Laurel et Hardy au Far-West

There are plenty of great comedies that are better-made, more innovative, and more artistically satisfying than "Way Out West," but pound for pound this one has made me laugh the most over the years, repeatedly and consistently. Great clowns like Chaplin and Keaton made themselves into Everyman underdogs; the Marxes and Fields were wise-acre anarchists; but Laurel and Hardy were, simply, overgrown children: exactly as innocent and cunning and kind-hearted and selfish and sincere as big kids in suits. They lacked the malice which underlay Abbot & Costello or the Three Stooges. When they warred with each other or outside parties they did so from an honest sense of being wronged, which then escalated to ridiculous and dangerous heights, all with exquisite timing. Their bouts of exasperation never lasted long; as they soon as they finished stomping on each other's hats and twisting each other's noses they would go back to the unquestioning comradeship of two school-kids who stick together for no other reason than that they always have and always will.

"Way Out West" is probably their best feature film, thanks to decent production values, a fun use of the period setting, a solid supporting cast, and a great mix of visual and verbal jokes. A river hides a pothole that materializes only for Oliver Hardy; a femme fatale wrests a deed to a gold mine from a helpless Stan Laurel by a dastardly bout of tickling (few things in movies are funnier than Stan Laurel laughing); the duo perform a gracefully silly soft- shoe dance; a thumb proves mysteriously flammable and a hat becomes briefly edible; Ollie's neck stretches out at least four feet before snapping back. Death is discussed: "Tell me, what did my father die of?" Stan, ever-helpful, replies: "I think he died of a Tuesday. Or was it a Wednesday?" Songs are sung, first by Ollie, in his melodious tenor, then joined by a startlingly basso Stan. (A bop on the head changes him to a ladylike soprano.) James Finlayson makes wild puffs and snorts of disgust at the camera. And Stan's exposed leg stops a speeding stagecoach with as much ease as Claudette Colbert's stopped a truck in "It Happened One Night." And Ollie, beaming, and giggling and twiddling his tie to perfection, flirts with a highly disinterested lady by using the immortal line: "A lot of weather we've been having lately." It's all sheer bliss, a great movie comedy.

WAY OUT WEST

Aspect ratio: 1.37:1

Sound format: Mono

(Black and white)

Stan and Ollie are robbed of the deed to a valuable gold mine by a couple of fortune hunters (James Finlayson and Sharon Lynn).

One of Laurel and Hardy's most fondly remembered productions, WAY OUT WEST features career-best material, including a chase around the villain's apartment ("Ah-hah!" "Oh-hoh!" "Ee-hee!"), three wonderful musical interludes, and one of cinema's most priceless set-pieces: Stan and Ollie's soft-shoe shuffle outside a saloon as the Avalon Boys sing 'At the Ball'! Director James Horne was also responsible for many of L&H's short films, and his no-frills style is eminently suited to proceedings: Every routine is reduced to its basic components, all the better to 'sell' the gags, both visual and spoken. The film opened in 1937 to a number of lukewarm reviews, but has since secured its place within movie history. A bona fide masterpiece.

NB. The Avalon Boys included prolific character actor Chill Wills among their number (he also provides Stan's 'deep voice' during 'Trail of the Lonesome Pine'), and some of the incidental music was written by Irving Berlin! Neither of these gentlemen are credited on the print itself.

What did Rosina Lawrence's dying father expect when he entrusted Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy to deliver the deed to a gold mine to her in Way Out West? I mean even in death was his judgment that seriously impaired?

The boys are up to the necks in it in the town of Brushwood Gulch when they try to do their good deed. In fact Ollie's up to it even before as Stan innocently dumps the freeloading Ollie who is snoozing in a travois drawn by their donkey while Stan is guiding the poor animal. Dumps Ollie in a creek mind you. Serves him right actually.

The boys arrive in town and wouldn't you know it, they tell bartender James Finlayson what their mission is. So the quick thinking Finlayson gets his wife Sharon Lynne to pose as Lawrence and the boys sign the deed over to her.

Later on they discover their mistake and the rest of the film is spent trying to make up for their mistake and get the deed to the rightful owner. Of course it's one mishap after another, including Stan lighting Ollie's thumb on fire. Don't ask how.

Everybody looks like they're having a great old time in Way Out West. Finlayson is a terrific Snidely Whiplash, Lynne does a great imitation of the kind of brassy dame that Gladys George or Binnie Barnes had a specialty in, and Lawrence is a fabulous little Nell heroine.

Way Out West is one of Stan and Ollie's best feature film comedies. It even got an Oscar nomination for Best Musical Scoring. But I still wonder, wasn't their anyone else Lawrence's father could get for such a mission?

This is truly one of the funniest movies ever made. I'll never look at another block and tackle without a chuckle. And of course that groovy soft shoe shuffle and the Trail of the Lonesome Pine are gems - cinema history. Stan and Ollie weren't just slapstick geniuses. Theirs was a subtle blend of visual, acute observational and surreal comedy that has rarely been matched and never beaten. This film exemplifies their craft perfectly and shows touches of where, twenty to forty years later, the Goons, Monty Python, Tommy Cooper and The Comic Strip were coming from. After seeing this I recommend Sons of The Dessert, their other feature length masterpiece.

Would you send Mister Laurel & Mister Hardy off to the wilds of the Old West to deliver an important inheritance document to a young lady they've never seen? Probably not. But that is the hinge upon which this whole wonderfully goofy movie swings.

As always, the Boys are a pure joy to watch, whether they are trying to bust into a saloon in the dead of night, scuffling with the bad guys for a valuable scrap of paper or breaking into a delightful soft-shoe dance.

James Finlayson is very funny once again as the Boys' nemesis. Sharon Lynn, in a hilarious scene, gets to tickle Stan silly.

At one point Ollie begins to sing 'On The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine' in his clear high tenor. He had a beautiful voice, warm & nostalgic. Just like the rest of this film, one of Laurel & Hardy's best.