On a gaffé

Just watched this Laurel & Hardy comedy on Hulu as linked from IMDb. In this one, Stan & Ollie are trying to get to a poker game but their wives seemed determined to keep them at home. So when someone from there calls, Ollie takes it and addresses him as Boss so he could fool the spouses that he and Stan are going to the Orpheum Theater to see a live show with him. After they leave, they meet a couple of ladies after one of them misplaces a hat...I'll stop there and just say while there's not too much slapstick here (though the give-and-take between Stan and one of the ladies was pretty funny), there is some highly amusing pantomime between the boys when they try to describe what they saw in the show as the wives can only grimace at what they know are bald-faced lies. Don't want to reveal much more than that so I'll just say I recommend We Faw Down. P.S. On YouTube, there's an "extended" version which puts nearly the entirety of Laurel & Hardy's next short, Liberty, in the middle of it. This is obviously because those scenes were originally part of this short but had to be cut for time constraints.

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

An early pre-talkie Laurel & Hardy short with the formula already in place. Memorable for the scene in which Stan's eyebrow shoots toward his hairline every time his flirty companion presses his nose and his tongue pops out when she pokes his throat.

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.

This film features Laurel and Hardy in a very familiar plot. As is often the case, the boys go out to play and lie to the wives about it--with disastrous results. This type of situation was featured in several films made by the team (such as THEIR PURPLE MOMENT and BLOTTO) and was remade very closely in SONS OF THE DESERT. In fact, after Laurel and Hardy, this same plot was reworked on "The Honeymooners" and even "The Flintstones"!

In this film, Stan and Ollie go out for a good time and meet two ladies who eventually ask them back to their apartment. What they don't know is that the wives suspect the boys are playing around and one of the lady has a boyfriend who is a professional boxer! The wives actually catch them in the act but Stan and Ollie don't know it--and there is a very, very long segment where the boys make up lie after lie to explain themselves. This leads to an expectedly violent confrontation. The end was cute and repeated very closely in BLOCKHEADS. While there's a lot of familiar material in this short, it is very well done and funny.