Trainati in un buco

This is probably my all time fav. L&H short. right from the start with the call of 'Fresh Fish' (toot), this is a 'hoot'. As always, Stan has an idea this time expressed as only Stan can. 'If we had a boat .....'. The bit that makes me howl is when Olly is painting the rudder and Stan is scrubbing the deck and finds the tiller in the way. The pause before 'what did you put that stuff on your face for' is agony!. As for Stan's method of getting his head out from behind the mast... See this one now.

It has a laugh a minute and has some very sophisticated humour. Two fabulous bits stand out - one where Stan is washing the anchor chain and 'wrings' it into a bucket of water. The other is where Stan has been confined to the cabin and plays noughts and crosses with himself. In the finale, there is this wonderful scene where Stan and Ollie watch helplessly as their newly painted boat careers down the road under sail power and smashes into a million pieces. The film does not have too many set pieces but contains loads of small, exquisite gags which will have you doubling up with laughter.

While Stan & Ollie are successful fish salesmen, Stan suggests they can be even more profitable if they catch their own fish instead of buying them. So they buy a boat named Ruth (after Stan's about-to-be-second-wife) and work on it, with disastrous results, of course! Great slapstick sequences abound with Hardy, of course, getting the brunt of it. This was the last of their three films directed by George Marshall who left Hal Roach Studios after general manager Henry Ginsberg fired him over production delays. He later helmed classic films starring W. C. Fields, Bob Hope, and Martin & Lewis with a couple of solo Jerry Lewis pictures after that team split up. So as we leave Stan & Ollie attempting to go to sea, we'll next see Bud Abbott & Lou Costello at sea in In the Navy.

THE SELF SUFFICIENCY of the L & H team is presented here in the best example possible. The slow and deliberate method of working a gag to its maximum was very handily put to good use in these shorts. Whereas most all other comedians opted for an array of fast paced comic situations, being rapidly dispatched at sometimes break-neck pace, L & H worked each slowly and deliberately doing their own reactions to whatever. (As a true antithesis to this Hal Roach/Leo Mc Carey style, see some of comedian Larry Semon's silent screen work.)_

ANOTHER SINGULARLY UNIQUE feature of this short subject is that it is all Stan & Ollie. Other than the brief appearance of Billy Gilbert at the beginning, the boys have this one all to themselves. They play out their shtick against the backdrop of their seagoing reclamation project. The now familiar routines of Laurel messing up Hardy's work, Hardy's reaction, stare at the camera and his slow burn are meticulously combined with Laurel's crying to great effect.

ALONG WITH SUCH other titles as ME AND MY PAL. OUR WIFE and THE MUSIC BOX, we have what we like to call "quintessential Laurel & Hardy".

AS IS THE norm, all is lost in the end; bu we know that there will be other moments to come.

Can it get any better than this. Stan has a great idea. Instead of working for "the Man," they should get a boat and fish themselves, thereby accruing all the profits. Since they have little money, it means buying a piece of junk boat and fixing it up. Actually, their ideas are sound and at times their skills aren't bad...but when it comes to coordination and execution, they are totally lost. As soon as they are finished trying to destroy the boat before getting it launched, things seem ship shape, if you will. But it isn't long before their mutual efforts begin to clash. Of course, as is usually the case, poor Ollie gets the worst of it. He is crunched, glued, painted, and abused. Yes, he did make the mistake of listening to his friend whose track record is anything but solid. I think the fact that their hearts are always in the right place is what made these guys so endearing. They never meant to be nasty to each other. Circumstances just didn't go their way. This effort, with really just them on the screen, except for a short scene with Billy Gilbert, shows them at their absolute best.