Customer Reviews

Laurel & Hardy: Bacon Grabbers [VHS]

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One of Laurel and Hardy's better (and last) silent films. Features some of their standard supporting players (Edgar Kennedy and Charlie Hall) and also a short appearance by Jean Harlow. Maybe not as good as their classics such as Two Tars and Big Business but an entertaining film.

"Bacon Grabbers" is pretty much a unique Laurel & Hardy film because when it was first released it had a musical score and special sound effects recorded on a disc. So it was not a "talkie" per se, but something in between. Without those sound effects, this 1929 silent two-reeler directed by Lewis Foster is obviously missing something. In the first reel the boys try to serve Edgar Kennedy with a summons for his radio, while the second finds them pursuing him in and around his house in high slapstick style. As is true of many Laurel & Hardy comedy shorts of this period, the story is be Leo McCarey and George Stevens is behind the camera. Of course, both would go on to cinematic fame in their own rights. Kennedy's wife in this film is another one of Hal Roach's stable of players, Jean Harlow. "Bacon Grabbers," a great title although I must admit I do not see the connection to the story, is an above average Laurel & Hardy silent short.

The boys have jobs as repo men. And they are out to repossess a radio from Edger Kennedy. For once Edger is on the run from the
boys instead of the other way around. But Kennedy is a slippery old cuss, and L&H have to get creative to serve papers on him.

This isn't my favorite L&H silent or regarded as one of their greatest silents, but I quite like it and feel it's one of their best second-tier silents. This short was filmed in February of 1929, though it didn't hit screens until that October, after Stan and Ollie had already released five talkies. It was truly an anachronism, released in the dying days of silent film, and didn't even have the same quality of background music as something like 'That's My Wife!' or 'Wrong Again!' It also had the misfortune to be released around the time of the Stock Market Crash. Predictably, it didn't last on the screen very long, and the print isn't in the greatest of shape.

The plot is simple enough; Stan and Ollie are sheriffs who have to collect a radio from Edgar Kennedy, who hasn't been making the payments due on his radio. They present their papers and tell him what their purpose is, but he will not let them in the house no matter how hard they try. And as soon as one of them succeeds in edging his way through the door than he's thrown out when he tries to let the other one in. They also have no success trying to climb a ladder and enter the house through a top-story window. Finally a police officer shows up and demands to know what's going on, and sides with Stan and Ollie. This short ends with a twist similar to that at the end of 'The Music Box,' only there of course the object was a piano and not a radio.