Dick & Doof als Mitgiftjäger

It's the morning of Oliver's wedding to oil baron Peter Cucumber's daughter. While waiting for the taxi to take them to the ceremony, Oliver and his best man Stanley become absorbed

Not the best from the boys, the gags aren't constant, but it's watchable and amusing. L & H had enough talent to make anything, no matter how routine, to shine.

Ollie is in the midst of being married, which will then lead to a big promotion when Stanley brings over this puzzle. The puzzle occupies everybody's time, thus the cause for all the laughs in this fun short with the puzzle becoming an object that is revered by all who come in contact with it. Wonderful sequence with 6 people hovering over the puzzle at one time, like children. Needless to say, Ollie didn't get married, but the film did end with Stan finding the missing piece to the puzzle.

This short shows Laurel & Hardy at their best. Very little slapstick, as the comedy itself is played to the hilt. It's the essence of the running gag, the joke that keeps coming back, and back, and back, each time in a different way and funnier than before. The storyline is simple, and elegant - a common human obsession - getting addicted to a jigsaw puzzle - is first played rather normally, than slowly but inescapably grows and grows. This is like a Seinfeld episode before there was a Seinfeld.

It really shows their genius to create something like this, with a minimum of props and a direct storyline that doesn't get sidetracked, and all the byplay, including the wedding, eventually fits together like a jigsaw puzzle itself. Soon all the characters are involved in the puzzle, in one way or another, and it sucks them in like a giant vortex.

Obviously, this is one of my favorite shorts and is a good one to introduce someone to Laurel & Hardy.

Oliver Hardy is about to marry in to the family of a rich oil magnate so right away you know things won't be going to plan. Ollie is part of a double act whose humour comes out of his bullying of Stan Laurel so right away you know whose side to take and this short is no different . Let's be honest and say without the slightest feeling of guilt we love it when the bully's life lies in tatters

One thing I have noticed about the L&H shorts is that despite having a short running time - that's why they're called shorts after all- there's often a feeling of two different stories joined together, You might actually be astounded then when I was once briefly sitting in on an indie film company in Edinburgh up and coming short film makers would make the same mistake. It's probably not a fault of short film making but because of the nature of short film making it's far more noticeable than a 90 page screenplay. Here in this 1933 contribution everything is streamlined and simple and is all the better for it. It's also interesting as a window when jigsaws' and listening to the radio were classed as entertainment

What kind of present would Stanley buy to Ollie, who will soon get married? He would probably buy something very important, like a jig-saw puzzle. The puzzle would be a great present, because if Ollie is married he and Stan could not go out anymore. They could still try to solve that puzzle. Good thinking, Stan!

In this film not much is happening, because that stupid present takes all interest from everything else. Much fun is then due to that absurd situation and therefore this film should be seen as a warning of the complete waste of time that a jig-saw puzzle induces. Laurel and Hardy have done much better films than this but even this simple story shows how proficient they were. This is still a good film, because they manage to keep it simple and not overdo anything.