Do Detectives Think?

When Laurel and Hardy are on the case, you don't expect Sherlock Holmes-quality deductions, but you know there will be some laughs. This comedy is a bit uneven, but pretty good overall. Stanley and Oliver are detectives who are hired to protect a judge whose life has been threatened, and they get some reasonable mileage out of this simple situation. They are helped out by frequent supporting player James Finlayson as the judge, and by Noah Young, who is suitably menacing as an escaped convict. It's not among their best comedies, but it has some good moments, and is certainly worth watching for any fan of Laurel and Hardy.

This is one of their faster shorts. Finlayson is a judge who sentences a murderer to death. The murderer promises to escape and murder the judge. He escapes forthwith. In a panic, Finlayson calls the police and begs them to send their two smartest detectives. Laurel and Hardy show up, but not before the killer has managed to enter the house and pose as the butler.

Some of the gags were later used by other writers -- Finlayson hiding by lowering himself beneath the bathwater only to accidentally pull the plug with his toe. If it was, in fact, copped from this short, it's because it's pretty funny.

The straight narrative is interrupted by a graveyard scene that's as amusing as anything else.

Judge Jimmy Finlayson sentences maniacal slasher Noah Young to be hanged by the neck until dead, "And I hope you choke!" This so enrages Young that he escapes to kill Finn. The police assign two detectives to guard him: Laurel and Hardy.

It's astonishing how fast these two old hands came together as a team. Here's where they picked up their derbies. Of course! it was the featured headwear for metropolitan plain clothes men in the era. They do their wrong hat gag for a minute or two.

I've seen this one a dozen times or more over the years and laugh like a maniac every time.

Although by no means a comedy must-see, "Do Detectives Think?" is a worthy movie from Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, who in 1927 just began working together as a comedy team, for the Hal Roach studio's.

It's a movie that is good thanks to its little comical moments. It's not the sort of movie that is hilarious constantly but it has some great original and funny moments in it that are good for a couple of laughs. It's certainly not the most consistent Laurel & Hardy silent comedy short around but it's an enjoyable one nevertheless, which is also thanks to its fun simple story. It makes "Do Detectives Think?" an above average early Laurel & Hardy movie.

Problem of the movie really is that the comical moments in it are rather stretched out. If only the movie was about halve its running time shorter, perhaps the movie than would had been a better and even more enjoyable one. The movie its flow would at least had been better if that had been the case.

The cast is good. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy (who was looking quite thin by the way) already seem to be in their element as the famous comical duo. Also really good was James Finlayson in a great comical role. He steals the show in most of his sequences. Just his looks alone and some small actions is enough to provide the movie with some great laughs and comical moments. Also Noah Young is well cast, as a psychotic killer who tries to kill the judge (the James Finlayson character) who convicted him. The boys play two detectives, with odd names, who are send by their agency to protect the judge but of course everything goes wrong and the boys really mess things up again.

Of course everything about the movie is predictable but it's a well made and originally directed movie. The timing is nice and the movie is well edited which makes most of the comical moments work out really well.

A good enough enjoyable early Laurel & Hardy comedy short, that uses a bit too many stretched out comical moments to prevent this movie from being one of their best works.

7/10

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Judge James Finlayson's life has been threatened and indeed why would it not be threatened as he's a hardnosed law and order type who has just handed out a life sentence to some tough criminals. That gang hires the Slasher played by a creepy Noah Young to take vengeance on Finlayson.

This film may have been responsible for the adversarial relationship that Stan and Ollie enjoyed with Finlayson. The boys are the detectives that are sent by the local police to guard the life of the good judge.

The pattern of the characters of Stan and Ollie that we would get to know so well is forming here. Stan is the simpleton and he knows it, Ollie is the man who thinks he's a genius, but always falls way short. One thing Ollie is not is a marksman, a fact he proves by frightening everyone in the house with his shooting.

Future frenemies are formed here.