Customer Reviews

Music Box/Helpmates [VHS]

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The simple ideas are the best, that's what they say. So two men trying to deliver a piano works out to be one of the funniest films. But it isn't any two men. You could give the same script and direction to some very talented people - say John Candy and Steve Martin, and it wouldn't work. This is for me because of the precise balance that Laurel and Hardy achieved in their partnership. Years of experience, knowing each other socially and working together gave them a marvellous instinct for timing and repartee when together on screen. Credit too must be given to James Parrot whose direction and (presumably) supervision of the editing makes for a polished production. It may only be short, but it's twenty of the best minutes of screen comedy. The coloured version is a little odd-looking, but it's not badly done and might help Laurel & Hardy find a new audience among the monochromophobes!

It is astonishing that there is no review yet (2-18-99). This Oscar winning two-reel short has Stan and Ollie as delivery drivers setting up a player piano. The pratfalls and gags have never been equalled. Billy Gilbert is great as the professor who isn't very enthusiastic about his musical birthday gift. It is high art watching the timing of two of the greatest comedians of all time.

The Music Box is in every Comdey Hall Of Fame in the world and ranks as their best film ever. The fact that this picture won an Academy Award for Best Short Subject proves that after 75 years it is still regarded as their masterpiece.

(This is a review of the video containing only 'Helpmates,' not the one containing both 'Helpmates' and 'The Music Box.')

From 1931, 'Helpmates' has long been one of my favorite L&H shorts, in my personal Top 5. It's one of the ones I've seen so many times I could recite it by heart, and it never ceases to be outrageously funny, no matter I know the lines and gags cold and know everything that's going to happen next. This is one of their shorts that proves what a strong duo they were because they are basically the only actors in this. There are only two other players who make appearances, the delivery boy who gives Ollie the telegram at the beginning and later the short but incredibly memorial scene of Ollie's wife ranting at him a mile a minute over the telephone at the railway station. A lot of my favorite L&H quotes also come from this short.

Ollie has thrown a wild party while his wife is away visiting her mother in Chicago. Now the house is an absolute mess, and he's lost all of his money in a poker game. Therefore something has to be done when he receives the telegram saying his wife is coming home at noon that very day, unexpectedly. He does what we expect him to do, call up his best friend Stan to help out, although since devoted fans know that Ollie is really the dumber one, in spite of how he feels otherwise, this really isn't the greatest idea in the world, nor the best person to call for help. Stan doesn't answer the phone right away, thinking it's his alarm clock, but when he finally gets the phone, he tells Ollie that he wasn't at the party because he was taken to the hospital after being bitten by a dog. He proceeds to come over very quickly, and the boys start cleaning up, although Stan is left to do most of the work while Ollie is getting dressed.

As you can expect, there are lots of accidents and mishaps that leave the house in even more of a shambles. Two of Ollie's suits are ruined, most of the dishes and cups are broken, a gardener's hose comes through the window and sprays water all over the wall at the other end, a bureau drawer is broken, the glass in a door shatters, and that's just the half of it. Then comes another bit of bad news, a phonecall from the wife, who's already at the depot earlier than expected. On the heels of this bit of news comes Ollie's horrified discovery that his second suit is no good either. However, he's resourceful and decides to wear one good suit he does have left. It looks like something an old cavalry officer would wear, complete with a sword at the side. Even Stan realises how ridiculous it looks, and says he can't go out wearing that, since he doesn't have a horse. Ollie doesn't care, and rushes out to pick up his wife anyway, ignoring the ringing phone he knows must be the wife again. In the interim, Stan cleans up the house pretty well, but there's one more mishap, the catastrophe to dwarf all of the other catastrophes which have already unfolded. Ollie gets back from the station alone (an intertitle relates, "One hour later, Mr. Hardy returned from the station alone--sadder, wiser, and dizzier") and is greeted by the sight of this disaster. And just when it seems like things can't get any worse after Stan leaves, they do, but this time it's a disaster caused not by either of the boys but by Mother Nature!