Customer Reviews

Laurel & Hardy - The Chimp [VHS]

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4 star:		(2)
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Here's a question you haven't heard before: can a gorilla impersonator still generate believability and BIIIIIIIG laughs for audiences in the 21st century?

This wonderful, zany, slapstick Laurel & Hardy short provides the answer: A resounding YES.

From start to finish, this short is inspired, even if it is one of the lesser known L&H flicks. Basically, it opens with the boys working in a circus that goes broke. Everyone gets part of the circus. And guess what they get.

Believe or not, it's not merely a set up. The early circus scenes, with Stan and Ollie dressed in silly costumes, are a howl. Once they get the chimp -- Charles Gemora (make-up artist and gorilla impersonator) -- the hilarious complications begin. The chimp (actually a gorilla) is truly a scene stealer in this fast-paced 1932 flick that boasts several other skilled scene stealers: James Finlayson, Billy Gilbert (you can see here how Gilbert clearly influenced the equally blustering Jackie Gleason in Gleason's Honeymooner skits) and a very persistant lion.

And there are two additional bonuses: a poignent scene with the chimp involving music (I won't give it away) and some hilarious double entendres as Gilbert listens in at the door (these are worth the price of the tape and more!).

The version I have is the colorized version -- which again gives solid proof that colorizing these L&H shorts, if done tastefully, actually enhances them.

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The Chimp is one of the harder to find L&H talking short films. And it`s a shame as it`s a pretty good one.
Stan and Ollie work in a circus that has gone broke. The assets are broken up. Ollie gets the gorilla, Stan get the flea circus
(with real fleas), and the lion is out to get Stan & Ollie.

This has to be one of my favorites w/the boys. The boys loose their jobs w/the circus & they bring home a flea circus & a gorilla-& the rest is history! I own this on VHS but I'm hoping it comes out on DVD soon.

This has long been one of my top favorite L&H shorts. It also has great supporting characters, among them Jimmy Finlayson (the head of the pathetic circus they're working in), Billy Gilbert (the foul-tempered landlord), and Tiny Sanford (as the performer Destructo). One of the girls in the circus audience is also Stan's daughter Lois, who was about four years old at the time. The boys are working in a really run-down seedy circus which is on the verge of a collapse. After their latest embarrassing show, it is resolved that the circus has to be broken up and sold. Stan gets the flea circus, and Ollie gets the chimp Ethel. Out of work and a place to stay, they set off to look for a boarding house. However, this boarding house does not allow animals, and they go to great (and hilarious) lengths to sneak Ethel in after they've already checked into the room. Things are also complicated because the circus's lion is also prowling around the grounds of the boarding house.

Once inside their assigned room with Ethel, they all try to get some sleep, but given how everything in their world always goes haywire, that's pretty impossible. The flea circus manages to escape and gets all over the bedsheets, and Ethel doesn't like the idea of having to lie down for the night. Furthermore, the landlord's estranged wife is also named Ethel, so when he overhears Ollie commanding, "Ethel, stop that and come to bed," he believes his wife is carrying on with these two and charges in with a gun, ranting up a storm the way only Billy Gilbert could. This rant really puzzles and baffles the boys, since they know Ethel is a chimp and couldn't possibly be the love of this guy's life and the mother of his children! However, he finds that he's been screaming at a chimp, with the real human Ethel having just come in behind him. Following this embarrassing but hilarious case of mistaken identity, the chimp Ethel gets hold of the gun and starts firing it, scaring everyone away.

Today of course, most audiences wouldn't be too keen on primates being played by human actors wearing gorilla or chimp suits, even though it was very common back in those days. To a modern person, it's blatantly obvious that this isn't a real chimp and that this is a person in a chimp suit, but it was standard practice then and we have to accept that. However, if the viewer can get past this, it's a really funny two-reeler.

Ya know the ape is really a man in an ape suite, but the gags are just too good to resist. The boys loose their jobs at the circus but take part of the show with them, "Ethel The Human Chimpanze". The best parts are their attempts to keep Ethel from being discovered by the landlord, A totally insane Billy Gilbert whose wife just left him. Her name? You guessed it, Ethel!