Mon neveu l'écossais

This is a very well-crafted short, but I've always been mystified as to why anyone, much less Stan Laurel, would consider this to be the first true Laurel & Hardy film. The first film they appeared in was a comedy starring Laurel with Hardy in support, "The Lucky Dog" from 1921. The second film they made together at the Hal Roach studio, "Duck Soup" (not to be confused with the Marx Brothers film of the same name, nor the Edgar Kennedy short), actually has humor more typical of their mature work.

If you can get past the unusual characterizations in "Philip" (Stan is a kilted, woman-crazy Scot and Hardy is his American uncle, fearful of being embarrassed lest someone find out he's related to this eccentric young man), the film offers some solid laughs. It's beautifully paced and edited; do try to see this in a theater with an audience, where it really comes to life.

The credited director is Clyde Bruckman, known best as a gag writer for Buster Keaton (and later Harold Lloyd, and still later, The Three Stooges). He only made 20 films as a director, but they include Keaton's "The General," Laurel & Hardy's "The Battle of the Century," Harold Lloyd's "Movie Crazy" and W.C. Fields' "The Man on the Flying Trapeze," each of these titles being among the best films their respective stars ever made. Producer Hal Roach was particularly fond of "Putting Pants on Philip," incidentally.

Made before Laurel and Hardy became a solid team with the characteristics we know and love, Putting Pants on Phillip is a one-trick pony, but the Boys play it for all, maybe more, than it's worth. Shirt chasing Laurel must be taken out of his own skirt, or properly his kilt, to fit into American society. Of course, Laurel resists, and Hardy is adamant, and along the way we get our share of lantern grins, camera looks, cries, and maybe the first time Oliver Hardy meets the six foot puddle. There's a great reaction shot after Laurel inadvertently loses his drawers before walking over an air grate; a quick cut shows the women in the crowd fainting at the sight of the pants-less Laurel. After his inseam measurement is taken, a half disrobed and completely disheveled Laurel appears, as broken as any Griffith heroine.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy had been circling each other at the Roach lot for two or three years by the time this, the first official Laurel & Hardy movie was made. In fact, their first movie together had been in 1919, when Hardy played a bit in Laurel's starring vehicle LUCKY DOG. They don't even act like a team here, being in constant opposition to each other, and Stan's character as a naive Scotchman is nothing at all like the Mr. Laurel we know and love.

Mr. Hardy, on the other hand, is clearly himself. If you look at his earliest surviving shorts from 1914 and 1915, you can see bits and pieces of his slow, pompous character as he begins to put it together.

It's a Laurel & Hardy short, and it's funny, even if it's not Stan and Ollie yet. Even so, Hal Roach and his team knew they were onto something.

Although the slight premise limits what it can do, this earlier Laurel and Hardy comedy has some very funny moments. The whole feature depends on just a couple of very simple comedy ideas, but Stan and Ollie are able to get good laughs out of lesser material than that. The goofy nature of the material would probably have led to a flop with most other performers, so this feature really depends on its stars to make it work.

Laurel plays a young Scot coming to the USA, wearing a kilt and bringing an overly enthusiastic eye for women, while Hardy plays his unfortunate uncle who has to keep an eye on him. Laurel successfully fits his style in with the premise, blending his familiar screen persona with that of a red-blooded Scot. Hardy has to play the straight man for much of the movie, but his expressions in the part work well, and he also gets a couple of chances to take the spotlight for himself.

The comedy writing in this one is, honestly, not that great. After a while, it just keeps coming back to the same couple of gags, and only the lively presence and fine comic timing of the two stars makes it work. But it still offers some good laughs that make it worth seeing.

This is one of L&H's shorts most frequently cited as the first "real" L&H teaming and perhaps one of their best silent features. J. Piedmont Mumblethunder (Ollie) is a millionaire who has come to the docks to greet his nephew Philip, whom he's never seen. At first Ollie is laughing it up with everyone when this strange little man unboards and draws a great deal of attention to himself by the way he's behaving during his medical exam, but is quite humiliated when it turns out that this is the fellow he's supposed to be greeting. He has been told that Philip is a good boy, but he has one weakness--women. Mumblethunder and Philip set off to go home, but their journey there is continually interrupted by Philip breaking into a little dance every time he sees a woman, then chasing after the woman. Huge crowds gather each time this happens, not so much because he's chasing skirts, but because Philip himself is also wearing a skirt (a kilt). Finally Mumblethunder manages to drag Philip into a tailor's shop to be measured for a proper pair of pants, but Philip escapes from there as well to chase more skirts. There are lots of laughs all around. It's also nice to see a short like this because the boys aren't exactly the characters we know and love. Ollie is pretty much his usual character, but it's such a joy to see Stan acting so differently from his usual man-child character. It shows he wasn't a one-trick pony and excelled in other types of roles when he got the chance. With a run time of 19 minutes its short and sweet, providing classic one liners which still have me in stitches.