Sailors, Beware!

One of the better shorts made with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy before their celebrated teaming;well produced,some amusing sequences,though frustratingly the boys don't share that many scenes in the film.Still,we get the the first known camera-look from Hardy(although he had performed this trait in previous films,notably STICK AROUND,made in 1925),and Anita Garvin and Harry Earles are fine as an improbable man and wife jewel thieving team.Hal Yates is credited with the direction,though in fact Hal Roach is thought to have been the director,with Yates filming one day's worth of retakes.Later in the year,he directed HATS OFF,when the teaming was becoming an item;sadly no copy of HATS OFF is known to exist.

Although I just adore Laurel & Hardy, I can't say that I was very amused by this early attempt of the two.

It's definitely true that this movie can't really be labeled as a Laurel & Hardy movie, since they don't appear in this movie as a comical duo. They play two separate roles, although they also interact with each other during some of movie its moments.

It's one of the earliest movie starring the two boys. Their later trademark style of slapstick humor and chemistry is not yet fully notable in this movie. Instead the movie features some highly predictable and far from original comedy moments. The movie isn't even ashamed to recycle some of its own jokes time after time.

Of course it's true that the movie also does have its moments. It's still fun enough to consider this a watchable movie but I have the feeling that Laurel & Hardy fans will probably be disappointed with this movie. It's not a movie that made me laugh a lot, though I think I smiled a lot. Especially the moments with the 'baby' were amusing. Kind of spooky to find out that the 'baby' was actually being played by an actual adult. Freaky!

The movie is a bit longer than other Laurel & Hardy silent comedy shorts. The movie is 26 minutes long (so the 20 minutes runtime shown on this site is false!). It definitely shows on screen that this movie is longer than average. Some moments are overlong and tiresome. Seemed that 20 minutes was really the ideal length for a comedy short, at that time period. Perhaps if the movie had been shorter, I would also had been more positive about it.

Obviously the boys and Hal Roach were still searching for the right comedy style, timing and pacing.

This movie just does not yet fully show the Laurel & Hardy we all love.

6/10

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Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy appeared in a substantial number of films together before they were officially teamed by producer Hal Roach. In fact, Roach (a very shrewd businessman) always kept Stan and Ollie under separate contracts to his studio, intentionally dating the contracts so that Hardy's would expire (and be renewed) six months after Laurel's. This clever gambit prevented Stan and Ollie from leaving Hal Roach Studios simultaneously and negotiating a better deal for themselves as a team elsewhere. This also explains why Roach produced 'Zenobia' as a solo vehicle for Hardy: because Laurel's contract had expired and he had not yet renewed.

During the period before their official team-up, the Roach shorts that co-starred Laurel and Hardy tended to give them separate footage (as in 'Flying Elephants'), or to feature them as rivals rather than allies. Still, the strong chemistry between Stan and Ollie shines through, often quite hilariously, even when they're foiling each other rather than working together.

'Sailors Beware' is one of the "pre-team" Laurel & Hardy team-ups. Not only is this a very funny movie; it's also a very interesting example of how Stan and Ollie play *against* each other as antagonists. As they're not yet a team, they're still using 'funny' character names instead of their own monickers.

Stan is Chester Chaste (ouch!), a cab driver who picks up a fare: a stylish brunette (Anita Garvin) with her baby in tow. Mother and infant are in a hurry to get to the quayside, to board the Miramar, a luxury liner. Stan's passengers board safely, but then Stan's cab gets caught in a cargo hoist -- with Stan inside, of course -- and gets yanked aboard the ship. By the time Stan gets out of his cab, the ship is underway ... with Stan shanghaied.

Oliver Hardy, in a role definitely subordinate to Laurel's, plays the ship's pompous purser. As far as he's concerned, Stan is a stowaway. He puts Stan to work, to pay his passage.

Meanwhile, it turns out that the brunette is Madame Ritz, the notorious jewel thief. And the 'baby' is in fact her husband and accomplice Roger ... a midget! Roger is played by midget actor Harry Earles. In several silent films, including this one, Earles played a midget who impersonates a baby ... and his disguise is astonishingly convincing. Just occasionally, the adult Earles actually did play a genuine baby on screen, sometimes as a stunt double. Regrettably, the arrival of talkies ruined Earles's acting career: he had a thick German accent, was getting a bit too old for nappies, and the talkies revealed that he had no real acting ability. He ended his screen career as one of the Munchkins: the one with the dark blue shirt in the Lollipop Guild trio.

Madame Ritz and her faux infant have boarded the ship with the specific intention of robbing the wealthy passengers. If a baby gets caught in the act of snatching a pretty bauble and stuffing it into his pram ... well, surely it's an innocent mistake, yes? There are several hilarious set-pieces in 'Sailors, Beware' ... and the implausible comedy is made funnier by the fact that Earles's baby impersonation is indeed so realistic. In one scene, the 'baby' suckers Stan into a crap game and proceeds to swindle him. I laughed at this, but I found it too contrived: Stan's character in this movie doesn't seem *quite* dumb enough to fail to suspect that a baby who can shoot craps isn't really a baby.

But this is the sort of humour that can't stand up to analysis. 'Sailors Beware' is very funny, and an interesting example of Laurel and Hardy -- as opposed to Laurel & Hardy -- playing against each other. It doesn't hurt that Anita Garvin is quite sexy here, as usual. I'll rate this comedy 7 out of 10.

Sailors Beware is one of Laurel & Hardy's earlier shorts, and they're not friends in this one. Ollie's a ship's purser with an eye for the ladies while Stan is a taxi driver who gets duped out of his fare and winds up on Ollie's boat. The film is quite funny, although the most memorable aspect is the midget who plays the husband of a villainous vamp. Disguised as a baby throughout, the midget puffs on a cigar and cheats at dice. Weirdest of all, he actually looks like a baby, which definitely lends a surreal quality to the film at times.

Stan's persona is almost fully developed by now. The blank gazes at the screen aren't there yet, but the confused tears of distress are, and it's clear his character isn't the brightest of sparks. He's probably not quite as dim as he would later be, but he's getting there. Ollie, meanwhile, displays surprisingly few of the trademark delicacies of movement that would later make him instantly recognisable. The film's still worth a look, anyway. If you like the boys and/or silent comedy, you're sure to be entertained.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were comedic geniuses, individually and together, and their partnership was deservedly iconic and one of the best there was. They left behind a large body of work, a vast majority of it being entertaining to classic comedy, at their best they were hilarious and their best efforts were great examples of how to do comedy without being juvenile or distasteful.

'Sailors, Beware!' is nowhere near classic Laurel and Hardy, later films, short and feature, had stronger chemistry when fully formed and used their considerable talents better. At this point, Laurel was much funnier and more interesting while Hardy in most of the previous outings had too little to do. 'Sailors, Beware!' is still worth watching though and is an improvement on some of their previous short films, along with 'Duck Soup', 'While Girls Love Sailors' and 'Sailors, Beware!' it was up there as among Laurel and Hardy's best up to this point.

Personally would have liked more sly wit, more scenes with Laurel and Hardy together and Hardy having more screen time.

The story is a bit busy at times and both slight and formulaic..

Laurel however is very funny, and sometimes hilarious, like as was said for a few of his previous outings 'Sailors, Beware!' is worth seeing for him alone. Anita Garvin enjoys herself as well and has nice chemistry with Laurel. Despite saying above about Hardy's screen time being too short he is at least not wasted, and he does give one of his funniest and most interesting appearances of his pairings with Laurel up to this point despite his persona being not as fully formed as Laurel's. There is not enough of him and Laurel together and one can see glimpses.

A good deal of the humour is well timed, hugely energetic and very funny, with everything going at a lively pace, and there is a lot of charm and good nature to keep one going. 'Sailors, Beware!' looks quite good.

To conclude, decent. 7/10 Bethany Cox