Customer Reviews

Laurel and Hardy - Double Whoopee (Silent Version) [VHS]

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4 star:		(1)
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Double Whoopee is one of Laurel & Hardy's grestest films. Sadly, most of their silent films have been unseen by the public until now. This film has been pieced back together using four different prints. But despited that, the picture is clear and looks exactly as it did in 1929. The music fits the film and does not destract from it. This was one of the last silent films that Laurel & Hardy made before changing over to sound. It is a must have for Laurel & Hardy Fans!

I have both the silent version of Double Whoopee and the All-Talkie version of it, and it's a great short. I love it. I'd buy it again!

"Double Whoopee," a two-reeler directed by Lewis Foster in 1929, is notable because the story is by Leo McCarey and Jean Harlow makes quite an appearance: she loses the back half of her dress in a cab door. Laurel & Hardy arrive at a swank New York hotel and are mistaken for visiting royalty until they are revealed to be just doormen. Once they set to work they offend all of the guests, the local cop and the cabbie (literally giving a visiting prince the shaft). Hardy dominates most of the gags, such as the elaborate routine of signing the guest register, although the best is when Laurel is stripped to his underwear and starts ripping off everybody else's clothes. "Double Whoopee" is a solid Laurel & Hardy silent short, but not one of their best.

Stan and Ollie have found work at a swanky hotel, as a doorman and a footman. The boys end up wreaking the usual havoc, such as giving a visiting European prince (an obvious parody of Erich von Stroheim) the shaft (literally!) over and over again, spilling ink all over the hotel's register, accidentally calling cabs, and partially disrobing a young lady (Jean Harlow) who gets out of a cab and has the door shut on the train of her dress. There's not much of a plot to it apart from the fact that they're raising a ruckus at the hotel, but there are a lot of laughs and great funny situations. This was one of their final silents, made when they had really found their voice as a team, and though it's generally not regarded as one of their best silents, I quite like it. Once they came into their own as the team we know and love, they never really made a bad or below-average picture. There was a "new" version of this second-tier short issued in the Seventies, with voices dubbed in. In this case, the words matched what had actually been said onscreen instead of, as is too often the case with such ventures, being any old lines and used as a device to make fun of silent film, but it's jarring and distracting nonetheless. Those weren't their real voices, and it was funny and self-explanatory enough already. For that reason I would recommend buying the silent original and not the "sound" remake that is also available.