5.0 out of 5 stars
The silent original, February 7, 2006
This review is from: Laurel & Hardy: Love 'Em & Weep [VHS] (VHS Tape)
This is one of my Top 5 favorite of L&H's pre-teaming shorts. Titus Tillsbury (Jimmy Finlayson) is a successful married businessman who is happily going about his life until one day out of the blue one of his old flames, Mae Busch, shows up and threatens to blackmail him. She says that unless he meets her for dinner at 7:00 at a certain restaurant, she's going to his wife with a scandalous picture of the two of them at the beach, which he signed with embarrassing and scandalous nicknames for the two of them. To make matters worse, Titus's wife shows up while Mae is in his office, and he throws Mae into the bathroom and has her sit behind a towel and closes the door. Unfortunately, she has left her long cigarette and mink stole behind in the office, and he is forced to pretend to his wife that they're his and what he's doing with them. His wife also needs to use the bathroom mirror, but luckily she doesn't see Mae. Once she's gone, he agrees to adhere to her blackmailing demands, but Titus finds out that his wife is having a dinner party at home that evening at 7:00, in which they'll be entertaining a judge (Ollie) and his wife.
Titus sends his charismatic friend Romaine Ricketts (Stan) out to the restaurant in his stead, to hold Mae there until he can be free to come over. However, Mae refuses to accept it, and after raising a huge public scene at the restaurant and calling the Tillsburys' house several times, she storms over there herself after wrestling with Romaine for the key to the car. (One of the funniest moments is when Titus is forced to sing for the judge and his wife, and we see that two of these songs are "You May Be Fast But Your Mama's Gonna Slow You Down" and "Somebody's Coming to My House.") Once there, Titus and Romaine pretend this woman is Mrs. Ricketts, and the charade goes off well enough until they decide to beat it out of there early, with Mae sitting on top of a hunched-over Titus. (This gag was also used in this sound remake of this, 'Chickens Come Home,' and another pre-teaming short, 'Sugar Daddies.') Things are also complicated because a nosy old spinster who has nothing better to do than to gossip and stick her nose into affairs that don't concern her in the least saw the scene at the restaurant and has informed the real Mrs. Ricketts about how her husband was felt up by a wild woman. Now these two women storm over to the house as well, just as the ridiculous disguise is falling apart, and now that Mrs. Tillsbury knows what's going on as well, both Titus and Romaine are in a lot of trouble!
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