Towed in a Hole

Laurel and Hardy have a business plan: instead of buying fish and selling it, they'll catch the fish themselves and cut out the middleman. Unfortunately, the people who are going to execute this idea are Stan and Ollie.

It's my favorite short by Laurel and Hardy. There are others just as good, but this is just them. Except for a brief appearance by Billy Gilbert (maybe seconds) to sell them a boat, it's all the Boys and the boat they are trying to recondition, right next to a big mud puddle. The inevitability of disaster is delicious, and the gags are, as usual, great.

While Stan & Ollie are successful fish salesmen, Stan suggests they can be even more profitable if they catch their own fish instead of buying them. So they buy a boat named Ruth (after Stan's about-to-be-second-wife) and work on it, with disastrous results, of course! Great slapstick sequences abound with Hardy, of course, getting the brunt of it. This was the last of their three films directed by George Marshall who left Hal Roach Studios after general manager Henry Ginsberg fired him over production delays. He later helmed classic films starring W. C. Fields, Bob Hope, and Martin & Lewis with a couple of solo Jerry Lewis pictures after that team split up. So as we leave Stan & Ollie attempting to go to sea, we'll next see Bud Abbott & Lou Costello at sea in In the Navy.

THE SELF SUFFICIENCY of the L & H team is presented here in the best example possible. The slow and deliberate method of working a gag to its maximum was very handily put to good use in these shorts. Whereas most all other comedians opted for an array of fast paced comic situations, being rapidly dispatched at sometimes break-neck pace, L & H worked each slowly and deliberately doing their own reactions to whatever. (As a true antithesis to this Hal Roach/Leo Mc Carey style, see some of comedian Larry Semon's silent screen work.)_

ANOTHER SINGULARLY UNIQUE feature of this short subject is that it is all Stan & Ollie. Other than the brief appearance of Billy Gilbert at the beginning, the boys have this one all to themselves. They play out their shtick against the backdrop of their seagoing reclamation project. The now familiar routines of Laurel messing up Hardy's work, Hardy's reaction, stare at the camera and his slow burn are meticulously combined with Laurel's crying to great effect.

ALONG WITH SUCH other titles as ME AND MY PAL. OUR WIFE and THE MUSIC BOX, we have what we like to call "quintessential Laurel & Hardy".

AS IS THE norm, all is lost in the end; bu we know that there will be other moments to come.

Towed In A Hole finds Laurel and Hardy seeking to expand their business horizons. When we first meet them they are selling retail fish from the back of their truck, fish caught by other people. Of course Stan gets the idea that they should get a boat and start catching their own fish to sell and become wholesalers. But what do these guys know from boats or fishing.

They buy a used boat that's a fix-it-up from Billy Gilbert who saw them coming a mile away. Then the rest of the film is spent in their futile attempts to repair this beached craft. After that it's the usual antics.

Best scene for me was Stan getting his head caught between the inside wall of the boat and the mast. What to do but saw the mast to get his head out. Good thing he had around a saw that he had been trying to make music on a few minutes earlier.

Problem was that while Stan was below Ollie was on top of the mast doing some repair there. When Stan finishes solving his problem the results are disaster for Ollie.

Directing these shenanigans for Hal Roach is George Marshall who would in a few years start turning out a whole series of some great comedy films.

Towed In A Hole also gives us some idea of Ollie's singing voice which was quite good. He doesn't sing, but right at the beginning he's hawking those fish in good voice in which he occasionally slips into the southern speech of his native Georgia.

Nice short subject for Stan and Ollie's legion of fans world wide.

It has a laugh a minute and has some very sophisticated humour. Two fabulous bits stand out - one where Stan is washing the anchor chain and 'wrings' it into a bucket of water. The other is where Stan has been confined to the cabin and plays noughts and crosses with himself. In the finale, there is this wonderful scene where Stan and Ollie watch helplessly as their newly painted boat careers down the road under sail power and smashes into a million pieces. The film does not have too many set pieces but contains loads of small, exquisite gags which will have you doubling up with laughter.