Helpmates (1932)

Oliver's house is in a shambles after a wild party, and his wife is due home at noon. He calls Stanley to help him fix the place up, and the typical catastrophies ensue. Somehow, however, ... See full summary »

Director:

James Parrott

Writer:

H.M. Walker (dialogue)

Stars:

Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Bobby Burns

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Stan Laurel	...	Stan
Oliver Hardy	...	Ollie

Storyline

Oliver's house is in a shambles after a wild party, and his wife is due home at noon. He calls Stanley to help him fix the place up, and the typical catastrophies ensue. Somehow, however, Stanley manages to complete the job by the time Oliver leaves to pick up his wife at the train station. As a finishing touch, Stan decides to start a nice fire in the fireplace, using a can of gasoline to hurry the process along.

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Plot Keywords:

party | gasoline | fire | rain | black eye | 

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Taglines:

When the cats are away, the mice start looking up telephone numbers

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Genres:

Short | Comedy

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Certificate:

Passed

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

23 January 1932 (USA)

Also Known As:

Aidons-nous

Company Credits

Production Co:

Hal Roach Studios

Technical Specs

Runtime:

21 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric System) Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

At one point Stan Laurel gives out a phone number, and it was his own personal number at the time.

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Goofs

Stan has attached the drying line to the kitchen door and, when Ollie opens it, he pulls down the chimney pipe from the stove and is hit by a cloud of soot. Stan comes over and takes off Ollie's hat, and, trying to clean it , blows the soot from the top into Ollie's face. But the top of his hat was white and clean in the previous shot.

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Quotes

Ollie: Get this house cleaned up! Do you know that my wife will be home at noon!
Stan: Say, what do you think I am? Cinderella? If I had any sense I'd walk out on you.
Ollie: Well it's a good thing you haven't any sense!
Stan: It certainly is!

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Alternate Versions

Scenes deleted in the 1986 colorized version were: Ollie and Stan talking on the phone about Stan not coming to the party because a dog bit him and he might have "hydrophosphates"; at the beginning of the feature, we pan around the room at the mess, and in the colorized verison, just stills of the mess are shown.

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Connections

Featured in The Crazy World of Laurel and Hardy (1966)

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Soundtracks

The Moon and You
(1930) (uncredited)
Written by Leroy Shield
Played often as background music

User Reviews

The funniest line of all time.

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."