Maison de tout repos

Stan and Ollie's best shorts are filled to the brim with accidents, destruction and disasters from the tiny to the large: 'Big Business' (1929; silent), 'Busy Bodies' (1932), 'The Music Box' (1932), 'Towed in a Hole' (1932), and 'Dirty Work' (1933). Innocent Stan unwittingly causes no end of anxiety, trouble, exasperation and pain for long suffering Ollie.

'County Hospital' is true to this wonderful formula for the first two thirds of the film. Stan visits Ollie in the hospital, and continually exasperates him with his little behavioral quirks and oddities. Then after the doctor comes in, Stan lifts the truss weight from the floor, and very quickly the doctor winds up hanging out the top story window while Ollie is being hung upside down from the ceiling by the cast on his leg, the doctor's clothes are ripped, and as Ollie falls, his bed collapses.

All the scenes in the hospital are vintage Laurel and Hardy; even though he does most of his acting immobile in bed, Ollie is Ollie! The film dies as soon as they leave the hospital, and there is a flat back projection careening car ride with Stan supposedly sleeping while driving that is simply not funny because it is so obvious the boys are spinning in a car in front of a screen. The weak ending shows them spinning around in an L-shaped car (which had wrapped itself around a pole).

My grandchildren enjoy watching it, but the ending detracts too much for this to be one of their top top bests. I give it a 7.

This is one of the Laurel & Hardy comedies that show how resourceful they could be in getting the most out of the limited resources within a confined setting. Most of the gags work well, and only a somewhat uneven finale keeps it from being among the better of their two-reel comedies.

The simple story setup has Oliver in the "County Hospital" as a patient in traction, with Stanley stopping by to visit. You would hardly expect that anyone could get into so much trouble in a confined space, but they come up with a lot of comedy ideas, from hard-boiled eggs to the traction equipment, and more, with a couple of particularly good ones.

The climactic sequence is a bit hard to figure, because the back projection so obviously does not match the main footage. It's so much out of sync that you almost wonder whether it was done deliberately for the sake of comic effect, or whether it had to be left that way due to limits on time or money. In any case, this is a funny comedy with a few bits that are quite good.

There is a scene in James Parrot's short County Hospital, which stars Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, where, upon visiting his best friend Hardy in the hospital, Laurel sits idly, salting a hard-boiled egg and eating it. There's no joke, there's no real punchline, and there's no real purpose; it's about as literal as a scene could get. If only there was a way to tell the late writer H.M. Walker along with Parrot and Laurel that they may have fundamentally erected the popular idea/concept of anti-humor all the way back in 1932.

Although it does feature crisp sound and dialog, County Hospital is still so much a Laurel and Hardy short because of the fact it is more about situational humor than dialog-driven humor. Some readers of mine may mistake the idea that I have a disdain for situational humor, although, when I see the humor done smoothly and humorously, that couldn't be further from the truth. Laurel and Hardy knew what they wanted to accomplish and that was the concept of slapstick, silly humor. The wise-cracking, satirical humor that could make you laugh and ponder was left to Charlie Chaplin and the Marx brothers, which could arguably be why their films come to mind quicker than most Laurel and Hardy films do, on the topic of classic comedy films.

The short concerns Laurel arriving to the hospital to comfort Hardy after he received a broken leg, which already feels like the sequel to another one of their shorts gone awry. He brings hard-boiled eggs and nuts - to which Hardy replies with the sole line that essentially sums up the characters in each of their shorts - but Hardy realizes that while Laurel means well, he consistently causes trouble for the both of them. Hardy cannot remember the last time he endured such a restful experience, with two more months in a hospital bed to go, but Laurel ruins all of that with his well-meaning but trouble-causing actions.

County Hospital's only burden is its atrociously fake scene involving a sleepy Laurel trying to drive a vehicle with Hardy in the backseat, a scene that is understandable given the thought of the technological limitations of the early 1930's along with the short's budgetary issues. It's little bother; the film that was made instead was a fun piece of work, with self-referential gags and questionably pioneering ones as well.

Starring: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Directed by: James Parrot.

I've probably seen this Laurel & Hardy short more than any other. I watched it with my dad in the early Fifties. I have to admit, I really felt for Oliver in this one. He is really in bad shape and his good buddy comes along and ruins it for him. From the beginning when Stanley brings him a gift of some hard boiled eggs and some nuts, it's all over. Stan causes so much trouble that they are both thrown out of the hospital. After several harrowing moments, Stan sits on a hypodermic needle that contains a sedative. Of course, he has to drive Oliver home. There is a great line when Oliver asks his friend why he didn't bring a box of candy. He says Ollie never paid him for the last one.

This is a very funny and watchable Laurel and Hardy short. Ollie has been injured and Stan, like a pal, comes to visit and cheer him up. However, from the minute he arrives, Stan creates havoc--driving the staff mad and torturing Ollie in the process. I particularly liked how his playing with the counterweight to Ollie's broken leg resulted in Ollie's doctor being launched out the window! As a result, Stan AND Ollie are ejected from the hospital. The final driving sequence is the low-point, as at times it looked VERY fake, but the final scene makes this screwup forgivable. This film is good fun and only a crusty old curmudgeon would dislike it.

By the way, I am rather shocked to say that there is a better hospital comedy starring Billy Gilbert (who was also in COUNTY HOSPITAL). NIFTY NURSES is a mostly forgotten musical comedy that frankly is head and shoulders above this Laurel & Hardy film. While I adore Stan and Ollie, this other film is the funniest hospital short I've seen--better than COUNTY HOSPITAL and the Three Stooges' MEN IN BLACK.