Customer Reviews

Laurel & Hardy: Hoose-Gow [VHS]

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Three Stooges fans (and I admit I am one) take note: this wonderful, beautifully colorized Laurel and Hardy short is CLEARLY the inspiration for some of that team's most (in)famous pie fights. You can actually see how the Stooges duplicated some of these individual shots, right down to the timing.

The big difference here: this highly slapstick 1929 L&H "talkie" short features a rice fight -- instead of a pie fight.

So this slapstick extravganza (those that prefer the L&H movies that are more like situation comedies might not appreciate the zany GENIUS in this short) should please older L&H fans, newer L&H fans -- plus any authentic Stooges fanatic of any age. It really moves (it's one of their shorter shorts) and the laughs are big ones. It truly is one of the teams funniest shorts and is an ABSOLUTE MUST for fans of the team (plus this colorized version is truly wonderful).

The plot? In a nutshell: the "boys" wind up on in a prison work-camp and their bungling expands from there. Oliver Hardy is at his comedic best in this flick, with his weary glances to the camera. Hilarity revolves around seemingly innocent items such as a tree and...of course...rice.

According to one book, this short's script was only a four page outline. Much of the dialogue as well as the sight gags were ad-libbed. This is such an early talkie that it opens with the 20s hit "That's My Weakness Now" instead of the L&H theme. Another tidbit: in this short Stan is dangerous with a pickax...and according to one account Hardy's painful cry was 100 percent REAL (he carried a scar to prove it).

The good news is that this arrived with a Hallmark label, versus Cabin Fever, suggesting that the version I quickly received from Amazon was a re-issue by Hallmark, which bought out Cabin Fever. So maybe "the boys" work will still be available in these tastefully colorized versions as we move more into the 21st century. L&H have influenced generations of comedians and it'd be a pity their influence needlessly wanes.

More good news: I watched this with [my kids]. Both roared with laughter and insisted on seeing MORE L&H so we watched several hours of this team's immortal, unmatched work.

L&H at their early best....and remember, Stooges fans, this one is of special interest to YOU!!!!!

Stan and Ollie's misadventures in a prison camp make for an amusing 20 minutes, with a raucous rice-throwing finale. This was one of the team's earliest talkies, so the cast members are ad-libbing dialogue as they go along (a charming touch for fans). The added colorization is very well done.

In this 1929 two-reeler directed by James Parrott for Hal Roach-MGM, Laurel & Hardy are newly arrived convicts who are simply trying to survive behind bars. After an attempted escape the boys are sent to work on a road gang. The two main gags in "The Hoose-Gow" are when Laurel is told to cut down a tree for firewood and chops down the guard tower by mistake and when the boys accidentally make a whole in the radiator of the prison inspectors car which they then cover up by stuffing rice into the radiator. James Finlayson and Tiny Sanford are back as the comic foils for the boys. Unless you consider an all-out fight involving rice rather than pies to be particularly innovative, there is really nothing new in "The Hoose-Gow" and it ranks as a below average short by Laurel & Hardey.