Purely Joyful Movie!

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Blistering performances.

The beginning of Laurel and Hardy's long line of feature films after they and Hal Roach reluctantly stopped making their wonderful short films (Their final short THICKER THAN WATER was made around the same time as this),"Bonnie Scotland" is an oddly contradictory,desultory work in which they start as the principal characters but seemingly end up as providing comic relief to the frankly dreary and hackneyed plot,particularly in the second half.It all starts off amusingly enough,with Stan and Ollie (stowaway convicts from the US,with only a week to serve of their sentences) visiting a Scottish village to see what inheritance Stan will receive after a relative passes away (he assumes the name Sandy MacLaurel!);it turns out to be merely a set of bagpipes and a snuff box.The material here is very funny and well up to standard,with the undoubted highlight being some business with the snuff box resulting in Ollie sneezing an entire river of all it's watery contents (which even by 21st Century expectations,is technically very adroit),and some almost as equally good sequences involving the reading of the will,their residing in a local guest house,and a ingeniously improvised way of cooking a fish in their room.The depiction of the Scottish village is rather endearing and charming,the set being apparently borrowed from a production the previous year,THE LITTLE MINISTER.After such encouraging preliminaries,the film takes a decided turn for the worst when the story travels to India.The scenes in Scotland had only featured the stolid love story section of the plot (built around William Janney and June Lang) only sporadically;it thankfully concentrated more on Laurel and Hardy.When it reverts to India (itself a rather unnecessary continuance to bring into the film),this unfortunately is brought to more prominence and leads to much dialogue,situations and characters which are unfortunately played in a straight,humourless manner.The tedium is made more resistible by the unappealing,maudlin,milksop-type character that Janney has to play,making it more baffling how Ms Lang would find anything attractive in such a person.Production values also take a nosedive from this point on;after a fairly convincing representation of a Scottish village,India is portrayed somewhat artificially by several unremarkable matte shots and a desert fort that comes across as more Californian than anything else.It is always welcome to see James Finlayson alongside Laurel and Hardy,and he has some amusing moments,as does the all too-briefly seen Daphne Pollard.But they and Stan and Ollie themselves come close to being totally sunk by the stiff,colourless actors surrounding them,not to mention the hopelessly banal storyline.Their scenes here seem to be tagged on merely arbitrarily and having no real relevance to the story,but at least they are still funny;several familiar encounters with Fin;a 'mirage' accordion sequence,and a delightful impromptu dance to the tune '100 Pipers' playing in the background,with similarities to a slightly better hybrid in their classic short THE MUSIC BOX (1932).As it is,"Bonnie Scotland" is mostly enjoyable but often afflicted by it's fractured plotting and script.Their best features (SONS OF THE DESERT,WAY OUT WEST,BLOCKHEADS,OUR RELATIONS) were those that built a story round them and was not hindered by straight or romantic sub-plots or other irrelevancies.Had "Bonnie Scotland" not fallen into this trap,it may have been one of their better full-length vehicles.One can only regret the presence of such dispensable elements which undermined their peerless comic partnership.RATING:7 out of 10.

Similar to the way Hollywood spoils almost all comedy films in 2006, the lesson ought to be that spending money isn't what laughs are all about.BONNIE Scotland begins in Scotland but takes a swift plot turn and has the boys soon enough in the Scottish Army in India. Both Scotland and India are no doubt either sunny southern California or inside the Hal Roach studio; but both locations are convincing. All this calls for a pretty big cast for a Laurel & Hardy movie and I'll bet this one cost maybe triple their usual budget. Big problem though: They forgot to include much humor anywhere in the 80 minute running time.Here's the point: Their later film WAY OUT WEST I score a 10, not a 5. That film was entertaining for the whole movie, tenaciously funny; yet the entire action takes place (first) on a trail somewhere out of town (second) in front of a saloon (third) inside the saloon (fourth) outside the stable; a very limited scope yet the film is a comic masterpiece. Money CAN buy you love, but it can't buy laughs.

This Laurel & Hardy movie is not among their best. It has way too much story and subplots present and because of this the boys are not given the full opportunity to show their skills and antics in this movie.There are lot of scene's in which Laurel & Hardy are not even present. There is an unusual amount of dialog and story present which works perhaps only distracting from Laurel & Hardy and their silly slapstick moments. Most people are not waiting for a movie like this. Most people just want to see Laurel & Hardy act silly and get into some troubling and silly situations. The whole story makes perhaps a bit of a pointless impression and the ending is not satisfying enough because it leaves too many loose ends.But before I really am beginning to sound negative, of course the movie is still fun. There are some good jokes present, of which some are also truly quite memorable. It also is always fun to see James Finlayson in a Laurel & Hardy picture. This time he plays the boys their sergeant in the army in Imperial India. He provides the movie with some good and memorable moments.Yet it is the story that is most overly present in the movie. The movie is not really about Laurel & Hardy, not really about slapstick moments but it's more a serious story disguised as a comedy instead. This might slightly disappoint some of the fans, although there still is plenty to enjoy for them and for everyone else of course. The gags still work, despite the 'serious' (serious for Laurel & Hardy standards of course, I mean.) story.7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

As a Scot I really do resent how American movies portray us . We all have incomprehensible accents ( I can`t understand a word Scottie from STAR TREK says and I`m Scottish . Perhaps they should have employed a Scottish actor ? ) , we all have funny names like Gregor McGregor ( Randell Wallace is an American with a Scots sounding name , Scots are usually called Jim or Dave ! ) , wear strange skirts called kilts ( We only wear them at weddings ) and play strange instruments called bagpipes . It goes without saying this L&H feature plays up to the stereotypes but seeing as it`s Stan and Ollie all this cliche can be forgiven , same as I can forgive all the other flaws one can expect from seeing one of their movies after a period of many years , it`s rather episodic and loosely plotted with the main story of Stan and Ollie joining the army not happening untill half way through the movie`s running time , but it`s also funny and James Finlayson ( A Scottish actor ) getting to play a Scottish Sergeant called " Leatherpuss " By no means one of their greatest highlights - The features seen slightly drawn out compared to their shorts - BONNIE SCOTLAND is still one of the better L&H feature length movies