Trainati in un buco

Laurel and Hardy are travelling fishmongers, selling door to door on the street. Laurel has the idea to cut out the middle man and catch the fish themselves – hence turning pure profit on every fish they sell. They buy an old boat and begin to do it up – with predictable consequences.

From the opening conversation where Hardy asks Laurel to repeat his sensible and good idea and Laurel proceeds to muddle himself (`if we catch the fish, the people wouldn't have to pay and….') I was sold on this short film. The action follows this banter with a fantastic mix of physical humour and the good old double take stuff they do so well. Here the two (styles) really compliment each other – the highlight being when Laurel causes Hardy to become covered in paint and there is an eternity of looks, double takes and pauses before he asks `why did you put that stuff on your face'!

The stuff around the boat is all good and both men do really good work with their looks and their bodies. Hardy shows his class while leaning on the mast of the boat, hears sawing, looks to camera, looks down towards the sound, looks to camera then goes!

Overall this short has everything in it that I love about Laurel and Hardy and should be immediately seen by anyone who is wondering what all the fuss is about!

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.

Every single detail and frame of this film is a work of art. With only Laurel and Hardy in the cast, it is the most beautiful 18 minutes you could ever wish to spend watching a movie. Every gag, every nuance, every movement, every moment is timed and placed beautifully. I can only wonder if Stan and Babe had any idea when they were making this masterpiece quite what they were achieving... Is it possible to recognise timeless perfection in the midst of the process without spoiling the result? Whatever, this film could almost bring tears to the eyes it is so charming, so satisfying, so quietly side-splitting, and such a magnificent example of screen comedy at its best. Nothing comes better than this. Ever.

Laurel and Hardy have a business plan: instead of buying fish and selling it, they'll catch the fish themselves and cut out the middleman. Unfortunately, the people who are going to execute this idea are Stan and Ollie.

It's my favorite short by Laurel and Hardy. There are others just as good, but this is just them. Except for a brief appearance by Billy Gilbert (maybe seconds) to sell them a boat, it's all the Boys and the boat they are trying to recondition, right next to a big mud puddle. The inevitability of disaster is delicious, and the gags are, as usual, great.

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.