Les montagnards sont là

This film is poorly regarded in the L & H canon because it has an execrable plot and a dire musical score. The most mind-numbing number is a song in praise of Switzerland called 'I can't get over the Alps'. Fans of the dystopian duo will forgive all this, however, because it contains two of their most inspired scenes. In the first, Stan tricks a St Bernard dog into dispensing its keg of brandy by lying on the ground and covering himself with a snowstorm of feathers. In the second, Stan and Ollie attempt to push a piano across a rope bridge and are met by a gorilla going in the opposite direction. Gorilla's in Switzerland, who cares?

I can't see what all the moaning is about when it comes to the musical moments in SWISS MISS. So the music isn't exactly up to the standards of a Rodgers & Hart, but who cares? It's LAUREL and HARDY who carry the main weight of the story with occasional interludes from WALTER WOOLF KING as a frustrated song composer and DELLA LIND as a light soprano who actually has a very nice voice and operatic vocal range.

The boys are the whole reason for watching, that's for sure. And why not? They have some classic moments--Stan putting over a clever deception on the St. Bernard dog by throwing a snow of feathers over himself and lying down to pretend he's in need of rescue--after several attempts to take the brandy from the dog's neck. Or the boys assigned to take the piano to a higher perch in the mountains where Woolf can compose his masterpiece without any interruptions. Naturally, they have to negotiate a flimsy rope bridge over a deep gorge, which leads to the kind of mishaps the duo are famous for--including a gorilla who returns at the end of the film for a final joke.

It passes the time pleasantly with some picturesque looks at a Swiss village and Tyrolian garb from the cast members, which includes ERIC BLORE in a minor role. He's rather wasted here, but still the film is good fun for L&H fans.

Disappointing Laurel and Hardy film. Stan and Ollie are hilarious, of course, and their encounter with a gorilla on a rope bridge is a classic, but they're still done-in by subplots and musical numbers that command more time than their antics. Definitely worth seeing, but if you're new to the L&H cult and haven't seen it and are thinking of buying it, be advised that, despite their top billing, they are almost guest stars here.

This marvellous film neatly sets up a position - that the Swiss Tyrol is the traditional pleasant place of thigh slapping, jolly peasants and picturesque vies. From these images, composer will create his masterpiece. But to get the right mood, the staff at the swank hotel he is staying at must get themselves up in traditional costume - the image is artifice. Into this artificial, romantic world comes the dialectical opposition: Laurel & Hardy, with their arguments and bad luck. Immediately they arrive, the locals are shown to be devious cheats. They are then forced to work as slaves in the hotel to pay off an enormous food bill. All the while the composer is writing his ridiculous score, full of innocent mountain maids and singing crickets. The composer's prima-donna wife arrives and his false vision of innocence is shattered. She wants to play the innocent Swiss miss in his new work but he, rightly, rejects her as too worldly. To get the role, she connives, flirts and manipulates the hotel staff, including L & H. The greatest sequence involves our heroes attempting to get a piano across an Alpine valley rope bridge - the precarious position of artificial human culture within a dangerous natural world is exposed. To add icing to this cake, they are finally attacked on the rope bridge by a gorilla! This gorilla in the Swiss Alps might be something which Luis Bunuel would have enjoyed. In the end, the composer welcomes his wife back and accepts the artificial, anything-but-innocent nature of his art. L & H, the latter of whom has been in love with the wife, are chased away from the village by, of course, the gorilla.

Laurel and Hardy play mouse trap salesmen, who go to Switzerland to sell some mouse traps.There they of course get in many troubles.Swiss Miss offers some very funny scenes with the boys, like the scene with Stanley and the dog and the scene where the boys try to move a piano up to the mountains.Swiss Miss is a great Laurel and Hardy comedy from 1938.And the gorilla is a nice add to the movie.