Dick und Doof und die Wundersäge

The short is bookended by lovely titles with a saw rolling across, gorgeous. Any comedy short is only as good as its set pieces, so I break them up thusly:

* The car, with its special radio, is great and reminds me of a story I heard about John Lennon who apparently had a record player in his fancy car, but you can only use it when you're stopped for a picnic for example, not while you're driving.

* The sawmill, with wood everywhere you walk. Belly laughs.

* The boys fight quite a bit, in the way the Three Stooges became famous for later.

* The window. Goes a bit long.

* The chute. Incredible.

* Sawing a (something) in half. Brilliant. This gag: 10/10

A great first short to see from my new 21-disc set.

8/10

While not as infamous as The Music Box, I feel certain that this must be one of Laurel and Hardy's best-remembered shorts. Lasting just under 20 minutes, it's arguably their most physical work, with an almost non-stop array of sight gags.

A benefit of a Laurel and Hardy season on television is it gives you insight into characteristics that you'd forgotten. For instance, I never remembered Stan as being a grass, but he's always stitching people up (Pardon Us, Pack Up Your Troubles, et al) and here he gets a man thrown out for smoking. Stan's fight with the same man is the most hilarious moment of the eleven films screened during a Christmas season, but then this one is packed with many laugh-out-loud moments. That a film that is over seventy five years old can still produce such amusement is astonishing, but the duo are extremely good at what they do, and here at the top of their game. I won't give away the rest, but suffice it to say that Ollie's struggle with a sink and their car's clash with a sawmill is two of the funniest things I've seen in ages.

One thing that puzzles me is how many of these L&H shorts feature absolutely no plot but I never seem to notice this because I`m too busy laughing . BUSY BODIES is set in a sawmill but that`s it , there`s no central plot , just a series of incidents which show the genius of Stan and Ollie .

This is certainly one of the best shorts because it showcases the duo at their most typical , Ollie gets gets hit over the head by falling objects while Stan turns to the camera and shrugs . There`s also a fight scene that had me in stiches , okay I knew what the pay off was going to be as soon as Stan said " Cigar " but you`d need to be crippled by clinical depression not to surpress a smile at this

A seventy year old black and white film with no plot and it made me laugh . I can`t think of a better compliment

'Busy Bodies' is one of my favorite Laurel & Hardy shorts. In this one they work at a sawmill and you can imagine what can go wrong in a place like that.

With some great and very funny scenes, one with A closed window and another one that reminded me of Chaplin's 'Modern Times' (this movie was earlier), make this a great Laurel & Hardy short.

This is one I remember from childhood, and while the passing of a few decades means Laurel and Hardy's antics might no longer be absorbed with the unquestioning adoration and unbridled willingness to laugh at anything and everything they do, it's still easy to forgive them for the occasional lapse of quality. The boys knew what their audience liked and wanted and they delivered it over and over again: the same facial expressions, the same reactions, the same phrases. What sets them apart from other comedy teams whose collection of prepared reactions and responses haven't stood the test of time is the inventiveness they managed to maintain for most of the 1930s.

The boys are employed by a saw mill in this one, and at the beginning of the film all is well with the world. Of course, this being a Laurel & Hardy film, such a state of affairs isn't allowed to last and it isn't long before they're trading punches with workmates and Ollie has a paint brush glued to his chin. Stan barely utters a word for the first five minutes which is, perhaps, an indication of how this film could easily have been made without sound. All the gags are visual (apart from the unique car radio).