Noi e... la gonna

This marvellous film neatly sets up a position - that the Swiss Tyrol is the traditional pleasant place of thigh slapping, jolly peasants and picturesque vies. From these images, composer will create his masterpiece. But to get the right mood, the staff at the swank hotel he is staying at must get themselves up in traditional costume - the image is artifice. Into this artificial, romantic world comes the dialectical opposition: Laurel & Hardy, with their arguments and bad luck. Immediately they arrive, the locals are shown to be devious cheats. They are then forced to work as slaves in the hotel to pay off an enormous food bill. All the while the composer is writing his ridiculous score, full of innocent mountain maids and singing crickets. The composer's prima-donna wife arrives and his false vision of innocence is shattered. She wants to play the innocent Swiss miss in his new work but he, rightly, rejects her as too worldly. To get the role, she connives, flirts and manipulates the hotel staff, including L & H. The greatest sequence involves our heroes attempting to get a piano across an Alpine valley rope bridge - the precarious position of artificial human culture within a dangerous natural world is exposed. To add icing to this cake, they are finally attacked on the rope bridge by a gorilla! This gorilla in the Swiss Alps might be something which Luis Bunuel would have enjoyed. In the end, the composer welcomes his wife back and accepts the artificial, anything-but-innocent nature of his art. L & H, the latter of whom has been in love with the wife, are chased away from the village by, of course, the gorilla.

SWISS MISS often shows the problems Laurel and Hardy had at the Hal Roach studios when they stopped making their short films and were forced into making only features.It is rather sad that they became victims of their own success;their series of silent and sound shorts are generally acknowledged to be consistently the most famous,loved,best-made and revived series in movie history,even above such comic greats as Chaplin,Keaton and Lloyd.The symptoms of this unparallelled triumph was that their boss Hal Roach was increasingly forced to put the boys into features as well as short comedies,in the name of economy.As a result,producer Roach was forced to exert more control over such more expensive productions,which led to increasing tensions in his professional(and personal)relationship with Stan Laurel. Laurel,of course,was the main creative force behind the camera of the L & H partnership,and Roach rarely interfered artistically when producing their short films.Sadly in the features,Roach took it upon himself to supervise the content on a larger basis,much to Stan's chagrin.While it is true that Roach still left Laurel a substantial amount of creative freedom in most of these features,the two still quarrelled about scripts on occasion.BABES IN TOYLAND,made four years previous,was one example.Roach apparently wrote a script which Laurel rejected;Stan's eventual story was filmed,much to his boss's anger,and relations between the two were said to be somewhat damaged thereafter.

It is remarkable in many ways that Roach didn't sack Laurel on the spot there and then after such apparent insurgence.We can be thankful than Stan and Babe Hardy remained at Roach for another six years,where they still produced some genuine classics(WAY OUT WEST the best regarded),but it was always obvious L & H were more comfortable in the shorter film mould.They still made some classic features(SONS OF THE DESERT and the above;with BLOCKHEADS and OUR RELATIONS not too far behind),but SWISS MISS is decidedly average compared to most of their Roach features.Their best features were those in which the story was just about Laurel and Hardy and their adventures,not needing frequent straight,humourless romantic sub-plots or pauses for musical numbers.It is infested with many of the above faults between the L & H routines in this film,which drag it down considerably and lead to much tedium.SWISS MISS often doesn't have the proper feel of a Roach L & H vehicle either,with an untypical and rather uninspired supporting cast,consisting of mainland European performers as befits the foreign setting.It is nice to see the inimitable British comedy actor Eric Blore present,but he hardly gets a chance to interact with the boys,and his role unfortunately consists of unfunny platitudes.

The only really familiar face on view is Anita Garvin,returning to the L & H world after a gap of seven years.Her scene with the boys is quite amusing,but is all too brief.The best remembered sequences,involving a St.Bernard dog with a tot of brandy,and delivering a piano over a swing-bridge,only to be confronted by a gorilla,are enough to save the film from total mediocrity,but for various reasons,Roach involved himself in the production rather too much for Stan's comfort,editing key scenes out,like a bomb put into the piano(which would have added more power to the piano delivery scene)and a musical number featuring cheese shop owner Charles Judels,in which only a few lyrics remain intact in the released version.

As it is,SWISS MISS also befits from an elaborate production for Roach standards,and although not necessarily as poor as their post-1940 features,it is still heavily flawed and one of their weaker features at Roach.

I think this picture gets bashed undeservedly. By 1938 Hal Roach was branching out into other movie genres, and he liked adding music to comedy and comedy to adventure. Laurel and Hardy had been successful in "The Devil's Brother" and "Babes in Toyland", and this film was not a stretch from those. He added good sets, a better than usual supporting cast, and popular music to this picture. Stan, for his part, created gags that were unusual for the team, such as the St. Bernard scene, the piano-bridge scene, and the organ scene. Both men were in the 40's; Stan had been ill and Oliver was really adding weight, and they were less than believable doing banana peel slide routines any more. They all tried mightily to produce a pleasant hybrid movie, but because it wasn't traditional L&H picture they got resentment instead. The light was visible at the end of the tunnel for Stan and Ollie by this time, and they attempted a direction change they hoped would retain their place as major stars.

I can't see what all the moaning is about when it comes to the musical moments in SWISS MISS. So the music isn't exactly up to the standards of a Rodgers & Hart, but who cares? It's LAUREL and HARDY who carry the main weight of the story with occasional interludes from WALTER WOOLF KING as a frustrated song composer and DELLA LIND as a light soprano who actually has a very nice voice and operatic vocal range.

The boys are the whole reason for watching, that's for sure. And why not? They have some classic moments--Stan putting over a clever deception on the St. Bernard dog by throwing a snow of feathers over himself and lying down to pretend he's in need of rescue--after several attempts to take the brandy from the dog's neck. Or the boys assigned to take the piano to a higher perch in the mountains where Woolf can compose his masterpiece without any interruptions. Naturally, they have to negotiate a flimsy rope bridge over a deep gorge, which leads to the kind of mishaps the duo are famous for--including a gorilla who returns at the end of the film for a final joke.

It passes the time pleasantly with some picturesque looks at a Swiss village and Tyrolian garb from the cast members, which includes ERIC BLORE in a minor role. He's rather wasted here, but still the film is good fun for L&H fans.

You know you are in trouble when Laurel and Hardy don't make their appearance in this film until the six minute mark!! Despite their being the funniest comedy team in the world, the studio insisted on sticking too many diversions into the film--including lots of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy-style songs and portions where the dialog is done in rhyme! With any comedy team, usually the more songs the more bland the film and this film is certainly no exception. Only a maniac would have thought of doing this or adding rhymes in a film like this!

And, speaking of maniacs, whose idea was it to include a guy in a gorilla suit?! The idea of a "wild gorilla" running about the Swiss mountains just doesn't make any sense--even in a comedy.

Most of the movies in the latter portion of Laurel and Hardy's careers were rather poor and stale. Of the movies made from the late 1930s on, perhaps the best are Blockheads and A Chump at Oxford. While not as bad as the 20th Century Fox Laurel and Hardy pictures or Atoll K, this movie just isn't up the quality of their earlier pictures. Simply put, the duo are looking rather old and ragged and the jokes that worked well the first few times look a bit stale here.

My advice, see something else or else you might not appreciate this comedy team. This is far from their "A game".