Memorable, crazy movie

Don't listen to the negative reviews

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It's a truly ticklish situation for Stan Laurel when he encounters the voluptuous Sharon Lynne who attempts to get the deed to a gold mine away from him that Stan and Oliver (Hardy) were attempting to deliver to the innocent Rosalina Lawrence. What is funnier, Laurel laughing hysterically as Lynne reaches into his shirt to get the deed, tickling possibly more than his funny bone, or the fact that Lynne is married to the much older James Finlayson, the perpetrator of this scam? This is along with "Sons of the Desert" possibly Laurel and Hardy's funniest feature, and one which totally stands the test of time. Yes, the entire situation is preposterous, but the laughs come a mile a minute, going much faster than the wagon which bypasses Laurel and Hardy as they try to thumb a ride. The fact that Laurel gets a wagon train to pull to a complete stop by exposing his leg (a la Claudette Colbert) gives a hysterically funny insinuation which managed to go right past the censors of the Hays code.The comedy gets off to a wet start with Laurel and his mule pal carrying a sleeping Oliver through a river and basically dumping him there for possibly the world's first water bed. Then, there's trouble aboard the stagecoach as the two flirt with the wife of the town's sheriff where they are heading to, and continues with the scam perpetuated against them by Finlayson and Lynne. Rosalina Lawrence, best known as one of the school teachers on the Our Gang series, is merely adequate as the heroine, but Finlayson and Lynne are downright hysterical. A funny twist involving the boys trying to get into their house during the middle of the night is guaranteed to give the viewer chest pains from laughing, including such props as the forlorn mule and a strategically placed bucket. This is farce at its best, coming in a year that focused mainly on the sophisticated screwball comedy of the major studios, and it certainly places amongst the best of that year as far as classic comedy is concerned.

The perfect scores here are astounding. The reviewers must be oblivious to what made Laurel and Hardy great, or else they are so besotted with L&H that they give them a 10 just for showing up, like opera fans do for divas past their prime.This may be the best "feature length" L&H, but that's not saying much. As other reviewers have pointed out -- and been voted down for their perception -- feature-length -- even short feature-length like this -- is too long for L&H. L&H did short subjects, extended jokes, not the overproduced shaggy-dog stories of the feature- length era. MGM had done the distribution from the 20s, but I think they had a hand in replacing the shorts with the feature-length in the mid-30s.We get a hint of trouble already at the start of the opening credits. Instead of L&H's trademark Cuckoo Song, with screechy clarinets -- primitive notes in keeping with the antics of the shorts -- we get boilerplate orchestration, which continues relentlessly and intrusively throughout the movie, smothering the charm of the interplay between Laurel and Hardy.We don't see L&H for the first 6 minutes, instead we get a stock dance-hall scene with hoochy-koochy girls and carousing cowboys, serving only as padding. This kind of waste goes on and on. As for the songs, etc. L&H are not a song & dance act, as MGM made them in many of the feature-lengths. Which is to say, more padding.I was looking forward to seeing a feature-length L&H. After all, if 20 minutes is great, then imagine over an hour! Alas, I discovered that comedy wasn't added, just the runtime. Film historians, critics and Hal Roach himself agree that L&H's decline began when the MGM-labeled feature-lengths replaced the shorts. They're right.

"Way out West" (1937) is probably not only one of the most popular Laurel & Hardy movies, but also one of their best productions. Directed by James W. Horne and written by Charley Chase's brother James Parrot and long-time Laurel & Hardy collaborator Hal Roach, "Way out West" belongs to the golden age of the eternal couple of comedy.In this movie, we have all the typical elements of slapstick. When we first see the backside of the house in which "Fin", James Finlayson's character, lives, we realize that there is a barrel. Therefore, there can be no doubt that Ollie will sooner or later fall into it. Also the nice slanting roof of the little house in the backyard seems to be determined for Ollie to break through it. However, that the donkey would end up on the balcony of the second floor, is not predictable. Anyway, the partial predictability of the comic acts do not diminish them. It is a shibboleth for real original comic that the repetition of acts does not become boring. When Stan and Ollie walk through the pond, we know in advance that Ollie will strand in there. We know that it is only a question of time until he will sink into an abyss, although the pond is only a few inches deep. Quite the opposite is true with predictability: If the expected acts would happen, we would be disappointed.Watching the early productions of the "Boys", the question of the primordiality of the Comic-Strip of the Slapstick as art-forms raises. To my knowledge, this question has never been answered. Actually, the characteristic elements of the Comic-Strip are all to be found in the American Slapstick movies, f.ex. reduction and hyperbola ad absurdum. When Stan stops holding the rope by which he wanted to elevate Ollie up to the roof, Ollie does not just fall on the ground, but so deep that there will be a whole in the ground which looks like a crater. When Ollie is stuck with his head in the floor of Finlayson's building and Stan tries to pull him out, Ollie's head stretched like made of rubber. Also, the Slapstick heroes always survive accidents which would usually be lethal - exactly as the Comic-heroes do. Since the Comic-strip came up in his modern form only in the 30ies, but since the Slapstick already belongs already to the first achievements of early American silent movies, it must be concluded that the Comic-strip is an abstraction from Slapstick and not vice versa. Although Slapstick originates in Vaudeville theater, both Comic-strip and Slapstick are to be considered genuine American achievements.

"Way Out West" is quite simply, Laurel and Hardy's best film. Some people (and most film critics) say "Sons of The Desert" is Laurel and Hardy's best movie, but the reason I like "Way Out West over "Sons of the Desert" is because it never slows down. It is jam-packed with verbal jokes and slapstick (and two great song and dance routines). There is also some great support from James Finlayson and Harry Bernard. I think the cast of a Laurel and Hardy film tends to be over looked. Who can imagine "The Boys" movies without Charlie Hall, Mae Busch and Tiny Sandford? An interesting thing to note is that the readers of "Total Film" voted it the 26th greatest comedy film of all time. One of the very finest screen comedies.