Queijo Suíço

Disappointing Laurel and Hardy film. Stan and Ollie are hilarious, of course, and their encounter with a gorilla on a rope bridge is a classic, but they're still done-in by subplots and musical numbers that command more time than their antics. Definitely worth seeing, but if you're new to the L&H cult and haven't seen it and are thinking of buying it, be advised that, despite their top billing, they are almost guest stars here.

Laurel and Hardy play mouse trap salesmen, who go to Switzerland to sell some mouse traps.There they of course get in many troubles.Swiss Miss offers some very funny scenes with the boys, like the scene with Stanley and the dog and the scene where the boys try to move a piano up to the mountains.Swiss Miss is a great Laurel and Hardy comedy from 1938.And the gorilla is a nice add to the movie.

Swiss Miss would have been far far better had Hal Roach dispensed altogether with the operetta format and just allowed Stan and Ollie to do their thing. Away from them the film sinks like the Titanic.

Walter Woolf King and Greta Natzler are the husband and wife romantic leads and there's a strain in their relationship. He's a composer, she's a singer and poor Walter is jealous of the attention she gets and no one pays attention to what he writes. He goes off to the Alps to compose his masterpiece. She follows him there.

The banter and the songs are typical of a MacDonald/Eddy film, but Nelson and Jeanette never had to sing stuff like I Can't Get Over the Alps and the Cricket Song. They wouldn't have had careers if they did.

Interestingly enough the bit with King composing the Cricket Song after hearing their chirping is similar to Jerome Kern hearing a bird call and getting I've Told Every Little Star out of it. Of course it wasn't Jerome Kern who gave us the Cricket Song.

Walter Woolf King who's best known as the egotistical Lespari from A Night at the Opera just doesn't come across as a good guy. Maybe with better material Allan Jones could have done this part.

But with Stan and Ollie the film is enjoyable. They've got some classic bits, Laurel trying to steal some brandy from a St. Bernard, drilling holes in a shopkeeper's floor and hitting a gas line for their trouble and best of all the insane idea of moving an upright piano across a rope bridge and encountering an escaped gorilla.

Mute the sound whenever Stan and Ollie aren't around and you might enjoy Swiss Miss.

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".

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.