Duck Soup

They had appeared together in the same films before. They both had a long career in silent comedies when they met. They were not initially considered as the perfect comic teaming that we see them as today. So when they were paired together for a story suggested by Stan's father, it seemed like just another film for Stan and Babe. Most of this film has the feel of early slapstick of the Mack Sennett tradition - big gestures, running and leaping and jumping. But there are also the beginnings of a more quiet, understated comedy. When The Boys have to entertain the couple who are inquiring about the house, we can see Laurel and Hardy become, by necessity, sneaky. Devious. The pace slows down, and we are allowed to laugh about the situation, not because of obvious over-the-top gagging. The film was long considered lost until 1974, when a print surfaced in Europe. Many books that credited the Laurel and Hardy genesis to later films are not in error - very little was known of this film until its rediscovery. Duck Soup is not the perfect Laurel and Hardy film - there is too much slapstick and not enough sly wit in it for my tastes. The casual viewer would be much better served by the remake, the three-reel talkie Another Fine Mess, which has much more sly wit and fantastic dialogue. However, Duck Soup is definitely an important entry in the Laurel and Hardy film pantheon, and is well worth a view if you're a fan.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were comedic geniuses, individually and together, and their partnership was deservedly iconic and one of the best there was. They left behind a large body of work, a vast majority of it being entertaining to classic comedy, at their best they were hilarious and their best efforts were great examples of how to do comedy without being juvenile or distasteful.

'Duck Soup' is the third short film of theirs after 'The Lucky Dog' and '45 Minutes from Hollywood', but to me it's the first one that uses their talents properly and where they fully work together as a partnership. It may not be among their best work, their later work was funnier, more focused and have more of a sly edge instead of being slapstick-heavy, and am another person who'd put 'Another Fine Mess' above it, but it's definitely well worth the look and the first outing of theirs that was above decent level.

Will agree that there could have been less of a slapstick approach and more of a wit and sly edge and the early stages to me felt on the rushed side.

Story is slight and at times a bit too busy, but 'Duck Soup' does far more right than it does wrong. A lot is right and there is actually not much wrong.

On the other hand, Laurel and Hardy are both solid and make a great double act. The iconic partnership was still fully forming but they do work well together and their comic timing is expertly, Laurel in particular is great. They are well served by the material, which is not hilarious as such but beautifully timed and often very funny.

Not once is 'Duck Soup' dull, it all goes at a snappy pace and is always engaging and charming. While not amazing visually, it still looks quite good and hardly the work of an amateur.

Concluding, good. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Besides being very funny, the silent film 'Duck Soup' is a vitally important link in the evolution of Laurel and Hardy as a comedy team. This movie was based on a music-hall sketch written by Stan Laurel's father, Arthur Jefferson, a successful theatre manager in northern England who resented his son's attempts to become a stage comedian. Laurel and Hardy made 'Duck Soup' at a point when they were already established as a team but were still developing the 'Stan' and 'Oliie' characters that would soon become so popular and beloved. By this time, Oliver Hardy had already got his fastidious little moustache, but in 'Duck Soup' he also has a considerable amount of beard stubble which makes him look quite jowly. 'Duck Soup' was remade only three years later as 'Another Fine Mess'.

'Duck Soup' was a lost film for more than 50 years: in the early 1980s, a print turned up in Belgium. The original silent-film intertitles had been cut out and replaced with French titles. Also, one insert shot of a newspaper article had been cut out and a French translation spliced in. The prints which are currently available feature English-language titles which are blatantly translations of the French titles, and this brings a jarring touch: Laurel keeps addressing Hardy as 'sir', which doesn't really fit the relationship between their characters.

The missing shot of the newspaper article has been replaced (in 1982) with a modern mock-up, and this provides an unintentional laugh. While Hardy reads the newspaper article in 1927, we can see the article directly underneath it... which is all about John DeLorean getting arrested for financial misdeeds in 1982! Oo-er!

In 'Duck Soup', Laurel and Hardy are tramps who discover that a local forest fire has made things hot for them: forest rangers are conscripting all the local indigent men for firefighting duty. Fleeing from the rangers, the two pals end up sharing a bicycle at the top of a steep hill, with disastrously funny results.

Still hiding from the rangers, they end up inside the swank house of Colonel Blood, who is currently away ... but Lord and Lady Plumtree have arrived to rent the house in the colonel's absence. Hardy disguises himself as the colonel, pressing Laurel into service to masquerade as the maid! Stan Laurel was a gifted female impersonator: one of the very few male performers who could convincingly portray a woman and be funny at the same time. His drag turn as the maid here is astonishing and funny.

The ending of this movie is quite different from the ending of the remake 'Another Fine Mess'. Laurel and Hardy would occasionally end a film with an impossible gag, and they use one here.

Is Laurel and Hardy's "Duck Soup" any relation to the Marx Brothers' movie "Duck Soup:"? Yes, indeed! Leo McCarey was an assistant director on this movie. Six years later, when he directed the Marxes in what would become their greatest and funniest film, McCarey decided to recycle the title from this earlier film. The talkie revolution had changed Hollywood so utterly that silent movies made only a few years earlier were regarded as obsolete and unfit for re-release ... so McCarey figured he had a free hand to re-use the title, and this silent movie vanished into oblivion for more than half a century. Fortunately, 'Duck Soup' is now available again, and it's very funny. I'll rate this movie 8 points out of 10.

Aside from two previous films(LUCKY DOG and 45 MINUTES FROM HOLLYWOOD),this film is the very first that Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy appeared together properly.For nearly 50 years a lost film,it was thought that the comedians hardly shared any scenes in DUCK SOUP,if at all.When a copy did turn up in the 1970's,all shallow theories and guesses were proved totally wrong.Laurel & Hardy are very much a team throughout the entire picture,although their appearances are decidedly unorthodox;"Stan and Ollie" are "Hives and Maltravers",and are dressed in tramp costuming;Stan however does wear a bowler hat.Ollie wears a hat too,but of the top variety,and sports an unshaven chin instead of a toothbrush moustache.The film itself isn't particularly funny,having much frantic chases and running about,instead of the more controlled,carefully-paced nuances that L & H perfected barely a year later in further films.But at least they are a team,which was not to be the case in their following couple of pictures,where they sometimes played bitter enemies.DUCK SOUP is a film of massive and important interest,though.6 out of 10.

Duck Soup (1927)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Laurel and Hardy, trying to get away from firemen wanting to recruit them, run and hide in a house but when someone shows up to rent it they must pretend to be the owner and maid. L&H went onto remake this with better results in Another Fine Mess but this short has a few funny moments but not enough to make it work throughout.

45 Minutes from Hollywood (1926)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

A country boy goes to Hollywood to pay a bill and gets caught up in what he thinks is a movie being made. What he doesn't know is that he's caught up in a real robbery. There are a few good gags here but the real highlight is Oliver Hardy playing the Hotel Detective. Stan Laurel has a brief role as well. This was the first Hal Roach film where the two were in the same movie, although they don't share any scenes here.