Them Thar Hills

This Laurel&Hardy short subject opens with Ollie suffering the effects of the gout. Given his stoutness I would think that was something that Oliver Hardy might have had in real life. In any event Dr. Billy Gilbert suggests that he and Stanley go off into the mountains and get some clean country living. Ollie's been living it up too good with that rich city food. Surprisingly Gilbert, a great comic talent in his own right is little used in this short.

But anyway off go Stan and Ollie in a trailer to Them Thar Hills. But they come into some moonshiner territory where the locals have dumped some of their product into a well the boys stop at. That leads to all the rest of the gags in this film including getting a neighbor's wife drunk and the neighbor taking umbrage.

At least until the final gag Ollie may not have had his gout cured, but with all that moonshine in him, he forgot his ills.

At home with a foot in plaster, Hardy is advised to cut out rich foot and maybe take a trip to help relieve his pains. Laurel and Hardy set out for a trip to the country on a sunny day and stumble across a building that had been used as a hideout for a gang of moonshiners. Unbeknownst to Laurel and Hardy, the moonshiners were forced to dump their alcohol into the well when the police came, a fact that they only discover once they start using the well water for cooking in.

A simple set up and simple execution leads to a very entertaining short in which Laurel and Hardy, well, get wasted! Their decline into a state of merry inebriation is funny to watch and leads to an amusing game of tit for tat while an angry husband takes a feathering while awaiting his chance for retribution. When Laurel says `jump in the well to put out the fire' I started laughing in expectation!

While the routines lack a real imagination (apart from that aforementioned scene) the film is well made and it is fun to watch the duo get hammered with hilarious results. Both men do well in the film with Hardy, as usual, carrying the brunt of the physical work. The support cast are both good but really it's Laurel and Hardy's show.

Overall this short doesn't have any one scene that really screams out as great (with the possible exception of the `jump in the well' scene) but it is good-natured and funny regardless.

Stan and Ollie hire a trailer and go for a camping trip to the remote countryside , get accidentally drunk ( It can happen you know ) and that`s basically it as far as the threadbare plot goes . However the film feels more cohesive than some of the other L & H shorts which are sometimes a series of set piece prat falls with little regard to the over all plot . There`s also a very memorable ditty that goes

La la la lala lala la la la

Pom Pom

Which will disappear into your head and then reappear in your memory sometime in the future and will have you scratching your head asking " Where does that song come from ? "

Just like everyone else on this page I liked THEM THAR HILLS but wouldn`t say it`s the greatest ever L & H short . In fact I wouldn`t even say it`s the greatest short featuring Mr and Mrs Hall because the sequel TIT FOR TAT released the following year is even better

A LAUREL & HARDY Comedy Short. Poor Ollie is suffering painfully from gout. His doctor advises rest, country air & lots of fresh water. So the Boys rent a trailer and head up into THEM THAR HILLS. Picking a quiet spot, they are unaware that the well has been tainted with many barrels of bootleg liquor. Drinking the water while fixing their dinner, they quickly become inebriated. They are suddenly visited by a bickering couple who've run out of gas. Playing host to the wife, Stan & Ollie share their water with her and she is roisteringly drunk by the time her husband returns...

This is a very funny little film & should be seen in conjunction with its follow-up, TIT FOR TAT. The slapstick fight between the Boys & Charley Hall, as the furious husband, is hilarious. Mae Busch is the wife; film mavens will recognize Billy Gilbert as the doctor.

Mr. Hardy is suffering from gout, so Mr. Laurel proposes they buy a trailer and go stay in the country. They park on a patch of land with a well on it. Little do they know.... well, anything. In this case, revenooers have poured moonshiner's products down the well. As they drink the water, their mood rises..... but here comes married couple Charlie Hall and Mae Busch. It all ends in one of the marvelous slow motion 'tit for tat' duels that the Boys got into.

Stan and Ollie were alternating their shorts with features by this point, and could choose to make a movie short or long depending on what they wanted to do. This undoubtedly contributed to their sustained level of excellence in this period.