The Finishing Touch

This is Laurel & Hardy the way most people like to remember them: as day laborers in denim, hard at work on a construction project which is, of course, doomed. Here they are "finishers" who have promised a homeowner they can complete work on his house for $500. The house happens to be located near a hospital, so a cop and tough nurse must persuade the boys to work quietly. Within this loose framework of a plot the guys are free to wreak havoc on the house, the cop, the nurse, and each other.

The Finishing Touch was made early in the L&H partnership, and is enjoyable if you're in the mood for basic slapstick knockabout. There are a lot of great gags here, but somehow this slapstick lacks the deft assurance -- the finesse, if you will -- of their later films with similar setups, such as Hog Wild or Busy Bodies. As contradictory as it sounds, the boys became more expert at portraying ineptitude as they "matured." Later on, too, at least in their best work, the gags seemed to occur spontaneously; here, some of the material feels rather forced. Prime example: Ollie repeatedly swallows a handful of nails due to his insistence on carrying them in his mouth. Now, even in low comedy, you need a more plausible set-up than that. Does any builder carry nails around in his mouth? Having swallowed one mouthful, would he do it again? Ollie is too dumb here. This is the sort of flaw one expects to find in their much later movies from the '40s, when the team was being mishandled by unsympathetic studio hacks. Laurel & Hardy should be simple and childlike, but not moronic.

Mr. Laurel comes off best in this film, getting lots of mileage out of his magnificently blank expression. He has two especially nice bits: first, when his awkward attempt to hoist a window frame into position results in the frame gradually falling to pieces; and next, when he frightens himself into believing he's lost one of his fingers. Stan could do so much with moments like that.

Also on the plus side, The Finishing Touch offers the sparkling cinematography of George Stevens, as well as several estimable supporting players: Dorothy Coburn as The Tough Nurse, Edgar Kennedy as The Ineffectual Cop, and Sam Lufkin as The Very Unhappy Homeowner. Lufkin figures prominently in the film's spirited finale, when it becomes clear that, despite assurances, the house is not "built like Gibraltar." Lufkin tries to retrieve the paycheck he's given the boys, but they fend him off with ingenuity and vigor. It's the best scene in the picture, a warm-up for the crazed Grab-the-Deed routine in L&H's 1937 masterpiece Way Out West, and a delight to watch.

Less than a year after they were teamed the boys had already hit their stride with this little gem. The emphasis here is particularly on slapstick as a succession of hilarious sight gags eventually culminate in the inevitable orgy of destruction.

There is little I can add to the comments offered by the other posters. However, when viewing this film I do see Stan and Babe working on becoming the masterful Babes in the Woods characters we have come to know them. Their timing and interaction is never less than astounding and their fearlessly effective telegraphing of a gag reveals a mastery of their craft that I would argue no other comics have. There was one event that startled me about this film and helped me to appreciate it more. I have been informed by a reliable source that this film is used as a training film at the United States Department of Labor!!!!!!!!!!! What is it used to train people about? The common mistakes that ordinary people make in construction sites or similar situations that place themselves in danger. When film scholars label Stan and Babe as the perfect masters of Reducio ad Absurdum comedy, as they do, perhaps the use this early Stan and Babe effort found itself put to helps prove the point.

In 'The Finishing Touch', directed by a master of slapstick (Clyde Bruckman) and supervised by a pillar of American comedy (Leo McCarey), Laurel and Hardy have fully developed their film personalities. The plot, that reminds Keaton's `One Week' and The Three Stooges `The sitter-downers', is merely an excuse for bringing up the best of the duo's explosive chemistry. The power of their humor relies not in the impact or unawareness of a gag, but in a skillful preparation of the comic situation. Laurel and Hardy's best trick is the anticipation of an effect and the audience's involvement in its prediction. Repetition is fundamental and the pace and timing of the build-up a hard to match one.

THE FINISHING TOUCH, a silent short featuring Laurel & Hardy and shot in 1928, features one of my favourite gags ever put on film: Ollie insists on carrying a handful of nails in his mouth, with predictable results. Yes, it's entirely silly and doesn't even get close to realistic, but nevertheless the execution and acting on the part of Hardy make this one of the funniest things I've seen.

Elsewhere, THE FINISHING TOUCH is a very good effort from the twosome. As in all of their best plots, they play a couple of workmen, here trying to build a 'dream home'; what transpires will surprise nobody. The gags are laboured, occasionally forced, and of the most basic slapstick, and yet they work, and work, and work. The only downside is that this is a silent, so it misses all of the crashing sound effects that would have added immeasurably to the experience.