That's My Wife

Undoubtedly the most hilarious Laurel & Hardy of all - but that's just my opinion. The first time I saw this film I was literally crying from laughter, especially during the lost necklace/dance sequence in the restaurant. Laurel in drag as Hardy's wife is absolutely priceless! No matter how many times I see it, I still laugh out loud, thank heaven for DVD and for Laurel & Hardy for leaving us with so much laughter and happiness!

That's My Wife (1929)

**** (out of 4)

Hysterical Laurel and Hardy film has enough gags for two films. Hardy's wife leaves him because she can't stand Laurel living with them. This causes a problem because Hardy's rich uncle is coming over to meet the new wife. With nothing else to do Laurel dresses up as the wife and everything goes to hell. This is now one of my favorite shorts from the duo because of the non-stop physical gags ranging from Laurel falling down a flight of stairs to a crazy scene involving a dance floor. This short is also something new because it adds quite a bit of sexual, Pre-Code laughs including the boys trying to give Laurel breasts and another scene where the two appear to be having sex.

Stan Laurel is once again called upon to slip into women's clothing in this silent short. Responsible for Ollie's wife leaving him, he must don some of her clothes to convince Ollie's wealthy uncle that he is Ollie's wife to avoid him losing an inheritance. Like all of the boys' movies, the story is merely a reason to involve Stan and Ollie in increasingly ridiculous situations, and the gags work pretty well here. Forced to go out on the town by the wealthy uncle, Stan has a stolen necklace dropped down the back of his gown at a nightclub, and Ollie's attempts to retrieve it provide plenty of laughs - especially when they emerge shame-faced from a telephone booth after being discovered by some guy wanting to use the phone. Two-thirds of the way in a priceless final gag is quietly and cleverly set up. One of the boys' better silent films.

This is a good Laurel and Hardy comedy, of the kind that gradually picks up energy as it goes along, so that by the end of it Stanley and Oliver find themselves in a thoroughly chaotic predicament. It's one of several movies that feature Laurel dressing as a woman, with this one probably the most extensive and resourceful of those sequences.

It starts off with Oliver's wife storming out just before his rich uncle arrives, with the express intention of meeting his nephew's wife. With Stanley doing his best to impersonate her, things start to get complicated quickly. The early stretches move a bit slowly at times, but then things pick up quickly once the group heads out to eat at an upscale restaurant.

Laurel gets most of the good moments here, and even as he portrays how clumsy his character is, he shows how versatile he himself could be at physical comedy. Jimmy Aubrey joins in the disorder as a confused fellow diner, and William Courtright, as the uncle, adds an assortment of facial expressions that comment on the situation as things unravel.

Since the last Laurel & Hardy short I reviewed was Early to Bed, it stands to reason that the next one in my chronological list should be Two Tars but because I already reviewed that one, as well as subsequent ones after that like Habeas Corpus, We Faw Down, Liberty, and Wrong Again under my previous username tavm, I'm now commenting on this one, That's My Wife. I previously watched this on VHS during the '90s when I bought it and I thought it was hilarious then and still do watching it now on YouTube especially when Stan once again dresses in drag, that's for sure! See, Ollie's real wife has left him for the last time because of Stan's staying with them for two years and since his uncle is coming to see them, the only way Mr. Hardy will get his money is if he's with his spouse happily married. I'll just now say this was mostly hilarious from beginning to end. So that's a high recommendation of That's My Wife.