Block-Heads

"Block-Heads" begins in WWI, where Stan and Ollie are in a platoon fighting in Europe. While Ollie and the rest of the group go into battle, Stan has to guard the post. You can tell that he's doing his job, because he continues doing it for twenty years after the war ends. After he returns to America, he and Ollie meet up again, and from there, they do their usual stuff. Probably the best scene was the football scene (I won't spoil it). But the wheelchair, temptress, garage door and kitchen all provide some laughs. They may play blockheads in the movie, but believe you me, Laurel and Hardy were comic geniuses. Gilligan and the Skipper were sort of a later version of them, and Chris Farley and David Spade were an even later version.

Do you have the feeling that the folks in the army deliberately forgot to tell Stan that World War I was over? Maybe they just didn't want the troop ship to sink on the way back from France.

If that was the case Ollie made the mistake of his life when he decided to invite his long lost buddy Stan over to meet the wife and have a good home cooked meal. Ollie's happily married now to Minna Gombell and when we first meet them he seems to be one happy well adjusted man.

Blockheads really starts when Stan is reunited with Ollie at the old soldier's home. I guess a grateful government is giving Stan free room and board for being the last man discharged from World War I. Still there's nothing like home cooking.

I think Blockheads offers us the proposition that Ollie can be a well adjusted if somewhat fatuous individual by himself. It's only apparently when he interacts with Stan that things just seem to happen.

And in fact that's what Blockheads is, a series of gags from the time that Ollie meets Stan at the home and just assumes he's an amputee because he's decided to sit a wheelchair rigged up for one. Right up to the point where big game hunter Billy Gilbert, the Hardy's next door neighbor chases the both of them out of the house because he catches Mrs. Gilbert in Ollie's pajamas. How she got in them? You have to see Blockheads to find out.

Best gag I thought was Stan dealing with an obnoxious neighbor who has just bullied Ollie into fetching the neighbor kid's football. Very priceless bit of comeuppance.

To see how in the space of an hour Laurel manages to literally become a home wrecker, catch Blockheads.

Two War buddies - BLOCK-HEADS both - create complete chaos in & around a fancy apartment building.

Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy are once again up to their usual high jinks, dealing with frightful wives, dangerous neighbors and the homicidal tendencies of nearly every inanimate object with which they come into contact. At this point in their partnership the Boys' were firmly established as screen legends; they worked together like well-oiled machinery, producing one laugh after another.

Billy Gilbert & James Finlayson - the Boys' greatest nemesis - are on hand and in very fine form as Ollie's highly belligerent neighbors. Gilbert's Great White Hunter (`I don't bring ‘em back alive. I bring ‘em back dead. I come back alive.') is especially funny. Patricia Ellis as Mrs. Gilbert & Minna Gombell as Mrs. Hardy add to the merriment.

Movie mavens will recognize OUR GANGer Tommy Bond as the mean kid with the football.

The film's opening sequence, with newsreel footage of World War One battles, is unexpectedly grim for a comedy. Fortunately, the laughs start quickly. Best bit - Ollie, thinking Stan has lost his right leg, insists on carrying him everywhere. Stan lets him.

It's the year 1938 and the war has been over for twenty years. But Stan is still patrolling in the trenches without knowing that the war is over.Stan's good buddy Oliver sees his friend's picture in the paper and goes to the veterans' home to get his buddy. Block-Heads is a hilarious Laurel and Hardy comedy.The movie offers you lots of laughs with the boys.Who could forget the scene where Ollie carries Stannie because he thinks Stan has lost his leg in the war.But Stan has the leg underneath him in the wheelchair.And the scene in the stairs.Block-Heads is one of the best Laurel and Hardy movies.Just watch the movie and it's non-stop laughing from the beginning to the end.

***1/2 out of ****

One of Laurel and Hardy's funniest comedies. It begins in 1918 during WWI, where Stan and Ollie are in the trenches with their army mates and the whole entourage goes over the wall to do battle, leaving Stanley with orders to remain alone in the trench and guard the fort. The next thing you know, twenty years go by and it's 1938, but nobody has told poor Stan the war's ended, so he's still marching back and forth in the same old trench! Eventually, Stan gets rescued and is taken to an Old Soldier's Home where he is visited by his old pal Ollie. Ollie decides to bring him home to his place to meet the wife and have a nice home cooked meal with a nice juicy steak, topped off with a delicious seven layer chocolate cake, with typical mishaps along the way! BLOCK-HEADS is a fast-moving joy that clocks in at under an hour's running time. The laughs are pretty steadily spread throughout, and there are a lot of them. My favorite scenes occur mostly during the first three quarters of the film, especially at the Soldier's Home where Ollie reunites with Stan, who just happens to be reading a newspaper while sitting in a wheelchair with one leg tucked under -- Ollie thinks Stan lost his leg in the war and proceeds to carry him in his arms around the grounds! Hilarious!! The end of the film loses just a touch of steam, which is the only reason I hesitantly pause in giving this a full four stars. But all fans of Laurel and Hardy must seek this Comedy out, and new first-timers would do well to use this movie (and SONS OF THE DESERT) as their introduction to Stan and Ollie. ***1/2 out of ****