County Hospital

I've probably seen this Laurel & Hardy short more than any other. I watched it with my dad in the early Fifties. I have to admit, I really felt for Oliver in this one. He is really in bad shape and his good buddy comes along and ruins it for him. From the beginning when Stanley brings him a gift of some hard boiled eggs and some nuts, it's all over. Stan causes so much trouble that they are both thrown out of the hospital. After several harrowing moments, Stan sits on a hypodermic needle that contains a sedative. Of course, he has to drive Oliver home. There is a great line when Oliver asks his friend why he didn't bring a box of candy. He says Ollie never paid him for the last one.

As we all know Stan Laurel does not do well in a crisis, especially those of his own making. Just a simple act of kindness visiting his good buddy Oliver Hardy in the hospital causes mayhem in the hospital and also out on the road.

By the way do any of you doubt the reason that Ollie is in the hospital in that contraption with a broken leg is because Stan did something to cause it?

Anyway the highlight of this is poor Ollie hung up with his leg still in the cast while Dr. Billy Gilbert is hanging out the high window at the same time. Poor befuddled Laurel can't figure out what to do.

William Austin playing his usual silly twit Englishman is Ollie's roommate and I have to say that the boys and Hal Roach were most generous giving Gilbert and Austin their share of laughs.

In the end a tranquilizer kicks in as Stan is driving Ollie home. What havoc is wrought.

One of their funniest short subjects.

This is one of the Laurel & Hardy comedies that show how resourceful they could be in getting the most out of the limited resources within a confined setting. Most of the gags work well, and only a somewhat uneven finale keeps it from being among the better of their two-reel comedies.

The simple story setup has Oliver in the "County Hospital" as a patient in traction, with Stanley stopping by to visit. You would hardly expect that anyone could get into so much trouble in a confined space, but they come up with a lot of comedy ideas, from hard-boiled eggs to the traction equipment, and more, with a couple of particularly good ones.

The climactic sequence is a bit hard to figure, because the back projection so obviously does not match the main footage. It's so much out of sync that you almost wonder whether it was done deliberately for the sake of comic effect, or whether it had to be left that way due to limits on time or money. In any case, this is a funny comedy with a few bits that are quite good.

With Hardy laid up in hospital with a broken leg, Laurel decides to pay him a visit, brining with him a gift of nuts and hard boiled eggs. He finds a relaxed and worry free Hardy, however the chaos the unwitting Laurel unleashes unto an unprepared hospital threatens to change all that.

The feeling of being a bit forced prevents this short from being considered Laurel and Hardy at their best. An example of what I mean is evident in the first few moments, Laurel finding Hardy's room gives rise to a little confusion but Laurel overplays his normal/confused/normal expression switches and for no real reason. Likewise many of the jokes are things they know work, but have to force to fit. There are some funny bits that are both subtle (Laurel eating the egg) or physical (hanging out the window) or climactic (the drive home) and most of them are good but it doesn't feel as fresh and lively as it often has.

Laurel overplays but Hardy is as good as ever. He is given less to do than he should have been and the film is allowed to rest too heavily on Laurel, but both still do pretty well. Overall this is an enjoyable short but feels like they are were lacking ideas and were treading water a tad for this one. That said, Laurel and Hardy treading water is often still better than many modern comedians who struggle to have an output of 1 or 2 films a year, never mind L&H's output!

"County Hospital" is a perfectly fine L&H short until the final sequence. I always enjoyed the scenes where Stan roams the hospital halls looking for his buddy (trying to figure out what a "solarium" is) and accidentally wanders into the maternity ward; he's mightily relieved when he finds out he's on the wrong floor! I also very much enjoy Ollie's scenes with doctor Billy Gilbert and silly Englishman William Austin. The film is also enlivened by the nurses, played by Estelle Etterre (who laughs hysterically when she finds that Stan has accidentally injected himself with a sedative) and May Wallace (who joins in the laughter and says, "He'll sleep for a month!" -- so much for medical ethics).

Personally, I always liked the scene where Dr. Gilbert is flung out the window of Ollie's room on the top floor--it adds a little action to a film where the longest scene is a single take of Stan trying to eat a hard-boiled egg. Also, the gag with the egg dropping into an unseen container by Ollie's bed and making a metallic clunk is NOT a mistake--the joke is that we think at first the egg has dropped into a chamber pot (ask your grandparents what that is), but as Stan brings it up into view we're relieved to see it's only a pitcher. The same gag happens in the team's earlier short "Helpmates," where Stan drops an alarm clock into an unseen container under his bed.

As for the final sequence with the back projection, it's not so much the quality of the film running behind the boys as a problem of sluggish editing. If the shots had been much shorter--and if we'd had a few more cutaways outdoors than just the one of the car skidding on a wet road--the sequence might have worked. Roy Seawright, who did the special effects scenes at Roach's, was a good friend of mine and his crew generally did top-notch work-- check out the split-screen scenes in "Our Relations" and "Brats," the animated bubbles in "Swiss Miss," and all of the effects work in Hal Roach's feature "Topper."