Laurel und Hardy: Zwei ritten nach Texas

Laurel and Hardy have to deliver the deed of a valuable gold mine to a girl called Mary Roberts (Rosina Lawrence).James Finlayson is the bad guy of the movie.He plays a man called Mickey Finn and when he hears the story of these two fellas he decides to fool them with the saloon singer Lola Marcel (Sharon Lynn).They introduce Lola as Mary Roberts to these two dummies.And they buy it.Way Out West from 1937 is a classic comedy from Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.It's one of their best comedies among with many others.It's enjoyable to watch the slapstick comedy with these two comedians of last century.This movie includes many funny parts that made me laugh and I just couldn't stop.Just like Stan couldn't after Lola tickled him.Watch Way Out West if you want to see Laurel and Hardy at their best.Nobody does it the way they did.

WAY OUT WEST

Aspect ratio: 1.37:1

Sound format: Mono

(Black and white)

Stan and Ollie are robbed of the deed to a valuable gold mine by a couple of fortune hunters (James Finlayson and Sharon Lynn).

One of Laurel and Hardy's most fondly remembered productions, WAY OUT WEST features career-best material, including a chase around the villain's apartment ("Ah-hah!" "Oh-hoh!" "Ee-hee!"), three wonderful musical interludes, and one of cinema's most priceless set-pieces: Stan and Ollie's soft-shoe shuffle outside a saloon as the Avalon Boys sing 'At the Ball'! Director James Horne was also responsible for many of L&H's short films, and his no-frills style is eminently suited to proceedings: Every routine is reduced to its basic components, all the better to 'sell' the gags, both visual and spoken. The film opened in 1937 to a number of lukewarm reviews, but has since secured its place within movie history. A bona fide masterpiece.

NB. The Avalon Boys included prolific character actor Chill Wills among their number (he also provides Stan's 'deep voice' during 'Trail of the Lonesome Pine'), and some of the incidental music was written by Irving Berlin! Neither of these gentlemen are credited on the print itself.

Laurel & Hardy travel out west to Brushwood Gulch to keep a promise to an old prospector . On his death they must take a locket and the deeds to a valuable goldmine to his daughter. When they arrive at the saloon where she works, the saloon owner sees a chance to get rich and gets one of his dancers to pretend to be the daughter, Mary. When they discover their mistake the pair try to get the deeds back but are driven out of town. They plan to return that night and rob the safe of the deeds and return them to Mary.

I have been watching plenty of Laurel & Hardy shorts recently but it's been many years since I saw anything longer from them, so it was with great joy I saw this in the TV schedule and settled down to watch it. My first observation as a short watcher is that it is surprisingly close to the consistency of the shorts, even if it is over three times longer than those. The plot is detailed enough to provide several really good routines but also plenty of really enjoyable gags.

Of great enjoyment to a fan of the shorts were several comic scenes that showed them to be more than just funny men. The soft shoe shuffle is the oft-quoted favourite and is quite amusing but the songs are all enjoyable without intruding on the comedy in the way some films of the time did. The most pleasurable aspect is Hardy's voice – he is a charming baritone and is really surprising. Laurel is good too and the pair are cool on `Trail of the Lonesome Pine'.

Both Laurel & Hardy's delivery is impeccable and the routines and gags are only made better by their talent. Finalyson is excellent and for me is easily the king of that double take/squint thing that he does so very well! Lynn and Lawrence are both OK but are really secondary characters behind the men.

Overall fans will rightly love this film and it may also win over some who have yet to experience the pair. It has music, dance, routines and gags – all delivered by the great duo themselves. What more do you need?

Laurel and Hardy really don't have to DO anything to make me laugh. When they are on my screen, I howl. "West" is, in my opinion, their best film. Laurel did the cutting and he put in some sound effects that punch up the action. The spoken lines are hilarious: Stan, speaking to an imposter: "We want to know why you are not Mary Roberts!" The ridiculous dance in front of a blatantly obvious rear-projection screen is a gem. I have this movie on VHS and have run it many times. It does not get old.

This is truly one of the funniest movies ever made. I'll never look at another block and tackle without a chuckle. And of course that groovy soft shoe shuffle and the Trail of the Lonesome Pine are gems - cinema history. Stan and Ollie weren't just slapstick geniuses. Theirs was a subtle blend of visual, acute observational and surreal comedy that has rarely been matched and never beaten. This film exemplifies their craft perfectly and shows touches of where, twenty to forty years later, the Goons, Monty Python, Tommy Cooper and The Comic Strip were coming from. After seeing this I recommend Sons of The Dessert, their other feature length masterpiece.