Les Joies du mariage

A LAUREL & HARDY Comedy Short. The Boys have each married the other's twin sister - both of whom have the same personality as her brother. A simple dinner party to celebrate their one year wedding anniversaries turns into a cat fight between the girls - which only proves that you can get double the chaos when it's TWICE TWO.

This is a hilarious little film, one of Stan & Ollie's best. They are perfect playing their female counterparts. Carol Tevis dubs the voice of Mrs. Hardy; Mae Wallace that of Mrs. Laurel.

In "Twice Two", Laurel and Hardy each play a dual role, with the idea being that they have each married the other one's sister. It's a creative setup, and they are both pretty good as the spouses. (The men do the acting, with the voices dubbed in by women.) Most of it takes place as the four have dinner together, and plays off of the tangled relationships among them. It is slower paced than usual, and is not really as funny as their best films. It's still worth watching, although it is probably of interest primarily to those who are already Laurel and Hardy fans.

I hadn't seen this L&H "Twice Two" before but I find myself re-watching it on my DVR as a better effort by them than some of their other better-known short films. Yes, the dubbing of the womens' voices is not perfect but that is hardly a problem. There is so much more that IS good: The sound effects are great - when Stan's wife (played by Ollie) gets a cake dumped on her - twice - or when eating supper and she claims the noise she is making is not her slurping the soup, but "it's my asthma..." and then lets loose with a noise that sounds like an elephant snorting through a ditch pipe. Of course Ollie's reaction to his sister's 'asthma' noise is a puzzled stare into the camera.

Stanley was great too, playing Ollie's wife. You have to watch closely but he made some of the best faces I've ever seen him do.

I'll never say it's their very best but this is much better than some L&H things that I've seen. Late in their career Oliver Hardy seemed to be too fat to do the physical comedy and the stories were not even believable from a comedy standpoint. This early short is funny and I enjoyed it.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy reached their creative best with Twice Two where they their usual selves and female counterparts. It seems as though Stan and Ollie have married each other's sister and both think it was a great idea as it cements the relationship of the two.

They might have to rethink the notion as a family dinner at the Laurels proves a disaster. The female Ollie falls into a cake during the preparation. There's also a great gag with simply Stan using Ollie's key to open the front door. I won't say more but I think it's a tribute to both of them, especially Stan the creative one that they could get so many laughs with a simple act all of us but shut-ins do nearly every day.

Of course with the female personas half the credit should go to the actresses who provided the voices for the characters. May Wallace for Stan and Carol Tevis for Ollie perfectly match those familiar bodies in drag.

Offspring from these unions would be called double cousins. Just think what those kids might be like.

Stan and Ollie have both married into each others family's, to celebrate their respective wedding anniversaries, dinner is arranged.

Seeing both Stan and Ollie in drag, side splitting, incredibly funny scenes, showing the two legends were happy enough to explore any avenue to get the laughs. It does seem somewhat strange that the guys would go for each others sisters, but it's true what they say, it's a funny old world.

Plenty of laughs to enjoy here, for such a short film, it really does pack in the laughs, still the best physical humour you could imagine.

Cleverly filmed, managing to get the dual characters on screen at the same time, in 1933 that was a real triumph.

The voice overs work a treat, they are so outlandish, so wonderfully over the top, they seem to capture the spirit of Laurel and Hardy very well.

It was fun to discover they Fanny and Sandy were as clumsy and accident prone as their respects brothers.

9/10.