Me and My Pal

We have been so used to viewing the boys on Video, that it was a real pleasure last evening to see it on the big screen at a meeting of the L & H Appreciation Society. This film is a real riot with all the gags centered around Ollie's Wedding present from Stan - a jigsaw puzzle.The gags work after almost 70 years because it could have just as well have been a Nitendo Game in one of the modern-day sitcom. If this film is available on Video, and if you are a L & H Fan, I strongly urge you to either rent or purchase a copy.

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

This isn't one of the better shorts by Laurel and Hardy however it does prove that given practically no plot, the team was able to make even the simplest idea watchable and fun.

When the film begins, you learn that Ollie is about to marry a very wealthy heiress to a huge oil fortune. As he gets ready to go, Stanley drops by and gives Ollie his wedding present--a jigsaw puzzle. Oddly, it's as if the puzzle is possessed, as everyone coming to the house ends up mesmerized by putting it together--even though the wedding should have begun by now. Again and again, people come to the house but end up transfixed. Even the cabbie refuses to take Ollie to the wedding because he is much more interested in assembling the puzzle than making a buck driving Ollie.

There's a tiny bit more to the plot than that--but not much!! As I said, the plot is weak here and it's the barest of ideas--yet it still manages to work. You can't help but laugh as this tiny problem snowballs into a total catastrophe! See it and understand how the team was able to turn practically anything into gold during their heyday.

This is a very simple movie that relies on just one comical premise; a couple of grownups get fascinated at putting a puzzle together, while Oliver actually has a wedding to attend to. His own wedding!

At first this doesn't look like the most fun Laurel & Hardy short around but as the movie progresses it gets better and better. The more people show up putting the puzzle together, the more fun the movie gets. It's simple but it's still fun to see all those characters (Laurel & Hardy, a taxi driver, the butler, a policeman and a messenger boy) trying to put a puzzle together. It's simple childish humor but it works fun and effective. Also from the moment James Finlayson appears in the story, the movie begins to take a more slapstick form and the movie begins to features some fun slapstick moments, which of course eventually results in an huge brawl at the end of movie, between all of the characters.

Its simple comical premise works better than you at first sight would expect.

This really isn't the best written, most interesting or original Laurel & Hardy short but it's a perfectly fun, innocent movie to kill some time with.

7/10

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Ollie is getting ready to Marry the daughter of Oil Magnate Mr Cucumber (Laurel-Hardy regular James Finalyson), When Stan brings over a 200 piece Jigsaw puzzle in which everybody becomes sucked in to play with it,as well as Ollie and Stan there's The Policeman,Telegram messenger and the Cab Driver, Mr Cucumber and his daughter wait impatiently in the Church until he decides to drive over to ollie's house to see what's up, when a Jigsaw piece goes missing and the guys become paranoid about who has taken it resulting in a full scale slapstick fight,So policemen thinking it's a riot become involved and arrest everybody except Stan & Ollie who are hiding in a Sofa and up a chimney, So yet another of Ollie romances ends in disaster

Wonderfully made, funny short comedy with the best comic actors who ever lived

9/10