Une partie de plaisir

Oliver, Stan and their extended family decide to go for a drive and have a picnic given that it is such perfect weather for it. However a series of events starting with an injured foot, a faulty car and many misunderstandings mean that it is harder to bid their neighbours farewell than they'd hoped.

Although slapstick must seem very simply humour (it is, after all, people falling over) it actually must be very difficult to do. In this case it all centres round a picnic trip although the car goes no further than it's parking space for the majority of the film. To come up with a 20 minutes sketch around this is hard work, but yet Laurel & hardy manage to pull it off. The jokes are all quite obvious and none are out of nowhere or very funny, but it all works quite well.

The funniest bit to me was the punchline – both Laurel & Hardy keep straight faces and do it like real professionals and make the final shot funnier than it actually is. Both the leads are good but the material requires a lot more setting up which means you can often see the gag about a mile away and it takes away form it a little. The support cast are all pretty ordinary but perform their tasks adequately as really we are watching the lead two. Kennedy's contribution is easily the best as he does battle with a foot bandage and an angry dog.

Overall this is an enjoyable short despite the fact that the humour is very staged and doesn't flow as easily as much of their stuff. The punchline is good but some of the material just seems to be lacking that spark. That said, it is still worth a watch.

This is one of Laurel and Hardy's earliest talkies. It basically involves the boys' attempt to take their wives and Uncle Edgar Kennedy, who has a gouty foot, to a picnic but because of car troubles are unable to get out. Hilarious use of sound effects throughout especially in the use of the car horn and the sound when Ollie hits Stan on the head with a clutch after Stan literally threw it out per Ollie's commands! During one ad-lib scene between the wives and uncle, Kennedy says a swear word that I probably wouldn't have noticed had I not read about it in a Laurel and Hardy filmography book. All this plus a rowdy dog, some unruly neighbors-one of whom is Stan's buddy Baldwin Cooke, and brick throwing at windows and you have one of the funniest comedy shorts of the late '20s. Well worth the time for lovers of comedy in general!

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). 'Perfect Day' is not one of the best and funniest Laurel and Hardy short films up to this point of their output, but it is still great fun. Their filmography, apart from a few bumps along the way, was getting better and better and 'Perfect Day' exemplifies this.

Not a lot to criticise here, though the story is slight and takes time to get going.

Once again, 'Perfect Day' is non-stop funniness all the way when it gets going. There is insane craziness that doesn't get too silly, a wackiness that never loses its energy, the lack of vulgarity that is a large part of 'Perfect Day's ' memorability 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 'Perfect War' we are far from robbed of that. Their comic timing is impeccable.

'Perfect Day' 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, great fun. 9/10 Bethany Cox

A LAUREL & HARDY Comedy Short. It is a PERFECT DAY for the Laurels & the Hardys to go on a picnic, taking gouty old Uncle Ed with them. In typical fashion, the Boys proceed to demolish first the sandwiches & then the car, with Uncle's foot coming in for several good whacks along the way.

Pure slapstick from start to finish. Those who like painful physical humor will get lots of laughs here. Stan & Ollie seem much more violent towards each other than usual. Edgar Kennedy plays the much-battered Uncle Ed.

Stan and Ollie decide to take their wives and their gout-ridden uncle Edgar on a picnic on a lovely Sunday afternoon. It's a good plan, but they never quite get their in this enjoyable, if slight, short.

It was refreshing to see that the new dynamics of making sound films didn't keep the boys completely studio-bound. The vast bulk of this film was shot outdoors and, as a result, doesn't suffer from the same claustrophobia as "Unaccustomed as We Are," "Berth Marks," and the upcoming "They Go Boom." The film also benefits from appearance of the always reliable Edgar Kennedy, a frequent and hilarious foil. Needless to say, his gout-ridden foot will take a great deal of abuse for the film fades out!

A nice short, reminiscent of Chaplin's "A Day's Pleasure." Not one of their classics, but well worth a look.