Le grand boum

When I saw this movie the first time, I was greatly disappointed, and thought that the boys really had lost it. But after watching it again, I realised this view was a bit unjustified.

The movie is about Laurel and Hardy taking a job at a private home as detectives, to protect a bomb (called "The Big Noise" - thus the title of the movie) from people wanting to steal the bombs, and sell it to foreign nations.

The big flaws that this movie has, are particularly the little kid of the house trying to tease and annoy the persons in it, particularly Stan & Ollie. This may sound like fun, but it truly isn't. And the only the kid really managed to annoy, was me. Also the scene of the woman of the house trying to seduce Ollie wasn't my thing (a scare attempt to enter some love in the movie?), and finally the nazi segment. This segment is particularly disappointing, because it shows a Japanese officer saying "Heil Hitler", and the Japanese did no such thing.

But apart from that, the movie has some good scenes. All scenes with Stan and Ollie at their room in the house are hilarious. For instance Stan's unpacking of the things, when the woman trying to temp Ollie sleepwalks with a knife into the room, when Ollie disappears inside the wall (don't ask) and the card playing. Amongst other noteworthy scenes, are the dinner scene at the house and the bunker scene in a train.

So, not a classic and with flaws. But still having some original and hilarious moments.

As recently suggested by others, THE BIG NOISE has suffered in reputation for years, usually sight unseen. As a lifelong L & H fan, I finally saw it for the first time via the new Fox set (a very well done package), and it is more than acceptable a part of L&H's legacy. Of course it can't match their heyday, but among the Fox films it is much more Stan & Ollie's show than the initial Fox entries. The whimsical fadeout is by far one of the most delightful moments of their entire career, which is something.

Give this film some slack, and you'll have a good enough time with it. I'm glad Fox has made this one available.

Another of the infamous "Fox Laurel & Hardy" latter comedies, and in the running for one of the most enjoyable of the bunch in my book. Here, the older but no less amusing duo are hired to guard a bomb christened "The Big Noise" by its zany inventor. Some old tried and true classic funny routines are trotted out and revamped, with generally satisfactory results. Stan and Ollie seem like their old selves again in this, thankfully getting more screen time together.

After enjoying this I just had to post a positive show of support and say that I think it's vastly underrated. This was echoed on the DVD's commentary track by author Randy Skretvedt, who actually apologized for trashing it once upon a time in his book entitled LAUREL AND HARDY: THE MAGIC BEHIND THE MOVIES, and now admits that during the '70s and '80s, this was a rough film to see in good quality or in its entirety, and so a lot of critics relied only on memory and reputation. THE BIG NOISE has been one of the most unjustly maligned movies in history (Michael Medved even had the gall to list it among the "Worst Films Ever Made" in his dispensable GOLDEN TURKEY AWARDS book). Luckily, the tide is presently turning for the better as moviegoers and Laurel and Hardy aficionados everywhere are finally giving the movie its due. *** out of ****

In the Medved Brothers' usually on target book, THE 50 WORST FILMS OF ALL TIME, THE BIG NOISE is given a degree of prominence as the worst of Laurel & Hardy's films. John McCabe dismissed it in his MR. LAUREL AND MR. HARDY by saying the plot of the film can be described in one sentence - the boys are assigned to deliver a bomb and do so. Yet a number of people have also supported it as one of their cutest, if not funniest movies.

When L & H left Roach in 1941, they had planned to do a production of the Victor Herbert's THE RED MILL as their next movie after SAPS AT SEA. They probably were picking up on their success in operetta films (BABES IN TOYLAND, THE BOHEMIAN GIRL, THE DEVIL'S BROTHER, even SWISS MISS) as a sure fire way of showcasing their humor. I have often thought about this project. No doubt the roles of Kid Connor and Con Kidder that David Montgomery and Fred Stone had originated would have been redone by the screenplay writer (with advise from Stan) to fit the person-as of Stan and Ollie. But by 1941 the cycle of films in Hollywood which were based on operettas had slowly collapsed (the last major ones were Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald's BITTERSWEET, as well as Eddy and Rise Stevens' THE CHOCOLATE SOLDIER). Shows based on current stage hits were more likely to be made into films (the next and last Eddy and MacDonald film would I MARRIED AN ANGEL, based on the Rodgers and Hart stage musical). It seems doubtful that any of the studios would have been willing to finance a production of a 1905 operetta hit, whose major big-time number was "In Old New York".

Yet that was what Stan was proposing (and Ollie would have supported him on that). William Everson has suggested that actually, by 1941, the boys were tired, and needed more time to rejuvenate their material. I end up feeling that this is true. The best of the later films, JITTERBUGS, has some nice moments (Hardy romancing Lee Patrick, and shepherding around Stan in drag as an old lady), and includes some rejuvenated material at the conclusion of the film from Alice Faye's movie, SALLY, IRENE AND MARY, but (as John McCabe suggested) it's plot does not make any sense (particularly as Bob Bailey's character, a major one in the plot, seems good natured one moment and opportunistic and crooked the next).

THE BIG NOISE does have a straightforward plot, tied in with the current war effort. Arthur Space is one of those screwy scientist/inventors who crop up in many comedies of the 1920s to 1930s. He has invented food pills that replaced full course meals, and has an impossible push button modern house (after the 1939 - 40 New York Worlds Fair "push button" future space saving homes become a perennial joke in comedies - and a weak one at that - see the Marx Brothers contemporary film THE BIG STORE and the ethnic children in the disappearing beds scene).

Space has, however, designed a new secret weapon - a highly powerful bomb. This is the "Big Noise" of the title. The government is testing it with the intention of using it against the Axis, but their agents are planning to steal it to use against us (shades of Lionel Atwill as Moriarty in SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE SECRET WEAPON). In need of guards for his weapons, Space hires L & H thinking they are detectives (they are janitors in a detective school).

In reality the interplay of L & H with Space, Robert Blake (then Bobbie Blake), Esther Howard (who shows a sexual interest in Hardy - quite unusual for him, and very unsettling to him), and the cast is actually quite good. The result is that the material, even if reused from earlier films (the bit from BERTH MARKS about changing in the upper berth of a train) is quite well done. And since the film is actually keeping a coherent story for a change (as opposed to JITTERBUGS) the film is more than just tolerable.

It is also nice to see that it did introduce one popular tune to movies: the tongue-twister tune, "Mares Eat Oats and Does Eat Oats and Little Lambs Eat Ivory", which is called "Maisey Doats" or "Maizy Doats" for short. Stan supposedly plays it on his accordion in the film.

A nice movie, possibly the boys' last good comedy.

This is one of Laurel & Hardy's later Twentieth Century-Fox films and it is not one of their best. However, it is an upbeat and fast-paced effort that shows signs that they put some effort into it. THE BIG NOISE has some good bits: the dinner with the inventor, the bunk bed scene in the train, and the constant threat of the bomb going off with Stan transporting it carelessly. The only part of this movie that seems weak is the Nazi segment and the scenes with a very annoying little kid. Other than that, this is recommended for all L&H fans, especially younger fans. 7 out of 10.