Them Thar Hills

At home with a foot in plaster, Hardy is advised to cut out rich foot and maybe take a trip to help relieve his pains. Laurel and Hardy set out for a trip to the country on a sunny day and stumble across a building that had been used as a hideout for a gang of moonshiners. Unbeknownst to Laurel and Hardy, the moonshiners were forced to dump their alcohol into the well when the police came, a fact that they only discover once they start using the well water for cooking in.

A simple set up and simple execution leads to a very entertaining short in which Laurel and Hardy, well, get wasted! Their decline into a state of merry inebriation is funny to watch and leads to an amusing game of tit for tat while an angry husband takes a feathering while awaiting his chance for retribution. When Laurel says `jump in the well to put out the fire' I started laughing in expectation!

While the routines lack a real imagination (apart from that aforementioned scene) the film is well made and it is fun to watch the duo get hammered with hilarious results. Both men do well in the film with Hardy, as usual, carrying the brunt of the physical work. The support cast are both good but really it's Laurel and Hardy's show.

Overall this short doesn't have any one scene that really screams out as great (with the possible exception of the `jump in the well' scene) but it is good-natured and funny regardless.

Mr. Hardy is suffering from gout, so Mr. Laurel proposes they buy a trailer and go stay in the country. They park on a patch of land with a well on it. Little do they know.... well, anything. In this case, revenooers have poured moonshiner's products down the well. As they drink the water, their mood rises..... but here comes married couple Charlie Hall and Mae Busch. It all ends in one of the marvelous slow motion 'tit for tat' duels that the Boys got into.

Stan and Ollie were alternating their shorts with features by this point, and could choose to make a movie short or long depending on what they wanted to do. This undoubtedly contributed to their sustained level of excellence in this period.

A LAUREL & HARDY Comedy Short. Poor Ollie is suffering painfully from gout. His doctor advises rest, country air & lots of fresh water. So the Boys rent a trailer and head up into THEM THAR HILLS. Picking a quiet spot, they are unaware that the well has been tainted with many barrels of bootleg liquor. Drinking the water while fixing their dinner, they quickly become inebriated. They are suddenly visited by a bickering couple who've run out of gas. Playing host to the wife, Stan & Ollie share their water with her and she is roisteringly drunk by the time her husband returns...

This is a very funny little film & should be seen in conjunction with its follow-up, TIT FOR TAT. The slapstick fight between the Boys & Charley Hall, as the furious husband, is hilarious. Mae Busch is the wife; film mavens will recognize Billy Gilbert as the doctor.

Stan and Ollie made a lot of shorts. So many that it's natural that there would be some repetition of the gags. In this film, the formula from their silent film BIG BUSINESS is repeated but this time with Charley Hall. In fact, their fight with Hall was so successful, that it was repeated a year later in TIT FOR TAT.

Basically, what happens is that a small slap or insult or whatever provokes a response from Laurel and Hardy. And, this escalates and builds until the end result is total destruction. In BIG BUSINESS, a house and a car were destroyed, in TIT FOR TAT, two businesses bit the dust. In this film, Charley Hall is angry because the boys unintentionally got his wife drunk--resulting in him being covered in molasses and feathers and Stan and Ollie having their mobile home destroyed. It's formula but it's a good and funny one at that.

Nothing super new, but done so well.

Them Thar Hills, the story of Mr. Hardy needing good mountain climate, Mr. Laurel agreeing, and together they set out "for the mountains" with a small camper behind them, and the radiator overflowing. Being told to drink plenty of Mountain Water, they do so when they find a place with a well they drink as much water as possible; only what they don't know is that moonshiners dumped their liquor into the well. So, slowly, the boys become drunk, and when Mae Bush and Charlie Hall come to ask for gas, Mae becomes drunk as well; resulting in one of their funniest tit-for-tat sequences. The film has many of these hilarious moments, for instance, when Stan tries to carry Ollie, but through a little mishap, winds up dumping himself and Ollie in the bathtub! Also, while cooking and making everything ready for lunch, Ollie hums "The Old Spinning Wheel," and after a while, Stan gives in a good "Pum-Pum." This results in Ollie's hitting him over the head, saying, "I'm singing this song!"

This is an excellent Laurel & Hardy short subject, one that is a must-see for every Laurel & Hardy Fan. What is also exciting, is that apart from being a good film, this short will be celebrating its 70th anniversary on July 21, its initial release into theatres and the world in 1934.