La flotte est dans le lac

The duo are back again, this time as sailors wooing to equally dumb girls. It's got the usual slapstick and facial expressions that make the viewer laugh but in addition to that, it's got some witty dialogues too. The bar scene where Hardy selfishly tries to get out of paying is downright hilarious. The slapstick regarding the boat where the duo try to row out but end up rotating in one spot, drags a little but the sequence thereafter, that leads to a 'catastrophe' is hilarious. I kept wondering, OK now the boat's going to sink until it eventually does. The underwear confusion in the beginning was another laugh-out-loud sequence and I'm glad they didn't overdo it by using clichés. That sequence could have ended with Laurel or Hardy handing over the underwear to the girls followed by an embarrassing scream but thankfully that was avoided and the plot continued well. Overall, it is a well executed movie. A nice little funny film.

"Men 'O War" was a short where Laurel and Hardy were still adapting to the new medium of sound. The dialogue is good enough but the pace is a bit leaden. Stan and Ollie are two sailors who befriend two young ladies in a park. They go to buy some drinks but Stan and Ollie only have 15 cents on them. There follows a marvellous scene where the boys agree to share a drink but Stan keeps forgetting this as he keeps ordering a drink he can't afford! The climax finishes with a full scale water fight after Stan and Ollie and their dates rent a boat for a pleasurable jaunt.

A LAUREL & HARDY Comedy Short.

Sailors Stan & Ollie, two MEN O'WAR, are on shore leave. While strolling through the park, they meet & escort two silly young women. After a financial contretemps at the soda fountain, the Boys initiate a rowdy donnybrook on the boat pond.

A hilarious little film, with a delightful sense of spontaneity, as if the performers were extemporizing much of their dialogue. This short is also refreshing in that the plot takes place entirely out of doors. Highlight: bedlam in the boat. The knickers sequence shows that this film was produced pre-Production Code. That's James Finlayson as the soda fountain/boat rental manager; Anne Cornwall & Gloria Greer as the young women; and Charlie Hall as the man in the canoe.

Sailors on leave, Laurel & Hardy try to impress two girls they meet in a park in this delightful, early sound short.

After misfiring in their first two sound shorts, Laurel & Hardy start to regain their stride in this short film. There is much to commend here. The scene with the boys meeting the girls is very cute, and the misunderstanding about a lost garment was surprisingly risqué for the time. The scene at the soda shop, where the boys, broke as usual, try to marshal their resources to buy drinks for the girls is also quite amusing. The appearance longtime foil Jim Finlayson as the soda jerk adds to the humor of the scene. In the second reel, the boys take the girls out on a small lake in a rowboat which leads to a typical tit-for-tat fight with their fellow boaters. This sequence isn't as funny as similar battles in "Two Tars" or "You're Darn Tootin'," but it shows that the boys are back on the right track.

One of my favorite shorts of this period. I think it benefited from some nice dialogue that actually seemed written. In their first two films, the dialogue seemed too perfunctorily or ad- libbed. Here, for the first time, they seem to be exploring the true possibilities of sound.

Starting right now, I'm reviewing a Laurel & Hardy film, and then an Abbott & Costello one with something similar, one after another. So it is that I'm reviewing Men O'War, L & H's third talkie. In this one, they are sailors charmed by a couple of young women. So they go to a soda shop and Ollie finds out there's only enough money for three drinks. So he tells Stan to refuse. I'll stop there and just say Bud & Lou go through something similar in Keep "Em Flying which I'll review next. So then they also go row boat riding and...well, if you've seen many L & H shorts it shouldn't surprise anyone what happens. This was pretty funny if not completely hilarious but still a treat to watch, just the same, especially when James Finlayson is involved, that's for sure! This short was early in the talkie era so the timing involving sound wasn't perfect, yet. So that's a recommendation for Men O'War.