Les montagnards sont là

This marvellous film neatly sets up a position - that the Swiss Tyrol is the traditional pleasant place of thigh slapping, jolly peasants and picturesque vies. From these images, composer will create his masterpiece. But to get the right mood, the staff at the swank hotel he is staying at must get themselves up in traditional costume - the image is artifice. Into this artificial, romantic world comes the dialectical opposition: Laurel & Hardy, with their arguments and bad luck. Immediately they arrive, the locals are shown to be devious cheats. They are then forced to work as slaves in the hotel to pay off an enormous food bill. All the while the composer is writing his ridiculous score, full of innocent mountain maids and singing crickets. The composer's prima-donna wife arrives and his false vision of innocence is shattered. She wants to play the innocent Swiss miss in his new work but he, rightly, rejects her as too worldly. To get the role, she connives, flirts and manipulates the hotel staff, including L & H. The greatest sequence involves our heroes attempting to get a piano across an Alpine valley rope bridge - the precarious position of artificial human culture within a dangerous natural world is exposed. To add icing to this cake, they are finally attacked on the rope bridge by a gorilla! This gorilla in the Swiss Alps might be something which Luis Bunuel would have enjoyed. In the end, the composer welcomes his wife back and accepts the artificial, anything-but-innocent nature of his art. L & H, the latter of whom has been in love with the wife, are chased away from the village by, of course, the gorilla.

Disappointing Laurel and Hardy film. Stan and Ollie are hilarious, of course, and their encounter with a gorilla on a rope bridge is a classic, but they're still done-in by subplots and musical numbers that command more time than their antics. Definitely worth seeing, but if you're new to the L&H cult and haven't seen it and are thinking of buying it, be advised that, despite their top billing, they are almost guest stars here.

You know you are in trouble when Laurel and Hardy don't make their appearance in this film until the six minute mark!! Despite their being the funniest comedy team in the world, the studio insisted on sticking too many diversions into the film--including lots of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy-style songs and portions where the dialog is done in rhyme! With any comedy team, usually the more songs the more bland the film and this film is certainly no exception. Only a maniac would have thought of doing this or adding rhymes in a film like this!

And, speaking of maniacs, whose idea was it to include a guy in a gorilla suit?! The idea of a "wild gorilla" running about the Swiss mountains just doesn't make any sense--even in a comedy.

Most of the movies in the latter portion of Laurel and Hardy's careers were rather poor and stale. Of the movies made from the late 1930s on, perhaps the best are Blockheads and A Chump at Oxford. While not as bad as the 20th Century Fox Laurel and Hardy pictures or Atoll K, this movie just isn't up the quality of their earlier pictures. Simply put, the duo are looking rather old and ragged and the jokes that worked well the first few times look a bit stale here.

My advice, see something else or else you might not appreciate this comedy team. This is far from their "A game".

I can't see what all the moaning is about when it comes to the musical moments in SWISS MISS. So the music isn't exactly up to the standards of a Rodgers & Hart, but who cares? It's LAUREL and HARDY who carry the main weight of the story with occasional interludes from WALTER WOOLF KING as a frustrated song composer and DELLA LIND as a light soprano who actually has a very nice voice and operatic vocal range.

The boys are the whole reason for watching, that's for sure. And why not? They have some classic moments--Stan putting over a clever deception on the St. Bernard dog by throwing a snow of feathers over himself and lying down to pretend he's in need of rescue--after several attempts to take the brandy from the dog's neck. Or the boys assigned to take the piano to a higher perch in the mountains where Woolf can compose his masterpiece without any interruptions. Naturally, they have to negotiate a flimsy rope bridge over a deep gorge, which leads to the kind of mishaps the duo are famous for--including a gorilla who returns at the end of the film for a final joke.

It passes the time pleasantly with some picturesque looks at a Swiss village and Tyrolian garb from the cast members, which includes ERIC BLORE in a minor role. He's rather wasted here, but still the film is good fun for L&H fans.

This film is poorly regarded in the L & H canon because it has an execrable plot and a dire musical score. The most mind-numbing number is a song in praise of Switzerland called 'I can't get over the Alps'. Fans of the dystopian duo will forgive all this, however, because it contains two of their most inspired scenes. In the first, Stan tricks a St Bernard dog into dispensing its keg of brandy by lying on the ground and covering himself with a snowstorm of feathers. In the second, Stan and Ollie attempt to push a piano across a rope bridge and are met by a gorilla going in the opposite direction. Gorilla's in Switzerland, who cares?