O Poço de Pifão

Them Thar Hills is another favorite Laurel and Hardy episode of mine. In this one, Stan and Ollie go out into the country for Ollie's health. Along the way they encounter a fun loving wife (Mae Busch) and her exasperated husband (Charlie Hall), and they get drunk on some wishing well water that had been contaminated with alcohol by moonshiners.

The funniest part in this episode was when Stan and Ollie retaliate against Charlie Hall! Laurel and Hardy were both ingenious when it came to making episodes and movies, Stan Laurel had taken any gag he used and made it be extremely funny! Also, the way they played off each other in this episode and others were absolutely impressive. That's what made L&H so exquistite, comedy-wise. In fact, Laurel and Hardy are my second favorite comedy team of yesteryear!

Also, Charlie Hall was a great L&H regular, too! And the fun doesn't stop there! After you see Them Thar Hills, watch the bonus sequel Tit for Tat! Both episodes are a can't-miss for Laurel and Hardy fans!

Mr. Hardy is suffering from gout, so Mr. Laurel proposes they buy a trailer and go stay in the country. They park on a patch of land with a well on it. Little do they know.... well, anything. In this case, revenooers have poured moonshiner's products down the well. As they drink the water, their mood rises..... but here comes married couple Charlie Hall and Mae Busch. It all ends in one of the marvelous slow motion 'tit for tat' duels that the Boys got into.

Stan and Ollie were alternating their shorts with features by this point, and could choose to make a movie short or long depending on what they wanted to do. This undoubtedly contributed to their sustained level of excellence in this period.

Them Thar Hills, the story of Mr. Hardy needing good mountain climate, Mr. Laurel agreeing, and together they set out "for the mountains" with a small camper behind them, and the radiator overflowing. Being told to drink plenty of Mountain Water, they do so when they find a place with a well they drink as much water as possible; only what they don't know is that moonshiners dumped their liquor into the well. So, slowly, the boys become drunk, and when Mae Bush and Charlie Hall come to ask for gas, Mae becomes drunk as well; resulting in one of their funniest tit-for-tat sequences. The film has many of these hilarious moments, for instance, when Stan tries to carry Ollie, but through a little mishap, winds up dumping himself and Ollie in the bathtub! Also, while cooking and making everything ready for lunch, Ollie hums "The Old Spinning Wheel," and after a while, Stan gives in a good "Pum-Pum." This results in Ollie's hitting him over the head, saying, "I'm singing this song!"

This is an excellent Laurel & Hardy short subject, one that is a must-see for every Laurel & Hardy Fan. What is also exciting, is that apart from being a good film, this short will be celebrating its 70th anniversary on July 21, its initial release into theatres and the world in 1934.

Stan and Ollie made a lot of shorts. So many that it's natural that there would be some repetition of the gags. In this film, the formula from their silent film BIG BUSINESS is repeated but this time with Charley Hall. In fact, their fight with Hall was so successful, that it was repeated a year later in TIT FOR TAT.

Basically, what happens is that a small slap or insult or whatever provokes a response from Laurel and Hardy. And, this escalates and builds until the end result is total destruction. In BIG BUSINESS, a house and a car were destroyed, in TIT FOR TAT, two businesses bit the dust. In this film, Charley Hall is angry because the boys unintentionally got his wife drunk--resulting in him being covered in molasses and feathers and Stan and Ollie having their mobile home destroyed. It's formula but it's a good and funny one at that.

Nothing super new, but done so well.

This Laurel&Hardy short subject opens with Ollie suffering the effects of the gout. Given his stoutness I would think that was something that Oliver Hardy might have had in real life. In any event Dr. Billy Gilbert suggests that he and Stanley go off into the mountains and get some clean country living. Ollie's been living it up too good with that rich city food. Surprisingly Gilbert, a great comic talent in his own right is little used in this short.

But anyway off go Stan and Ollie in a trailer to Them Thar Hills. But they come into some moonshiner territory where the locals have dumped some of their product into a well the boys stop at. That leads to all the rest of the gags in this film including getting a neighbor's wife drunk and the neighbor taking umbrage.

At least until the final gag Ollie may not have had his gout cured, but with all that moonshine in him, he forgot his ills.