Our Relations (1936)

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Our Relations (1936)
Topic Started: Aug 29 2009, 06:07 AM (86 Views)
Laughing Gravy	Aug 29 2009, 06:07 AM Post #1
Revered in the UK Posts: 11,075 Group: Admin Member #1 Joined: August 31, 2005	Hey, you guys know me - I am pretty much DOWN with Laurel & Hardy. I was once in a hotel room with a pretty blonde who wanted very much to be amorous and I asked her to wait until after the L&H picture on TV was over (it was a short subject, thankfully). Anyway, of all their features for Hal Roach, the only ones I don't particularly like are this one and Saps at Sea (1940). I watched this one anyway, 'cause it had been so long since I'd seen it. Stan & Ollie are a pair of henpecked husbands; their twin brothers, Bert & Alf, ran away to sea many years ago and were thought hung for mutiny ("Gee, that's too bad," Stan deadpans upon hearing the news). Well, Bert & Alf show up in town one day, run afoul of their captain, Sidney Toler, and are gypped out of their dough by James Finlayson. When they run into a pair of cuties at a beer garden and leave to try to reclaim their money, Stan & Ollie enter, see, and you can just imagine what goes on. I guess. It sounds funny when I describe it, so how come the movie isn't funny? I don't know, but it is worth seeing because Laurel & Hardy playing a pair of characters each is a treat (although Brats this ain't) and because of the wonderful supporting cast, which includes Alan Hale as the maitre'd, Daphne Pollard as Daphne, Arthur Housman as a drunk (what else?). I love that Finlayson is simply called "Finn" in the picture. The best thing is that when Stan & Ollie are around, the soundtrack plays the L&H theme, and when they're Alf & Bert, the Sailor's Hornpipe theme plays; it just gets funnier each time. This is an impressive-looking film; it appears to perhaps be the highest-budgeted film L&H ever made for Roach, with beautiful sets, an impressive score, and a very good cast. I dunno why it falls so flat. I always thought that maybe Stan Laurel, who produced the picture, was too distracted to ensure that it was suitably funny, but I just looked up the director, Harry Lachman, and see that his usual forte was directing Charlie Chan pictures, so as of this second I'm blaming Lachman for this picture being a disappointment. Oh, I should mention I have the German DVD, and the movie looks great. It comes with the silent film "Should Married Men Go Home?" and a photogallery. As it says in the liner notes, "Eines tages vertraut ihnen der Kapitan bei einem Landgang wertvollen," and I couldn't have said it any better myself.



CliffClaven	Aug 30 2009, 05:05 PM Post #2
Balcony Gang, Foist Class Posts: 233 Group: Members Member #712 Joined: March 30, 2009	I beg to differ. Perhaps the pacing is a little relaxed even for Stan and Ollie, and the plot never rises to really clever farce -- which isn't L&H territory anyway -- but I like it. Particularly fond of the little set-to at the cafe with Finn, where he gets them to look through a peephole formed by his fingers ("See that?") and knocks their heads together. Stan introduces his own imperfect variation, knocking Finn's head against his own. A little later, not sure what to make of a secret lodge handshake after being released from jail, Stan starts the "See that?" bit and Ollie hustles him away before they gete re-arrested. Interesting to note the plot was reworked into a Bette Midler -Lily Tomlin movie titled for a different L&H film: Big Business.


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