Les rois de la colle

This is definitely a "lesser known" comedy short from the 1920s. The only reason I saw it was because it was on a DVD by Kino Films featuring non-Laurel and Hardy shorts featuring Ollie. They are interesting and historically important, but also generally average to below average for the style film. Compared to shorts by Chaplin, Keaton, Arbuckle and Lloyd, they are definitely a step below them in quality and humor. Also, the accompanying music was pretty poor by the standards of other silent DVDs. I ended up turning OFF the sound due to the inappropriateness of the music to set the proper mood. But, despite this, they are still worth seeing.

You'll notice in the heading that I said the film has "genuinely funny moments". That's because the film is generally average to below average, as Bobby Roy and Oliver Hardy just don't have much chemistry together. BUT, there are also some funny scenes from a purely slapstick level. I loved the sight of the sanitarium being accidentally wallpapered with circus posters--I couldn't help but chuckle. However, apart from that and a few other small laughs, this is an imminently forgettable short.

This is one of a few films in which a younger Oliver Hardy was paired with a a then-as-now relatively unknown comic called Bobby Ray. It's apparent watching this film that Hardy was essentially playing second banana to a far inferior comic actor. Bobby Ray should have ample opportunity to build a character here, but all we get is the cookie-cutter "goof" that the title card tells us he is. Hardy creates character with every gesture, and it's apparent that he's already developing that bossy but comically fastidious (look at him deal with the woman that's interested in Bobby) persona that would be later so successful paired with Stan Laurel.

Here Hardy and Ray are a paperhanger and his helper, respectively (hence the title of this short's edited one-reel version, "The Paperhanger's Helper") who are hired to put up wallpaper in a sanitarium. Of course, this leads to plenty of crazy-people gags. There are also plenty of getting-drunk-by-accident gags, things-that-look-similar-get-accidentally-switched gags (they end up papering the walls with circus posters), and somebody-gets-covered-in-glue gags. The material they are given is not necessarily bad, it's just totally generic. I suppose for a film supposed to be carried by a characterless comic such a Bobby Ray that's not terribly surprising.

Stick Around or The Paperhanger's Helper finds Oliver Hardy as a wall paperhanger with Bobby Ray as an assistant who get a job at an asylum. That in itself guarantees a few laughs, the rest provided by the team of Hardy and Ray.

It certainly doesn't seem right. Bobby Ray as comic seems like a stand-in for Stan Laurel. He's got the general idea of Laurel's comic character. But while some of the gags involving wallpaper and the sticky paste you apply to fasten it to a wall, the spark of innocence that was Stan Laurel's is just not there.

The film has the look and feel of Ollie trying out a different Laurel before he found the right one.