Customer Reviews

Laurel & Hardy: They Go Boom [VHS]

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"Lost" for over two decades, L & H's fifth talkie offers little to talk about, unless you're a very serious fan/historian. One might expect some fun with Stan playing Male Nurse to Ollie's "patient", but the depressing premise, lame gags, and "claustrophopbic" set are not conducive to the kind of comedy the boys are capable of. I am happy to own this videocassette but I've watched it only a few times.

After the excellent "Men O' War" and "Perfect Day," Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy take a major step back in this early talkie. Depressingly claustrophobic, "They Go Boom!" (1929) moves at a funereal pace and offers few laughs. The climactic sight gag with the air mattress represents the sole highlight of a rather weak two-reeler.

This, the boys' fourth talkie, is among my favorites of their sound shorts. There's barely a dull moment, and there are lots of laughs. Stan is "helping" Ollie with his bad cold, but of course only succeeds in making things worse at every possible turn. There's lots of great slapstick in here, and even funnier because you can finally hear their voices and how uncannily they matched their personalities and everything that was going on onscreen. Ollie's howls and cries of pain are always particularly funny. Yes, it does take place within the very small space of their bedroom and the kitchen in the boarding house, due to the primitive early sound recording technology that required cameras to be absolutely stationary to avoid picking up every little thing, but a number of their other shorts, done further into the sound era, also take place within similarly confined settings. It only shows how they could still be great and funny when they had such a small area to work in and barely had any other actors interacting with them. There are also a number of gags in here that Stan later reused, such as the hammering a picture into the wall in front of a water pipe that later bursts, which was redone in 'Busy Bodies.' There's also a great performance by Charley Hall, who plays the little landlord with a big temper. He's one of their best regular supporting players. It might not be regarded in the same league as something like 'The Music Box' or 'Helpmates,' but it's really solid and has lots of laughs. It's also nice to note that this is one of a handful of L&H sound shorts that Hallmark does not own the rights to, so we're able to enjoy it in a nice print and an easily-available commercial release, either on this single video or on the fourth installation of their 'Lost Films' series.