NOTHING BUT TROUBLE (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1944), directed by Sam Taylor, stars the comedy team of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in a movie title that best described their style of comedy - nothing but trouble. For their final feature for MGM, and on loan from their current home base of 20th Century-Fox, NOTHING BUT TROUBLE may not come close to the style of comedies the team did best while under Hal Roach/MGM in the 1930s, but at least it is a slight improvement over their recent disappointing comedies they were doing at that time. Compare to the Chevy Chase 1991 edition to NOTHING BUT TROUBLE, this Laurel and Hardy edition is a comedy masterpiece.
Combining two stories that would eventually come together as one, the opening starts with Laurel and Hardy with a prologue set during the Depression era of 1932 "when jobs were as hard to find as a girdle on a welder." Stanley and Oliver come to the Lorrison Employee Agency where they wait on long lines looking for employment as chef and butler. Without any luck, they come to the decision of going elsewhere, overseas as to France, Italy and Japan where Oliver attempts to showcase his steak a la Oliver, but with no success. Twelve years later, 1944, "where jobs were as easy to find as a girdle on a welder," Stan and Ollie return to the United States where their wait among the crowds at the Lorrison Employee Agency is no different as it was in 1932. They do, however, get hired by Mrs. Elvira Hawkley (Mary Boland), a society woman looking for a cook and a butler to help prepare dinner for a visiting king and his uncle. The second story focuses on Christopher (David Leland), a teenage boy king from Orlandra accompanied by his uncle, Prince Saul (Philip Merivale) visiting the United States. Chris, who would like nothing more than to be like any other boy his age by going out freely and playing football. He is unaware that his uncle is arranging to have him accidently killed off so to place the blame on his political opponent. While walking in the park with his secretary, Roentz (John Warburton), who is in on the assassination attempt, Chris unwittingly disappears to play football with the other boys. Because the team needs referees, Chris talks Laurel and Hardy, returning home with groceries, to assist in the game. Because Oliver forgot to buy the main course meal of steak, Chris helps the twosome obtain a great piece from a lion's cage at the zoo. Upon their return to the mansion where Oliver prepares his steak a la Oliver, he and Stan find Chris hiding in the kitchen. Following the dinner where Mrs. Harkley and her husband (Henry O'Neill) entertain Chris's uncle, Prince Saul, Mrs. Harkley discovers Chris running from under the table, mistaking him for a street urchin. Laurel and Hardy get fired when Mrs. Harkley find the boy associated with them. Further trouble lies ahead when Stan and Ollie are accused and arrested for Chris's abduction, and more trouble when they learn what Chris's uncle intends to do with the boy.
Others in the cast include: Matthew Boulton (Prince Prentiloff); Connie Gilchrist (Mrs. Flanagan); Robert Emmett O'Connor, Paul Porcasi, Robert E. Homans, Chester Clute and Joe Yule. Surprisingly, David Leland, in his only major role as the teenage boy king, and few movie roles to his credit, had died at the age of 16 in 1948. One wonders had he lived, would he had been MGM's answer to popular European imports as the British Freddie Bartholomew of the 1930s or 20th Century-Fox's Roddy McDowall of the 1940s.
Not quite up to the current comedies by Abbott and Costello, who make Laurel and Hardy seem to be a comedy team of the past, NOTHING BUT TROUBLE is a typical mix of sentiment and humor in the MGM mode. NOTHING BUT TROUBLE includes some amusing bits such as Oliver's attempt in cutting the steak at the dinner table. The climatic window ledge sequence which comes reminiscent to the Harold Lloyd comedies of the 1920s, should have been a height of hilarity, but comes off forced and silly. Mary Boland is amusing as always, but one cannot help but wonder how that same role might have been pulled off had the deadpan Margaret Dumont, a popular foil in Marx Brothers comedies, been handled. For its 70 minutes, NOTHING BUT TROUBLE is often accepted as one of Stan and Ollie's finer comedies of the 1940s, especially by devotees of their work. (** steaks)
