet and are able to goof up again. At one point, Ollie must put on his lodge uniform because his clothes have been burned and he must pick up Mrs. Hardy, who is quite formidable. That leaves Stanley to fix things up before they arrive home. Well, I won't spoil it. If they did a funnier film, I don't know what it would be.

WHO DO YA THINK I AM, CINDERELLA??

[tcchelsey · 10/10 · 15 June 2022]

Director James Parrott, who directed many of Laurel and Hardy's best films, encouraged the boys to do it their way. This is "their way," and its outrageous, perhaps their finest hour.

You have to give these guys a lot of credit, and not just for comedy. Stan Laurel commented after Hardy passed that his versatile, if not athletic partner took the "falls" for the team and truly was a one of kind comedian. It shows here in spades, and love Hardy's groans and screams to match.

True, destroying a house is one thing... but WHO PUTS a full barrel of flower on a top shelf in the kitchen??? The production team was famous for these type of goofy pratfalls. This gag may have gone on to inspire a scene from THE MIDNIGHT PATROL (1934) where the police chief just happens to have a barrel of sauerkraut in his basement?

Loaded with classic Laurel and Hardy bits, also not to miss Stan heaving a bucket of sink water into Ollie's face as he opens the kitchen window!

True, the total destruction of Hardy's humble home may have later inspired the THREE STOOGES. Blanche Payson plays Hardy's angry wife, very much in the style of Mae Busch, though it would have been fun to see Mae go absolutely nuts. Payson, according to bio notes, was once a police officer for the San Francisco PD.

Classic, even poignant ending, depending on your viewpoint, and listen to the jazzy music score, which was hip back in the day. Not to be missed. Get the complete remastered dvd box set of L & H short films.