La flotte est dans le lac

A LAUREL & HARDY Comedy Short.

Sailors Stan & Ollie, two MEN O'WAR, are on shore leave. While strolling through the park, they meet & escort two silly young women. After a financial contretemps at the soda fountain, the Boys initiate a rowdy donnybrook on the boat pond.

A hilarious little film, with a delightful sense of spontaneity, as if the performers were extemporizing much of their dialogue. This short is also refreshing in that the plot takes place entirely out of doors. Highlight: bedlam in the boat. The knickers sequence shows that this film was produced pre-Production Code. That's James Finlayson as the soda fountain/boat rental manager; Anne Cornwall & Gloria Greer as the young women; and Charlie Hall as the man in the canoe.

Laurel and Hardy are sailors on shore leave walking through the park. A misunderstanding over a misplaced item of clothing leads them into the favours (and company) of a pair of delightful young ladies. The pair invite them for a soda despite the fact that they have very little money, and then onto a quite memorable boating trip.

I have tried to really get into Laurel and Hardy shorts and have started watching them whenever I may get the chance. Of the ones I have seen so far this has been one of my favourites. The reason for that is I always enjoy when they are given the opportunity to be more than physical clowns and are given witty dialogue driven scenes. Here the majority of the film (the lost gloves and the soda shop) are all driven by the dialogue and the good `to-camera' work the pair do. The climax on the river boat is not as good as their better physical work but I didn't care as the majority was sublime.

Laurel and Hardy excel in the film, especially in the first three quarters. The chemistry and timing between them always shines through in the verbal more than the slapstick. Their delivery is perfect – while Hardy was calmly pleading with Laurel in the soda shop `why did you do that, just tell me why' I was in stitches! The support cast is pretty good although the ladies are a little dull. This short is also the best example of James Finlayson at his best and a good chance for all Simpsons fans to catch the origin of the Homer Simpson `d'oh'.

Overall I was always going to love this film simply because it revolves more around the dialogue than the slapstick. The climax on the boating lake is funny but this should be watched as proof that Laurel and Hardy were more than successful fall guys – they were simply comedy genius's who were all round vaudeville entertainers.

Starting right now, I'm reviewing a Laurel & Hardy film, and then an Abbott & Costello one with something similar, one after another. So it is that I'm reviewing Men O'War, L & H's third talkie. In this one, they are sailors charmed by a couple of young women. So they go to a soda shop and Ollie finds out there's only enough money for three drinks. So he tells Stan to refuse. I'll stop there and just say Bud & Lou go through something similar in Keep "Em Flying which I'll review next. So then they also go row boat riding and...well, if you've seen many L & H shorts it shouldn't surprise anyone what happens. This was pretty funny if not completely hilarious but still a treat to watch, just the same, especially when James Finlayson is involved, that's for sure! This short was early in the talkie era so the timing involving sound wasn't perfect, yet. So that's a recommendation for Men O'War.

Sailors on leave, Laurel & Hardy try to impress two girls they meet in a park in this delightful, early sound short.

After misfiring in their first two sound shorts, Laurel & Hardy start to regain their stride in this short film. There is much to commend here. The scene with the boys meeting the girls is very cute, and the misunderstanding about a lost garment was surprisingly risqué for the time. The scene at the soda shop, where the boys, broke as usual, try to marshal their resources to buy drinks for the girls is also quite amusing. The appearance longtime foil Jim Finlayson as the soda jerk adds to the humor of the scene. In the second reel, the boys take the girls out on a small lake in a rowboat which leads to a typical tit-for-tat fight with their fellow boaters. This sequence isn't as funny as similar battles in "Two Tars" or "You're Darn Tootin'," but it shows that the boys are back on the right track.

One of my favorite shorts of this period. I think it benefited from some nice dialogue that actually seemed written. In their first two films, the dialogue seemed too perfunctorily or ad- libbed. Here, for the first time, they seem to be exploring the true possibilities of sound.

"Men 'O War" was a short where Laurel and Hardy were still adapting to the new medium of sound. The dialogue is good enough but the pace is a bit leaden. Stan and Ollie are two sailors who befriend two young ladies in a park. They go to buy some drinks but Stan and Ollie only have 15 cents on them. There follows a marvellous scene where the boys agree to share a drink but Stan keeps forgetting this as he keeps ordering a drink he can't afford! The climax finishes with a full scale water fight after Stan and Ollie and their dates rent a boat for a pleasurable jaunt.