Laurel et Hardy chefs d'îlots

One of Laurel and Hardy's last films was this one for MGM where they play a couple of 4Fs who still want to do their bit for the USA at war with the Axis. After getting turned down by all the armed services, Stan and Ollie return to their small town and their bicycle shop to volunteer as air raid wardens. Their bicycle shop in fact has been taken over by Donald Meek who is running a radio repair shop, but Meek allows them back in as partners.

MGM did give the boys an excellent supporting cast a lot better than what they usually had with Hal Roach. Problem is that they looked a bit old and tired and both were having health problems at the time. Still they got a few good slapstick licks in, especially with Edgar Kennedy and Howard Freeman who was a great foil for them.

My favorite moment in the film was when after one foul up too many they get canned as air raid wardens and Stan who usually cried at the drop of a hat, was almost in real tears about it. Both he and Ollie really do want to do something for the war effort even if they know they're a pair of bumblers.

Ollie in fact was the most restrained I've seen him. The Laurel and Hardy shtick is that Stan is a dummy and he knows it, Ollie is dumb, but has delusions of grandeur. Here Ollie also tones down the usual pomposity we expect from him.

Of course they redeem themselves when they stumble on to a real group of Nazi spies. Among that cast of all American small town types are a pair of known character actors who are in fact spies and saboteurs.

But you'll just have to see Air Raid Wardens to find out who.

This movie is too serious for the comical Laurel & Hardy that we are so accustomed to and love so much. The movie tries to give the movie depth with as a result that Laurel and Hardy are not given enough opportunities to show their silly antics. I consider this movie to be more of a WW II movie than a comedy.

This movie is a real piece of American WW II propaganda. The boys give everything to get enlisted, so they can do their part for Uncle Sam during the war, against the Japanese. And Laurel & Hardy chasing and fighting Nazi-spies? Come on! That just doesn't feel right. The movie really is too serious for Laurel & Hardy standards. The movie tries to create a movie with a real story and even attempt to give it all some depth. But that's not what Laurel & Hardy should be about. We want to see some silly naive harmless fun. Yes, of course the movie does have its comical and slapstick moments but the combination of it with the serious undertone of the movie just doesn't feel right.

It does provide a fairly good view of how the average American town coped with the ongoing war, so from an historical point of view this movie still is an interesting one to watch.

No must-see for the Laurel & Hardy lovers but also not a completely unwatchable movie. It really does have its moments and it never gets dull. Too bad that it's brought all way too serious and because of this Laurel & Hardy are also never really given the opportunity to shine, like the way they used to.

6/10

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Yes, this is pretty anemic L & H, but as their '40s films go, I put it third behind THE BULLFIGHTERS and JITTERBUGS as their most tolerable (the fourth, THE BIG NOISE, has one of the best L & H fadeouts ever, but that's another entry).

Anyway, AIR WARDENS manages to eke out some effective comedic bits, especially some unexpectedly impressive pratfalls from an aging Laurel. The war time trappings can get tiresome, but at least there's neat payoff with one sight gag near the end. Edgar Kennedy is a big plus in this film, and though its flaws are many (why no background music?),it's hardly a catastrophe. That's a backhanded compliment, but I think accurate enough!

In 1940, L&H quit Hal Roach after twelve years of partnership that yielded some of the finest comedies ever made. Their departure for 20th Century Fox was meant to be a step towards more creative control and freedom in the process of making films; alas, the opposite was the case. Their first two films under the new production company showed that L&H should, by Fox's definition, appear in front of the cameras and leave cutting, directing etc. to the professionals. Consequently, these two films were pale shadows of their great Roach-produced companions. Desperately, L&H sought a newer rainbow at MGM but were to be disappointed again. Even the best scenes in this film, "Air Raid Wardens", like two tit-for-tat sequences with their old colleague Edgar "Slowburn" Kennedy, lacked the spontaneous and improvised look of similar scenes´in, say, "Bacon Grabbers". Likewise, other slapstick moments in ARW like a poster-hanging bit have a rather mechanical look and are destroyed by poor editing. Yes, Stan's creative genius was sadly missing behind the camera.

Furthermore, the whole patriotic atmosphere of the plot doesn't fit L&H's style one bit.

And still this excuse for a comedy, although far, far from features like "Way Out West" or "Sons Of The Desert", emerges as one of the better post-Roach films after all; firstly, in contrast to most of the other later films, the romantic subplot is pretty much in the background and Stan & Ollie remain the main attraction. Secondly, there are at least a few scenes which REMIND you of L&H's better days; there are no such scenes to be found in "A-Haunting We Will Go" or "Nothing But Trouble", for example.

So "Air Raid Wardens" is hardly a pain to sit through but is so vastly inferior to their Roach films that you regret once more that they left him for good in 1940.

An unashamedly jingoistic Laurel and Hardy movie that sees them try to join the war effort. Watching loveable everymen Stan and Ollie put up signs saying "gone to fight the Japs" troubles me ideologically. Maybe I'm reading into it too much, but seeing such crass propaganda as Ollie saying, "There's a job to be done right here at home" fills me with a sense of dread. And it's weird hearing English Stan talking about "Our Country" and uttering such trite platitudes as "We'll do anything that Uncle Sam wants us to do, won't we, Ollie?"

What's most unsettling is that Stan and Ollie look so old and ill you no longer laugh at their slapstick but fear for their safety. Direction by Edward Sedgwick is quite nice in terms of angles and camera motion, but completely at odds with the material. More to the point, sometimes poor shots and editing made the old Laurel and Hardy films funnier. With more professional standards they seem like an anachronism. The tiredness of the two leads (Stan in particular, who liked to be more involved in the creative level) comes through, and it all has a jaded, rehashed feel. I laughed just four times in the film's 64m duration, and while I cannot imagine any L & H vehicle plumbing the depths of a * movie, this is easily the weakest of their work that I've seen so far.

There's a lifeless atmosphere throughout, and Stan and Ollie's rapport is virtually non-existent for once. Some bits, like Stan sleeping in a gas mask amuses, but the chemistry is almost entirely absent. If they'd made the film half the length yet with the same material it might have meant a pacier, snappier, product. In fact, it took me a while to put my finger on it, but what the picture misses more than anything else is incidental music, something that was synonymous with Laurel and Hardy. Their violent fight with an awkward houseowner – including ramming a pipe down his throat and smashing his head into a fusebox – does recapture some old glories, but it's too little. Most unsettling scene is the one where Stan can't write his own name. Laurel & Hardy are always dumb, but here it's supposed to be funny that they have learning difficulties? The climactic final pay-off is particularly notable for being nowhere near good enough. The film doesn't so much end, but slump to a halt.

Intriguingly, when Air Raid Wardens was released with Nothing But Trouble on one tape in 1993, the blurb on the back told you the ending. How thoughtful.