Laurel et Hardy au Far-West

As with any classic Laurel & Hardy, the plot is unimportant and just a frame on which to showcase their sweetly innocent brand of humor. Here they're trying to keep ownership of a goldmine out of the greedy clutches of a saloon owner and his blonde canary. The boys don't show up until 10 minutes into the proceedings, but from then on they are center stage with one routine after another.

Most are pretty funny, though the keep-away parlor chase goes on a shade too long as does the break-in escapade. However, when Hardy smugly revels in his superiority only to lose his outer garments and dignity to Laurel's witless bungling, we get a good look at the core of their appeal.

The comedy bits may be entertaining, but the several song and dance numbers are sublime. Notice how effortlessly the duo picks up on the hiccuping beat of the musical Avalon Boys. The resulting dance duet is among the most charming in film annals. Hardy in particular transforms from ungainly fat man into nimble blithe spirit, a beguiling triumph of grace over bulk, and more meaningful in its implications than the miles of over-produced, over- choreographed numbers from Hollywood's army of Big Musicals.

Sadly, theirs is the fey, gentle humor of an era gone by. Quite simply, there's been no one like them before or since. But at least a permanent record of their achievement remains for the rest of us who enjoy this lighthearted look at classic comedy.

Laurel & Hardy travel out west to Brushwood Gulch to keep a promise to an old prospector . On his death they must take a locket and the deeds to a valuable goldmine to his daughter. When they arrive at the saloon where she works, the saloon owner sees a chance to get rich and gets one of his dancers to pretend to be the daughter, Mary. When they discover their mistake the pair try to get the deeds back but are driven out of town. They plan to return that night and rob the safe of the deeds and return them to Mary.

I have been watching plenty of Laurel & Hardy shorts recently but it's been many years since I saw anything longer from them, so it was with great joy I saw this in the TV schedule and settled down to watch it. My first observation as a short watcher is that it is surprisingly close to the consistency of the shorts, even if it is over three times longer than those. The plot is detailed enough to provide several really good routines but also plenty of really enjoyable gags.

Of great enjoyment to a fan of the shorts were several comic scenes that showed them to be more than just funny men. The soft shoe shuffle is the oft-quoted favourite and is quite amusing but the songs are all enjoyable without intruding on the comedy in the way some films of the time did. The most pleasurable aspect is Hardy's voice – he is a charming baritone and is really surprising. Laurel is good too and the pair are cool on `Trail of the Lonesome Pine'.

Both Laurel & Hardy's delivery is impeccable and the routines and gags are only made better by their talent. Finalyson is excellent and for me is easily the king of that double take/squint thing that he does so very well! Lynn and Lawrence are both OK but are really secondary characters behind the men.

Overall fans will rightly love this film and it may also win over some who have yet to experience the pair. It has music, dance, routines and gags – all delivered by the great duo themselves. What more do you need?

Laurel and Hardy really don't have to DO anything to make me laugh. When they are on my screen, I howl. "West" is, in my opinion, their best film. Laurel did the cutting and he put in some sound effects that punch up the action. The spoken lines are hilarious: Stan, speaking to an imposter: "We want to know why you are not Mary Roberts!" The ridiculous dance in front of a blatantly obvious rear-projection screen is a gem. I have this movie on VHS and have run it many times. It does not get old.

"In James W. Horne's WAY OUT WEST, Laurel and Hardy go west to deliver the deed of a gold mine and promptly get themselves embroiled in duplicity and horseplay. They are perhaps the most unlikely knights in shining armor, that all depends on how feckless the villains are, James Finlayson's crooked salon owner Mickey Finn is outright cartoonish, which leaves Sharon Lynn's bejeweled salon singer Lola do the heavy lifting of manhandling Laurel with tickle torture, you can guess who is wearing the pants in that household.

WAY OUT WEST gifts audience with Laurel and Hardy's iconic synchronized dancing accompanied by the Avalon Boys, later the comical rendition of "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine", and Laurel's hat-eating, thumb-lighting gags, but its storyline is way too unremarkable to bother mentioning and the pratfall antics are deployed ad nauseam (I can imagine even the sinkhole would sigh resignedly)."

-

There are plenty of great comedies that are better-made, more innovative, and more artistically satisfying than "Way Out West," but pound for pound this one has made me laugh the most over the years, repeatedly and consistently. Great clowns like Chaplin and Keaton made themselves into Everyman underdogs; the Marxes and Fields were wise-acre anarchists; but Laurel and Hardy were, simply, overgrown children: exactly as innocent and cunning and kind-hearted and selfish and sincere as big kids in suits. They lacked the malice which underlay Abbot & Costello or the Three Stooges. When they warred with each other or outside parties they did so from an honest sense of being wronged, which then escalated to ridiculous and dangerous heights, all with exquisite timing. Their bouts of exasperation never lasted long; as they soon as they finished stomping on each other's hats and twisting each other's noses they would go back to the unquestioning comradeship of two school-kids who stick together for no other reason than that they always have and always will.

"Way Out West" is probably their best feature film, thanks to decent production values, a fun use of the period setting, a solid supporting cast, and a great mix of visual and verbal jokes. A river hides a pothole that materializes only for Oliver Hardy; a femme fatale wrests a deed to a gold mine from a helpless Stan Laurel by a dastardly bout of tickling (few things in movies are funnier than Stan Laurel laughing); the duo perform a gracefully silly soft- shoe dance; a thumb proves mysteriously flammable and a hat becomes briefly edible; Ollie's neck stretches out at least four feet before snapping back. Death is discussed: "Tell me, what did my father die of?" Stan, ever-helpful, replies: "I think he died of a Tuesday. Or was it a Wednesday?" Songs are sung, first by Ollie, in his melodious tenor, then joined by a startlingly basso Stan. (A bop on the head changes him to a ladylike soprano.) James Finlayson makes wild puffs and snorts of disgust at the camera. And Stan's exposed leg stops a speeding stagecoach with as much ease as Claudette Colbert's stopped a truck in "It Happened One Night." And Ollie, beaming, and giggling and twiddling his tie to perfection, flirts with a highly disinterested lady by using the immortal line: "A lot of weather we've been having lately." It's all sheer bliss, a great movie comedy.