Il regalo di nozze

We have been so used to viewing the boys on Video, that it was a real pleasure last evening to see it on the big screen at a meeting of the L & H Appreciation Society. This film is a real riot with all the gags centered around Ollie's Wedding present from Stan - a jigsaw puzzle.The gags work after almost 70 years because it could have just as well have been a Nitendo Game in one of the modern-day sitcom. If this film is available on Video, and if you are a L & H Fan, I strongly urge you to either rent or purchase a copy.

Ollie is in the midst of being married, which will then lead to a big promotion when Stanley brings over this puzzle. The puzzle occupies everybody's time, thus the cause for all the laughs in this fun short with the puzzle becoming an object that is revered by all who come in contact with it. Wonderful sequence with 6 people hovering over the puzzle at one time, like children. Needless to say, Ollie didn't get married, but the film did end with Stan finding the missing piece to the puzzle.

Oliver Hardy is about to marry in to the family of a rich oil magnate so right away you know things won't be going to plan. Ollie is part of a double act whose humour comes out of his bullying of Stan Laurel so right away you know whose side to take and this short is no different . Let's be honest and say without the slightest feeling of guilt we love it when the bully's life lies in tatters

One thing I have noticed about the L&H shorts is that despite having a short running time - that's why they're called shorts after all- there's often a feeling of two different stories joined together, You might actually be astounded then when I was once briefly sitting in on an indie film company in Edinburgh up and coming short film makers would make the same mistake. It's probably not a fault of short film making but because of the nature of short film making it's far more noticeable than a 90 page screenplay. Here in this 1933 contribution everything is streamlined and simple and is all the better for it. It's also interesting as a window when jigsaws' and listening to the radio were classed as entertainment

This isn't one of the better shorts by Laurel and Hardy however it does prove that given practically no plot, the team was able to make even the simplest idea watchable and fun.

When the film begins, you learn that Ollie is about to marry a very wealthy heiress to a huge oil fortune. As he gets ready to go, Stanley drops by and gives Ollie his wedding present--a jigsaw puzzle. Oddly, it's as if the puzzle is possessed, as everyone coming to the house ends up mesmerized by putting it together--even though the wedding should have begun by now. Again and again, people come to the house but end up transfixed. Even the cabbie refuses to take Ollie to the wedding because he is much more interested in assembling the puzzle than making a buck driving Ollie.

There's a tiny bit more to the plot than that--but not much!! As I said, the plot is weak here and it's the barest of ideas--yet it still manages to work. You can't help but laugh as this tiny problem snowballs into a total catastrophe! See it and understand how the team was able to turn practically anything into gold during their heyday.

This short shows Laurel & Hardy at their best. Very little slapstick, as the comedy itself is played to the hilt. It's the essence of the running gag, the joke that keeps coming back, and back, and back, each time in a different way and funnier than before. The storyline is simple, and elegant - a common human obsession - getting addicted to a jigsaw puzzle - is first played rather normally, than slowly but inescapably grows and grows. This is like a Seinfeld episode before there was a Seinfeld.

It really shows their genius to create something like this, with a minimum of props and a direct storyline that doesn't get sidetracked, and all the byplay, including the wedding, eventually fits together like a jigsaw puzzle itself. Soon all the characters are involved in the puzzle, in one way or another, and it sucks them in like a giant vortex.

Obviously, this is one of my favorite shorts and is a good one to introduce someone to Laurel & Hardy.