Hustling for Health

This was the last comedy Stan Laurel made for Hal Roach's Rolin studios (he would return to Roach five years later and eventually team up with Oliver Hardy there). Stan misses the train that's supposed to take him on a vacation, so his friend (Frank Terry) offers to put him up for some rest and relaxation. Unfortunately, the friend's wife (Marie Mosquini) is a hardcore suffragette and she gives her husband an angry dressing down for bringing Stan home. A health inspector (Noah Young) orders the friend to clean up his backyard, and Stan is put to work at the chore. He empties the yard by tossing all the junk into the neighbor's yard, and when the wife refuses to make him lunch, he also steals the neighbor's food. The neighbor (Bud Jamison) comes over for lunch, and is none too pleased to discover that he is eating his own food. Stan beats a hasty retreat, but not before flirting with the neighbor's daughter.

This short is now available on the Hal Roach DVD "The Lost Films of Laurel and Hardy Vol. 1". The liner notes on the DVD identify the poor sap Stan knocks over at the train depo as Dwight Frye, although this is 10 years earlier than any film listed on the IMDB Frye credits list. The print is worn but relatively good shape with Stan's makeup looking very heavy and almost mime-like at times. Actually everyone's makeup is heavy as several of the "suffragette" types have "racoon eyes." The sets are quite primitive compared to his later shorts. But, he's still funny as a the classic put-upon sap, especially when loaded down with boxes or pulling a wagon. I loved his love-lorn gazing at the pretty neighbor unfazed by the drenching downpour. quite an artifact.

This film was made long before Stan Laurel was teamed up with Oliver Hardy. This film was made the same year the team's first picture was made (LUCKY DOG), but it was still eight years before they began deliberately putting the two in the same film. Without Oliver Hardy, Stan was a solo act for about a decade. Some of his films, such as DR. PYCKLE AND MR. PRYDE, was exceptionally funny, while many such as HUSTLING FOR HEALTH were rather tedious.

The film begins with Stan about to go on vacation. However, he arrives late for the train. A stranger offers to let him come to his house because he'll be able to get all the relaxation he needs there. However, it's soon apparent that this "benefactor" is a jerk and he puts Stan to work around the noisy house. None of the jokes are particularly funny and there seems to be absolutely no reason for Stan to stay in this place. In fact, the film might best be described as tedious--which is very sad as I love silent comedy and most of the films of Stan Laurel.

It's difficult to judge these old silent films from a modern perspective. It really was another age and time. I find them all a bit confusing at times trying to understand exactly what is happening without the benefit of sound to help. Perhaps the silent movie audiences of the time had some type of mental shorthand that allowed them to grasp the subtle nuances of the plots and action.

All I can figure is that Stan Laurel is picked up at the train depot and brought back by the husband to the family home where the wife is having a suffragette meeting. None too pleased they cause mayhem and then the neighbours are brought into it as Stan cleans up the backyard by throwing all the rubbish into their award winning garden.

Stan falls foul of them again when he steals their food to give to his new friends and is finally left outside in the yard mooning over the neighbours' daughter in a downpour.

Again, from today's viewpoint, it looks like it was made up as it went along and the slapstick and pratfalls of the time aren't that funny anymore. And is really only interesting as a curio of the work that Stan did before he famously teamed up with Ollie.

I came across this short at the end of a video tape of 'March of the Wooden Soldiers,' a full length L&H film. It was uncredited on the box cover and how it got there is a puzzle.

For L&H completists only.