Laurel et Hardy électriciens

Stan and Ollie have gone into business with an electrical appliance store and it just happens to be located next to the grocery store of Mae Busch and Charley Hall. As fate would have it they've got a history with Mae and Charley going back to a previous short subject Them Thar Hills.

Charley's of a suspicious nature, no doubt aggravated by seeing Ollie coming down the stairs of his apartment above the store and saying goodbye to Mae. There is an innocent explanation for it all, in fact it was caused by Stan, I won't say how.

This gets Hall's back up and they start a war of pranks for the rest of the 19 minute short subject. Which are a series of slapstick gags the boys pull on Charley and he keeps retaliating. It escalates pretty good and they come, not fast and furious, but kind of slow cooked the better to savor.

Though Tit for Tat probably should be seen back to back with Them Thar Hills, it's a good enough short subject to stand on its own. Why would it have gotten an Academy Award nomination if it wasn't?

This movie perfectly shows the reasons why I like Laurel & Hardy pictures so much. It has got a great silly story, well timing and some great comical moments, all perfectly executed by the characters.

The story is very, very simple but it works oh so well and is oh so strong. Basically the movie is about Stan and Olie, who just opened an electrical repair store, having a small war with their neighbor the grocer. Basically the movie is about the two parties taking constantly revenge on the other, in a comical hilarious way. This movie is a direct (and the only) sequel to a previous Laurel & Hardy movie, namely; "Them Thar Hills".

The returning joke of the costumer who robs the store every time Laurel & Hardy went away is absolutely hilarious.

The simple story of the movie is extremely well executed and makes this movie one of the most enjoyable Laurel & Hardy shorts.

8/10

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Tit for Tat concerns Laurel and Hardy as entrepreneurs, opening an electrical goods store in a strip mall next door to another shop owner (Charlie Hall), who is weary of their behavior after seeing Hardy with his wife (Mae Busch). In response, the shop owner triggers a fight with them by breaking items in their store, which prompts Laurel and Hardy to conduct "eye-for-an-eye" treatment on the man by destroying his shop, a small little grocery outlet. In the mix of senseless fighting, a shoplifter (Bobby Dunn) repeatedly enters Laurel and Hardy's shop, taking more and more items each time, rendering the entire situation increasingly maddening for all parties.

While Tit for Tat is a sequel to the Laurel and Hardy short Them Thar Hills (unseen by me), it almost plays like a remake of Big Business (from 1929) in style, where Laurel and Hardy were feuding with the next door neighbor, taking turns demolishing each other's homes. While I have been critical of the more slapstick-infused shorts of Laurel and Hardy, these types of "eye for an eye" shorts work largely because they are competitions between the characters for how far they want to take their situational humor. In addition, it's also a pleasure to see how wise the characters can be under the circumstances of revenge while simultaneously remaining so dumb and foolish throughout the entire time. There's a great amount of pleasure that comes in watching Laurel and Hardy compete for superiority when the prize is nothing more than another crack in their fragile dignity.

Starring: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Charlie Hall, Mae Busch, and Bobby Dunn. Directed by: Charles Rogers.

Laurel and Hardy open up an electrical hardware store and go to introduce themselves to the neighbouring grocery store owner only to find that it is Mr and Mrs Hall, whom they encountered previously on a mountain trip for health reasons. Mr Hall still has issues regarding his wife and Hardy. These issues boil over when Hardy inadvertently gets involved with her again leading to a battle of retribution between the two men. Meanwhile, no one is minding the store.

Having just seem `Them Thar Hills' the day before, the fact that this film followed on from that one was a pleasant surprise. The strongest part of that film was a `tit for tat' battle with Charlie Hall, Well, someone clearly agreed that this was funny, so the vast majority of this film is given over to a continuation of that battle – directly referring back to Them Thar Hills. The whole film is hilarious. Not only does the humour strike an imaginative chord but the calm `accept my punishment' style approach of the film makes it even funnier. There is also a great running joke each time the duo leave their store.

Laurel and Hardy do great work – both giving and receiving the blows. Charlie Hall is about as spot on as I've seen him in these shorts. Here he has a bigger character than he often does and he really works hard to thank the film for the part I guess. Busch has less to do and is really only the plot driver here.

Overall this short is one simple idea – a running battle between Laurel and Hardy and Mr Hall the grocer. It is wonderfully simple and wonderfully effective as it is hilarious from start to finish.

Revisitng Laurel and Hardy's films it's surprising to see that the practice of slipping in a few adult references for the grown-ups wasn't the idea of the makers of full-length 90s cartoon films. As other reviewers have mentioned, Ollie's comment to Mae Busch, the wife of the diminutive neighbouring shopkeeper with whom he is embroiled in the 'tit for tat' feud of the title, is clearly a deliberate double-entendre that somehow slipped by the censors as, no doubt, it would have any watching children. There's a similar sight gag in County Hospital that is quite subtle by comparison but no doubt just as deliberate.

Anyway, this one's pretty good. It's a sequel to the previous year's Them Thar Hills which introduced us to the memorable song lyric Pom Pom and it probably just shades that one for laughs. The boys were at the top of their game in the mid-thirties thanks to sharp, well-paced shorts like these and some of the touches here are truly first-class.