À l'âge de pierre

"Flying Elephants" (1928), a Laurel and Hardy short made in the last years of the silents is also one of the comedy's duo most bizarre film. The title itself is logic deifying, as the movie itself.

The story is weak: in the stone age, the king declares that all males must marry within twenty-four hours. Around this slender plot, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy do their best they can but, as they spend most of the picture apart (which is strange, as their first "official" movie together, "Putting Pants on Philip", had been made two years earlier), the result is never really satisfying and the high pint of the picture is when there is a shot of animated elephants with wings on flying into the distance, hence the title. The elephants were animated by Walter Lantz and is possible the most surrealist aspect in all of Laurel and Hardy's movies.

It's not a great short by "the boys" but there are several good gags that will reward Laurel and Hardy film buffs.

Although both Stan and Ollie appear in this stone-age comedy, it isn't really a Laurel & Hardy film, because there's no sense yet of the boys working as a comedy partnership. They're simply a couple of stock comics Hal Roach decided to put together in a film. I believe Stan and Ollie appeared together in a number of films for Roach before he twigged to what a comedy goldmine he had on his hands.

Flying Elephants isn't a particularly funny comedy, although it does have a couple of amusing moments. It's decreed that any single man not married within 24-hours will be banished or killed – or both. So Stan and Ollie both go out, club in hand, to snare themselves a woman. Although stone age women seem to be in plentiful supply – everywhere you look there's one of them lounging around on a rock waiting to be picked up – both boys have trouble bagging one for themselves and end up going after the same woman – who just happens to be the daughter of James Finlayson, the victim here of a raging toothache.

The film is enlivened by some amusing special effects which, of course, look incredibly creaky today, but which also add a measure of charm to the proceedings. Stan probably makes more of an impression with his effeminate skipping and shaggy blonde wig, and it's interesting to see the gradual evolution of what would become the movie's greatest comedy duo.

This relatively early pairing of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy (not quite yet the team of 'Laurel & Hardy' as we know them) has a great deal of silly and goofy material - and it's practically impossible not to laugh as you watch it. Their casual, good-natured approach and the offbeat story material are the movie's most obvious features, but it is their skilled comic timing and the way they blend themselves in with the props, settings, and the rest of the cast that make it work.

It's a rarity amongst their movies in being set in the past - in this case, all the way back to the Stone Age. The setting and characters are presented in an exaggeratedly broad fashion, with plenty of clubs and the like. The two main characters contrast, with Hardy playing a more or less stereotypical caveman, and Laurel playing a character who would have been lucky to survive for five minutes in the real Stone Age. It adds some deliberately anachronistic medieval dialogue in the inter-titles, plus Hardy's "Flying Elephants" line, which comes out of nowhere.

It gets quite amusing at times, although it's very likely that lesser comics could not have made it work nearly so well. The two stars are joined by a good supporting cast, headed by their frequent foil James Finlayson. Viola Richard and Dorothy Coburn play a couple of attractive cave-women who are, nevertheless, not to be trifled with.

Even compared with their own best movies, this is quite unrefined and outlandish. But, at least if you like Laurel and Hardy, it's also pretty entertaining to watch.

This is perhaps the Laurel & Hardy movie with the most silliest and random humor in it.

The movie has a silly premise and it is entirely set in the Stone Age. This movie perhaps was a sort of experiment to see how the audience would react to a Laurel & Hardy movie that was not set in the 20th century and featured some almost cartoon like humor. In my opinion it's a rather failed experience. Although the movie does entertain, it really misses the Laurel & Hardy touch. It makes this movie basically just as good (or bad) as any other '20's slapstick movie.

Although the movie is simple and silly, it certainly is no bad movie to watch. It has some real good funny moments in it, especially the scene in which the James Finlayson character gets thrown of the mountain is priceless but overall it still is a pretty simple movie that is too odd and different to please the most hardened Laurel & Hardy fans.

The comedy seems to be very random, just like is the case in animated cartoons. Probably the reason why this is the silliest Laurel & Hardy movie around. It also doesn't make the movie the most consistent Laurel & Hardy comedy short around.

To be honest the title cards were often funnier to read than it was to watch this movie. Not a really a good or common thing for a Laurel & Hardy movie.

Stan Laurel does play a pretty good and very different role. It shows his variety as an actor and he shows that he can be funny, no matter what sort of role he plays. When he enters the screen the movie becomes truly entertaining and fun to watch. It's too bad that he gets introduced rather late into the movie. The movie also features Laurel & Hardy regular James Finlayson, who doesn't play a very big or significant but still fun role. Further more the movie is mostly filled with some pretty looking young cave-women.

A very silly movie. Beware not to expect a regular early Laurel & Hardy silent comedy short.

6/10

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Consider this prospect: Laurel & Hardy & Company are cavemen in furry pelts, running around in a remote canyon somewhere enacting what amounts to a silent version of The Flintstones. It doesn't seem to promise much in the way of great comedy, does it? A capsule summary of Flying Elephants might elicit groans from those who haven't seen it, and, what with comedy being so subjective and personal, there are probably plenty who've seen it and dismissed it as silly, juvenile, low-brow, etc. All I can say is: okay, guilty as charged, but I confess I really enjoy this movie anyway. Whatever else it may be, this two-reeler also happens to be quirky, fast-paced and off-the-wall, with a surreal wackiness that other comedians occasionally attempt but only rarely achieve. The Marx Brothers managed it in Duck Soup and for short stretches elsewhere, and the Fleischer Studio guys and Tex Avery made some cartoons that reached this level, but Flying Elephants is one of a kind. You can't just crank out stuff like this; the charming weirdness would wear thin pretty quickly.

Although Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy each appear prominently, Flying Elephants isn't really a "Laurel & Hardy" comedy as such. At the time this was made they were working together a lot but hadn't yet gelled as the team we recognize. Babe Hardy's performance is quite funny and oddly consistent with his later work; his special rhythms, gestures and expressions are there, despite the wig and the animal pelt he's wearing. But Mr. Laurel is the one who really gets freaky, hopping about in a curly blonde wig like a sissified Harpo Marx. The name of his character, Little Twinkle Star, tells the tale. It's anomalous in his career but nonetheless one of Stan's most energized and memorable turns, and a revelation to anyone who thinks he's a one-note performer. Stan has a fly-fishing sequence that is a comic high point, and it's just the sort of eccentric routine he could make his own.

Much of the plot-- such as it is --concerns courtship and marriage rituals among these cave dwellers. The movie begins with an absurd wedding ceremony which sets the tone for what follows. We learn that a royal decree has compelled the males to take wives, although, come to think of it, you wouldn't expect people in animal pelts to care much about formal nuptials. Much of the dialog (conveyed via title cards, of course) is in a strange, pseudo-Medieval slang. There are gags involving trained goats, animated fantasy beasts, a man in a bear suit, and an animal (a cow, perhaps?) disguised as a dinosaur. Speaking of dinosaurs good old Jimmy Finlayson is on hand, identified as a "wizard" apparently to justify a vulgar but funny pun utilizing the word. A decided bonus for modern viewers is the supporting cast of cute starlets in abbreviated cave flapper outfits, complete with bobbed hair, furry boots, and garters. A gorgeous young actress named Viola Richard plays Finlayson's daughter, Blushing Rose, and her close-ups can melt your heart decades after the fact. Viola seems to have vanished from the screen not long after this film was made, for some baffling reason.

Oh well. There are still prints of Flying Elephants around to amuse, amaze, and tickle those viewers open to this sort of thing.