This scene illustrates what made Laurel and Hardy as a comedy team, their knowing approach to very human misunderstandings. It also implicitly shows how what you can get away with in comedy, at least for the broader market, changes with time. The scene is set at a veterans' home, and Ollie thinks that Stan has lost a leg. The film, Block Heads, was released about a year before World War II. During or just after the war, something like this might have been a harder sell.
Sunday, December 11, 2016
The pair
This scene illustrates what made Laurel and Hardy as a comedy team, their knowing approach to very human misunderstandings. It also implicitly shows how what you can get away with in comedy, at least for the broader market, changes with time. The scene is set at a veterans' home, and Ollie thinks that Stan has lost a leg. The film, Block Heads, was released about a year before World War II. During or just after the war, something like this might have been a harder sell.
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2 comments:
That was definitely very funny. I laughed out loud when Ollie was carrying Stan and his hat fell off making them both roll over on the grass. Then Stan helped Ollie up and jumped into his arms again. It would be impossible to recreate such a misunderstanding now or even back then under the circumstances you mentioned but the two of them were masters of the ridiculous. The weird thing about their routines is they can make you laugh even if you don't think you're going to.
It is funny that Stan helps Ollie up when Ollie thinks that he himself is confined to a wheelchair, and this doesn't clue him in. But that's also believable in a way. Sometimes you're just so overwhelmed major things can get past you. Yes, they're funny and disarming in about equal measure.
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