On a gaffé

We Faw Down (1928)

** (out of 4)

Routine Laurel and Hardy short has the boys lying to their wives and sneaking out for a poker game but they're picked up by two flirts. This here has a couple good laughs including a wonderful site gag at the end but there's really nothing here that separates it from better shorts dealing with the same subject matter.

I viewed this film in the 21-disc, UK box set, which is a dream come true for fans of Laurel and Hardy. It's certainly worth the money if you are a fan.

Once more the famous two get in some serious trouble with their wives, after a series of unfortunate incidents, which forces them to come up with a lie, which of course only make their situation even worser...

The jokes remain funny, even after they are repeated multiple times in the movie. The events leading up to the confrontation with the two wives are both wonderfully constructed and executed and filled with some typical slapstick humor. The movie knows to remain constantly funny throughout the whole movie which makes this a very consistent comedy to watch.

The ending might have some slow moments in it and might not be as funny as the first part of the movie, it doesn't really make the movie less pleasant to watch. "We Faw Down" is good enough for more than a few laughs and it shows Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy once more in top-form and their chemistry and timing is spot-on!

Perhaps not as memorable and good as other Laurel & Hardy pictures but still an entertaining and watchable comedy-short from the famous comical duo.

7/10

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Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were comedic geniuses, individually and together, and their partnership was deservedly iconic and one of the best there was. They left behind a large body of work, a vast majority of it being entertaining to classic comedy, at their best they were hilarious and their best efforts were great examples of how to do comedy without being juvenile or distasteful.

Although a vast majority of Laurel and Hardy's previous efforts ranged from above average to very good ('45 Minutes from Hollywood' being the only misfire and mainly worth seeing as a curiosity piece and for historical interest, and even that wasn't a complete mess), 'Two Tars' for me was their first great one with close to flawless execution. 'We Slip Up' is not quite as good, but is still among their best and funniest early efforts. Their filmography, apart from a few bumps along the way, was getting better and better and that is obvious here.

It may not be "new" material as such and the first part takes a little bit of time to get going.

When 'We Slip Up' does get going, which it does do very quickly, it is non-stop fun, not always hilarious but never less than very amusing. There is insane craziness that doesn't get too silly, a wackiness that never loses its energy and the sly wit emerges here, some of the material may not be new but how it's executed actually feels fresh and it doesn't get repetitive.

Laurel and Hardy are on top form here, both are well used, both have material worthy of them and they're equal rather than one being funnier than the other (before Laurel tended to be funnier and more interesting than Hardy, who tended to be underused). Their chemistry feels like a partnership here too, before 'Two Tars' you were yearning for more scenes with them together but in 'We Slip Up' we are far from robbed of that.

'We Slip Up' looks good visually, is full of energy and the direction gets the best out of the stars, is at ease with the material and doesn't let it get too busy or static. The supporting players are solid.

Overall, very good. Not essential or classic Laurel and Hardy, but a good representation of them. 8/10 Bethany Cox

WE FAW DOWN

Aspect ratio: 1.33:1

Sound format: Silent

(Black and white - Short film)

Stan 'n' Ollie get mixed up with a couple of floozies (Kay Deslys and Vera White) after setting out to visit a theatre which burns down in their absence! Needless to say, their tyrannical wives (Vivien Oakland and Bess Flowers) are not amused...

Leo McCarey's OK comedy laid the narrative framework for William Seiter's masterpiece SONS OF THE DESERT (1934), with L&H playing brow-beaten victims of circumstance, forced to tell a monstrous lie which backfires in spectacular fashion. Much of it is very funny, especially the scene in which Stan is teased by Deslys, leading to a violent game of push and shove. However, some of the fun is undercut by Oakland and Flowers, playing their roles completely straight, which adds an element of unpleasantness to the 'henpecked husband' scenario. Originally released in the UK as WE SLIP UP.

Stan Laurel and the writers for the Laurel and Hardy series of shorts and features on occasion reworked their movies from the pair's previous films. A good example is their December 1928's "We Faw Down." The story concerns the two falsely telling their wives they're going to a movie, but they're really playing poker at their friend's house. They get sidetracked helping two women get one of their hats wedged underneath a car. Laurel and Hardy's charitable act leads to a messy situation with one of the ladies' husband. When the two wives hear about what happened, there's heck to pay. If this sounds like Laurel and Hardy's 1933's "Sons of the Desert," this is exactly the outline of their classic feature film.

In addition, 1932's 'Their First Mistake' copies the telephone gag from "We Faw Down," pretending the call is from the pair's new boss. There were also scenes in "We Faw Down" that didn't make the final edit, but ended up in their next release, 1929's 'Liberty.'

Oliver Hardy told the pair's team of writers the tale he heard was from his laundress that spawned the "We Faw Down's" plot. It was a rare instance where Hardy's suggestion resulted in a storyline. Most of their movies' inspiration came from Laurel, who sketched a majority of the team's screenplays. Years of experience in comedy made Stan adept in shaping his writers' scripts, improving and adding a number of hilarious sequences. His working sessions were loud affairs with several writers in a conference room where each attempted to top the others by suggesting increasingly outrageous situations.

"We Faw Down" was Leo McCarey's first short directing Laurel and Hardy. He claimed he was responsible in pairing the two as a team the previous year (1927). McCarey's name was always listed in the credits as the 'Supervising Director.' For the first time he found out just as other directors before him that Laurel essentially ran the movie set. There was an unwitting understanding the head director always deferred to Stan. Hal Roach, their producer, said if Laurel didn't like what the director was telling them, "the director didn't say 'Well, you're going to do it anyway.' That was understood." Laurel would suggest the direction the scene was going to take, and the director picked up on the comic's idea and ran with it.