Big Business

Granted, there are feature films such as SOME LIKE IT HOT, DR. STRANGELOVE, ANNIE HALL, TOOTSIE, DUCK SOUP and so on that are classier, more well-written, and other such qualities. But when it boils down to laughs per minute, this short has them all topped. I mean, it is simply the best comedy ever done...anytime, anywhere. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as two Christmas tree salesmen in sunny California. And James Finlayson as their potential customer. When they start to tear his house apart, I don't stop laughing for a second. I seriously believe that this film should be placed in a museum, next to any other great works of art.

Well I belong to a place which is slightly behind on technology. The first Laurel and Hardy film I got to see was in 1988, at a time I was already 16 years old. I remember having seen a quiz on them however, about a year before that in a well reputed magazine of those times in India called "Illustrated Weekly". And that was it.

Today in 2005, I would wish to introduce myself as "Know all" on the matter of the "Boys".

To me they are "GODS". They have the ability of pacifying my existentialist angst at the flick of a button. There 75 year old gags still yank my guts out every time I laugh and fall off the bed.

BIG BUSINESS

Aspect ratio: 1.33:1

Sound format: Silent

(Black and white - Short film)

A minor dispute between two Christmas tree salesmen (Laurel and Hardy) and an irate customer (James Finlayson) escalates into massive mutual destruction.

The first collaboration between L&H and veteran comedy director James Horne is a masterpiece of its kind, in which two bickering salesmen become involved in a war of attrition with bad-tempered customer Finlayson (an invaluable member of the L&H universe). The escalation of conflict is joyously contrived (Finlayson reduces The Boys' car to spare parts, and they do the same to his house), and the pay-off - in which the entire cast is reduced to tears! - is no less satisfactory. Legend has it that the filmmakers accidentally destroyed the wrong house, after hiring the one next door...

If you know one Laurel & Hardy silent movie, this is the one, and it deserves to be. There are other fine Laurel & Hardy silent shorts, and I adore them, but this one has the slow build-up in violence, the tit-for-tat rhythm as each side does something even more destructive while the victim alternates standing there calmly while watching a tree be uprooted or a car torn to pieces, while a crowd gathers to watch the growing chaos.

There are lots of stories about this short, none of which are true. No, they didn't tear apart the wrong house by mistake. No, it's not about selling Christmas trees in July. There's no need to ornament the movie. It's perfect as it is.

Thus far, my only experience with Laurel and Hardy has been their talkies; I wondered how I would fare with their silent comedy, that era of cinema being virtually unknown to me. I needn't have worried: such is the comedic excellence of the bowler-hatted duo that they're more than capable of reducing the viewer to fits of giggles without the need for dialogue.

Big Business is an example of what is known to L&H fans as 'Reciprocal Destruction', wherein the pair engage in tit-for-tat violence with an irate stranger, in this case, a homeowner (played by regular L&H co-star James Finlayson) who isn't pleased with the guys' Christmas tree salesmanship. It starts off slowly, with minor damage inflicted on the homeowner's property after he takes a pair of cutters to one of Stan and Ollie's trees. The level of damage gradually escalates, the homeowner dismantling L&H's Model T Ford, while the comedic pals trash the man's house - all under the watchful and bemused gaze of a local policeman.

Magnificently absurd and brilliantly performed by the three leads, Big Business gets big laughs as matters spiral out of control: Stan and Ollie's facial expressions are priceless and the physicality of their comedy is superb. 7.5/10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.