Busy Bodies (1933)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Director:

Lloyd French

Writers:

Release Date:

7 October 1933 (USA)

Genre:

Short | Comedy

Plot:

Stan and Ollie do battle with inanimate objects, their co-workers, and the laws of physics during a routine work day at the sawmill.

Plot Keywords:

Window | Sawmill | Automobile | Logging Mill | Car Radio

Cast

Stan Laurel	...	Stan
Oliver Hardy	...	Ollie

Runtime:

19 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:G | UK:U

Filming Locations:

517 N. Canon Drive, Beverly Hills, California, USA

Company:

Hal Roach Studios

Movie Connections:

Edited into Dance of the Cookoos (1982)

Still funny after all these years

Some Laurel & Hardy buffs prefer the boys' domestic comedies, the ones where Stan & Ollie have wives and usually try to deceive them in some way-- with scant success, of course --but for hardcore fans there's nothing like watching the boys take on a construction project. Give them a basic task such as building a house, fixing a boat, or putting a radio antenna on the roof, a task requiring a certain amount of physical dexterity and skill, and you're in for twenty minutes of pure slapstick performed by experts. BUSY BODIES is a two-reel masterpiece of this brand of comedy, happily unencumbered with any unnecessary plot complications, largely because there's no plot. There's hardly any dialog, either. Stan Laurel doesn't speak at all until the halfway point, and utters only a few carefully chosen words even then. This film seems to have been an attempt to translate the team's silent comedy style into a talkie format, enhanced with cleverly chosen sound effects and the delightful background music of Le Roy Shield. I've always loved the opening gag, as the boys drive to work enjoying a familiar Shield melody ("Smile When the Raindrops Fall") in their car. When the song ends they pull over, then Stan gets out and opens the hood, revealing a phonograph with a record that's reached the end of a side. Stan flips the record over, the jaunty little tune resumes, and they drive on. Long before the days of tape decks or iPods, the boys supplied their own cheery soundtrack music!

However, once the guys arrive at the sawmill where they work the mood changes. They must deal with co-workers, and, worse, with their assignments. But viewers who require a genuine story-line (or, God forbid, a young romantic couple to step in and sing a few songs) will be disappointed, for the rest of the movie consists entirely of Stan & Ollie's increasing messy, heroic, yet ultimately futile attempt to put in a day's work. Stan is apparently expected to plane some lumber while Ollie adjusts a window frame, but nothing constructive is accomplished. Distractions abound. Props at hand include saws, hammers, nails, two-by-fours, blue-prints for Boulder Dam, and Ollie's severed necktie. A conflict develops with a co-worker (the invaluable Charlie Hall), and then conflict erupts between Stan & Ollie themselves. Eventually a paintbrush is forcibly glued to Ollie's chin, and must be removed. Somehow this leads to Ollie getting sucked into the building's disposal chute, then hurled through the chute and violently ejected from the building in a kind of frenzied re-birthing experience-- and not before getting briskly spanked along the way. But the movie's not quite over yet: the memorable closing gag employs a lethal-looking band-saw to impressive effect.

The climax of BUSY BODIES was excerpted for one of the Laurel & Hardy compilation films that came out in the 1960s, thus when I was a kid I was lucky enough to see the finale of this film on a big screen in a theater, where it was enjoyed by a loudly appreciative audience. I'll never forget the laughs that greeted Ollie's wild ride through the disposal chute. In the '70s I acquired a Blackhawk print of the film and still run it now and then, and it still makes me laugh. Laurel & Hardy never received the same degree of respect from critics and film scholars that some of their peers were granted, but for my money they were as great as any of the comedians of their era. Considering the competition, that's saying something.