Entre la chèvre et le chou

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were comedic geniuses, individually and together, and their partnership was deservedly iconic and one of the best there was. They left behind a large body of work, a vast majority of it being entertaining to classic comedy, at their best they were hilarious and their best efforts were great examples of how to do comedy without being juvenile or distasteful.

Although a vast majority of Laurel and Hardy's previous efforts ranged from above average to very good ('45 Minutes from Hollywood' being the only misfire and mainly worth seeing as a curiosity piece and for historical interest, and even that wasn't a complete mess), 'Two Tars' for me was their first truly classic one with close to flawless execution. Didn't find 'Angora Love', interesting for being the duo's silent film swansong, as one of their best and a bit disappointing compared to their late 1928 and previous 1929 efforts, which were among their best and funniest early work. It is still good with a lot of great merits.

It may not be "new" material as such, some rather familiar material here and the first part takes a little bit too time to get going.

Compared to the late 1928 and previous 1929 output, it is a little on the subdued and bland side, contrary to the insane craziness and wacky slapstick that was properly starting to emerge.

When 'Angora Love' does get going, which it does do very quickly, it is good enough fun, not really hilarious but never less than amusing. It is never too silly, the energy is there and the sly wit is here, some of the material may not be new but how it's executed actually doesn't feel too familiar and it doesn't get repetitive.

Laurel and Hardy are on top form here, both are well used, both have material worthy of them and they're equal rather than one being funnier than the other (before Laurel tended to be funnier and more interesting than Hardy, who tended to be underused). Their chemistry feels like a partnership here too, before 'Two Tars' you were yearning for more scenes with them together but in 'Angora Love' we are far from robbed of that. Their comic timing is impeccable.

'Angora Love' looks mostly good visually (even if the polish is not always there), has energy and the direction gets the best out of the stars, is at ease with the material and doesn't let it get too busy or static. The supporting players are solid.

Overall, good. Not essential or classic Laurel and Hardy but hardly disgraces them either. 7/10 Bethany Cox

This was Laurel and Hardy's last silent film for Roach Studios. However, since the public had a real thirst for "talkies", this same short was re-made by the team just a few years later with only a few small plot changes. LAUGHING GRAVY was essentially the same plot except that Stan and Ollie were trying to hide a cute puppy from their grouchy landlord--not a goat like in ANGORA LOVE. This whole goat angle is the worst part of the film. While you could understand the boys wanting to keep a cute little dog (after all, it is snowy outside), why exactly they bring a goat home is just contrived and pointless. According to the plot, the goat followed them home and so they got tired of shooing it away and kept it. Huh?! This just doesn't make any sense--if it had been a giraffe or a cow, would they have done the same thing?! Apart from being an unconvincing plot, the movie itself is pure Laurel and Hardy, with a familiar plot and familiar roles for the comedians. This film features quite a few laughs, but unfortunately isn't one of their better films to wrap up their silent careers. This aspect of their careers just seems to have ended with a whimper.

Having recently reviewed That's My Wife, the next film on my chronological Laurel & Hardy review list should be Big Business but I commented on that as well as Double Whoopee and Bacon Grabbers under my previous username tavm, so I'm now writing about Angora Love which happens to be the final silent L & H film. A goat leaves the pet shop he or she was displayed at and encounters Stan & Ollie just as they bought some pastry which is offered to the animal by Stan. That goat then follows them home where they have to deal with an angry landlord (Edgar Kennedy). I'll just say this was another funny one from the boys especially when things escalate, as they always do with them around, that's for sure! While the team would continue to be successful during the talkie era, when Laurel was asked years later by Boyd Verb if he had any preference between doing silents and talkies, Stan tersely replied, "Well, frankly, I preferred the silents." As Randy Skretvedt added at the end of his review of this short in his book, "Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies": "Making silents had been relatively easy, compared to talkies - as Laurel would find out very soon." So while I've reached the end of the silent era of 1929 in my chronological film review list, I won't move on to the talkies of that year until I review some other silents from years before that I just discovered on YouTube. So watch this space under my current username for those...

Although the title suggests an examination of the twisted obsessions of Ed Wood Jr., 'Angora Love' is in fact a Laurel & Hardy comedy, a diverting short which offers a heart-warming tale of two guys and the goat who refuses to leave them alone. Much of the humor revolves around the boys' efforts to hide the goat, Penelope by name, from their grouchy, goat-hating landlord, Edgar Kennedy, who gives one of his definitive grouch performances here. Apparently the premise held some special significance for Stan & Ollie, for they reworked it twice more with sound, first in the 1931 short Laughing Gravy, in which several of the gags from this film are re-enacted, and then just a year later in The Chimp, which borrows only the basic premise.

Angora Love, which was made in the spring of 1929 but not released until December of that year, was the last silent film made by Laurel & Hardy. It was originally accompanied by a music-and-effects track, but, contrary to an earlier post, there was never dialog on the soundtrack.

One of the best sequences occurs at the beginning, when the guys and the goat "meet cute." Penelope, having been fed a dough-nut by Stan, fixates on him and refuses to go away. Obviously, she wants more. The boys' attempt to give her the slip is funny and also rather poignant, at least from the goat's point of view. Cinematographer George Stevens helpfully offers us a tracking shot filmed from the goat's subjective P.O.V., or, as we might call it today, GoatCam. Once the trio is holed up in the boys' apartment the atmosphere gets somewhat claustrophobic, but the gags keep on coming. There's some silliness involving Stan's aerobics work-out, and a painful routine in which Ollie repeatedly steps on a tack. There's also an elaborately messy attempt to wash Penelope, and a sequence involving foot-rubbing which, despite the guys' innocent personalities, might strike some viewers as suggestively homo-erotic, or in any event kind of weird. There's also a quick throwaway gag involving a sailor and a prostitute that never would have gotten past the censors a few years later; it's understated but unmistakable, and not typical of Laurel & Hardy, but amusing in a raffish way.

In a sense it might have been more appropriate if Stan & Ollie had concluded their silent movie career on a spectacular note, perhaps with one of those rousing, garment-ripping riots that seemed to erupt so frequently in Culver City at the time. Still, while Angora Love is not one of the team's liveliest silent comedies, it did serve as a useful prototype for two of their talkies, and is plenty amusing in its own right.

Angora Love (1929)

*** (out of 4)

Funny two reeler has Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel walking out of a pastry shop when a goat begins to follow them. They eventually lose the animal but two nights later he's back and the duo has to take them to their hotel room where chaos follows since the landlord is in the room below them.

This film was remade by Laurel and Hardy as LAUGHING GRAVY and that there is considered by many fans and critics to be one of the best movies the two men ever made. This one here isn't quite as good as that film but there are still enough funny moments here to make the film worth watching. The one thing I noticed while watching this is how good a sport both men were and especially during the scenes where they're trying to give the goat a bath. They really get their hands dirty so to speak and these scenes get some of the biggest laughs as does the water fight towards the end.