Laurel & Hardy - Im Strudel der Gosse

Once more the famous two get in some serious trouble with their wives, after a series of unfortunate incidents, which forces them to come up with a lie, which of course only make their situation even worser...

The jokes remain funny, even after they are repeated multiple times in the movie. The events leading up to the confrontation with the two wives are both wonderfully constructed and executed and filled with some typical slapstick humor. The movie knows to remain constantly funny throughout the whole movie which makes this a very consistent comedy to watch.

The ending might have some slow moments in it and might not be as funny as the first part of the movie, it doesn't really make the movie less pleasant to watch. "We Faw Down" is good enough for more than a few laughs and it shows Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy once more in top-form and their chemistry and timing is spot-on!

Perhaps not as memorable and good as other Laurel & Hardy pictures but still an entertaining and watchable comedy-short from the famous comical duo.

7/10

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This is a fairly obscure Laurel & Hardy comedy which deserves to be better known, for while it's no masterpiece it is quite funny and entertaining, as well as unusual in some respects. We Faw Down is one of the earliest explorations of Stan & Ollie's relationships with their wives, and in 1933 it would serve as a blue-print for their best Battle of the Sexes feature, Sons of the Desert. It plays rather like a silent version of "The Honeymooners." Imagine Ralph Kramden & Ed Norton in this scenario: the boys tell their wives a fib in order to sneak out and play poker, but en route to the game they manage to get entangled with a boxer's flirty girlfriend; later, after narrowly escaping from the murderous boxer, they make matters worse for themselves by blatantly lying about the whole episode to their wives, who are now furious. The Gleason & Carney parallel with Laurel & Hardy has long been noticed, but it's especially apparent here, although in Laurel & Hardy's world it appears that forgiveness and understanding are harder to come by than in the Kramdens' apartment: at the end of this film, Mrs. Hardy is chasing the guys through an alley with a shotgun, firing at them. It's hard to imagine Alice Kramden doing that.

At any rate, what we have here is a Roaring Twenties sitcom, nicely photographed (by George Stevens, no less), smoothly directed (by Leo McCarey, no less), and beautifully well acted by the entire cast, Stan and Ollie in particular. At their best, Laurel & Hardy are so natural we don't even think of them as actors, but what better definition is there of first-rate acting? As actors playing off each other, the guys are at the top of their game in this short. Watch the interplay of their facial expressions in the opening scene as they conspire to fool their wives -- they couldn't fool grade school kids, but it's fun to watch them attempt to be sly. And later, when the boys are semi-innocently ensnared by two good time gals, there is a delightful extended sequence in which Stan is playfully tormented by the boxer's girlfriend, to his mounting annoyance and Ollie's growing amusement.

This is where the film gets into unusual territory, at least for viewers accustomed to the later, more child-like Laurel & Hardy. Although their characterizations are essentially in place in this early short, Stan and Ollie are distinctly more grown-up in their response to the sordid situation they get themselves into; they're simpletons to be sure, but grown-ups nonetheless. They're not entirely innocent, and they exchange wicked conspiratorial grins throughout. Even in the final sequence, when their story unravels and they stand revealed as liars, they can barely conceal their impish amusement over the whole thing -- and that's something you won't find later on, as they became more infantile and more fearful of their wives. They do pay for their misbehavior here, but at least they get some kicks along the way, and that's kind of a treat. You might say that We Faw Down presents Laurel & Hardy at their naughtiest.

Casting Note: In this film Mrs. Laurel is played by Bess Flowers, later to become famous -- to movie buffs, that is -- as the Queen of the Hollywood Extras. She appeared in scores of movies throughout the entire Golden Age of the studio system, usually as an elegantly attired dress extra. (Just check out this woman's filmography, it's amazing!) We Faw Down provides Ms. Flowers with a rare opportunity to play comedy in a featured role, and gives viewers a rare chance to get a look at this attractive lady for more than a few seconds. It's nice to see that she could hold her own with two of the top comedians in the business.

Just a quick note to say that this movie is silent, but was nevertheless released with music and effects on Vitaphone discs. The discs has been found, and at least the German Kinowelt DVD release of Sons of the Desert has We Faw Down as an bonus, complete with the music and effects track.

It is always a bonus to watch the silent Laurel & Hardy comedies with the proper, original music and effects track. This brings us a little bit closer to the film's original state.

In general, the Vitaphone system did not last very long, but the system of having soundtracks stored separately does open the possibility of restoring soundtracks even if the film element has been put together from various prints.

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.

Although a vast majority of Laurel and Hardy's previous efforts ranged from above average to very good ('45 Minutes from Hollywood' being the only misfire and mainly worth seeing as a curiosity piece and for historical interest, and even that wasn't a complete mess), 'Two Tars' for me was their first great one with close to flawless execution. 'We Slip Up' is not quite as good, but is still among their best and funniest early efforts. Their filmography, apart from a few bumps along the way, was getting better and better and that is obvious here.

It may not be "new" material as such and the first part takes a little bit of time to get going.

When 'We Slip Up' does get going, which it does do very quickly, it is non-stop fun, not always hilarious but never less than very amusing. There is insane craziness that doesn't get too silly, a wackiness that never loses its energy and the sly wit emerges here, some of the material may not be new but how it's executed actually feels fresh and it doesn't get repetitive.

Laurel and Hardy are on top form here, both are well used, both have material worthy of them and they're equal rather than one being funnier than the other (before Laurel tended to be funnier and more interesting than Hardy, who tended to be underused). Their chemistry feels like a partnership here too, before 'Two Tars' you were yearning for more scenes with them together but in 'We Slip Up' we are far from robbed of that.

'We Slip Up' looks good visually, is full of energy and the direction gets the best out of the stars, is at ease with the material and doesn't let it get too busy or static. The supporting players are solid.

Overall, very good. Not essential or classic Laurel and Hardy, but a good representation of them. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Stan Laurel and the writers for the Laurel and Hardy series of shorts and features on occasion reworked their movies from the pair's previous films. A good example is their December 1928's "We Faw Down." The story concerns the two falsely telling their wives they're going to a movie, but they're really playing poker at their friend's house. They get sidetracked helping two women get one of their hats wedged underneath a car. Laurel and Hardy's charitable act leads to a messy situation with one of the ladies' husband. When the two wives hear about what happened, there's heck to pay. If this sounds like Laurel and Hardy's 1933's "Sons of the Desert," this is exactly the outline of their classic feature film.

In addition, 1932's 'Their First Mistake' copies the telephone gag from "We Faw Down," pretending the call is from the pair's new boss. There were also scenes in "We Faw Down" that didn't make the final edit, but ended up in their next release, 1929's 'Liberty.'

Oliver Hardy told the pair's team of writers the tale he heard was from his laundress that spawned the "We Faw Down's" plot. It was a rare instance where Hardy's suggestion resulted in a storyline. Most of their movies' inspiration came from Laurel, who sketched a majority of the team's screenplays. Years of experience in comedy made Stan adept in shaping his writers' scripts, improving and adding a number of hilarious sequences. His working sessions were loud affairs with several writers in a conference room where each attempted to top the others by suggesting increasingly outrageous situations.

"We Faw Down" was Leo McCarey's first short directing Laurel and Hardy. He claimed he was responsible in pairing the two as a team the previous year (1927). McCarey's name was always listed in the credits as the 'Supervising Director.' For the first time he found out just as other directors before him that Laurel essentially ran the movie set. There was an unwitting understanding the head director always deferred to Stan. Hal Roach, their producer, said if Laurel didn't like what the director was telling them, "the director didn't say 'Well, you're going to do it anyway.' That was understood." Laurel would suggest the direction the scene was going to take, and the director picked up on the comic's idea and ran with it.