Technically this is not a movie; it’s a 30 minute short which would have played part of a whole package including a main feature (or two!) in the theaters during the Great Depression. I bought it last August, and it kinda filled that spot where I kinda wanted to watch a film in the evening and kinda wanted to read. I could watch this (and have material for a blog post) and read after. Which I did!
You know, when I was a kid in the 1970s, Laurel and Hardy shorts and movies were still on television. And some people did not lose anything in watching it because secondary televisions (and sometimes even then primary televisions–we were not middle class in the suburbs somewhere where color television was guaranteed). But when I was under 10 years old, I lacked the patience to watch these older films (which includes the other pairings like Abbott and Costello, Ma and Pa Kettle, or groups like the Marx Brothers). But now that I am an old man and have more patience but less actual time to just zone out in front of the television, I often pick these old movies. Perhaps to capture a little flavor of my youth or something.
At any rate, this film, as I mentioned, is 30 minutes long. Laurel and Hardy and their wives are about to take a trip to Atlantic City for the weekend, but just as they are leaving, one of the guys at the lodge calls and tells Hardy about the party they’re throwing that evening. So Hardy fakes an illness and gets Laurel to take care of him for the weekend so they can go to the party. The wives go away, and then Laurel and Hardy try to dress in their lodge gear (which looks like jockey outfits), but Hardy has trouble with his boot, and discovers it’s Laurel’s boot, and a full half of the run time is slapstick of trying to get the boot on and then the boot off. The wives miss the last train to Atlantic City and decide to return, and they discover the ruse.
That’s it. A bunch of slapstick, tripping, walking into walls, and a little slapping/pushing of Laurel. A little of Laurel doing the whimpering that must have inspired Beaker on The Muppet Show. The boot gag probably went on too long, but it was the 30s, man. Sensibilities must have been different.
