Customer Reviews

Tit for Tat

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This is probably in my Top 10 of my favorite L&H shorts. I've seen it so many times I know it by heart, and it never ceases to be funny, even though I know all of the lines, gags, and jokes cold. Good comedy never gets old. This is the sequel to their well-received short 'Them Thar Hills,' in which they had an unpleasant run-in, to say the least, with Charley Hall when they were up in the hills for Ollie's health. Now they find out that their new electrical supply store is very close to the grocery store Mr. and Mrs. Hall are running. At first Ollie doesn't recognise him, but Mr. Hall hasn't forgotten, and gives him a strict severe warning to stay away from his store, refusing to accept Ollie's plea for bygones to be bygones. However, while Ollie is screwing in the lightbulbs around their sign, Stan goes up on the lift right beneath the ladder, sending Ollie far up into the air, howling in terror and finding himself stuck on a window ledge on the upper floor of the Halls' place. Mrs. Hall (played by the great Mae Busch) generously allows him to use their stairway to go downstairs, and when Mr. Hall sees them coming down the stairs together and laughing (Ollie even laughs, "I've never been in a position like that before!"), he is positive that the two of them were up to no good up there, and thus begins an endless cycle of revenge. They go over to the Halls' store again to demand an apology, which Mr. Hall refuses to give. Then Mr. Hall will march over to their store, wreaking havoc and insulting them, and they'll do the same to him. The mayhem, destruction, and theft continue, each time escalating more and more, until finally a police officer gets involved and finds Mr. Hall guilty, forcing him to apologise for having slandered Ollie's character.

I love this short not only because of all of the comic slapstick mayhem but also because of the polite language, the type of talk you rarely hear anymore. A lot of my favorite L&H quotes come from this one. Back then character and honor actually meant something to people. You'd never catch anyone today saying something like, "Pardon the intrusion, but I have come to seek redress for the gross insult to my character" or "Why this little upstart, in the presence of my friend, slandered my character." And we all know what Mr. Hall is accusing Ollie of, but it's not graphically spelt out for the audience; it's expressed thus: "Why, didn't you hear him accuse me of having a clandestine meeting with his wife?" A lot of the boys' later shorts aren't as well-regarded as their earlier glories, but I'd have to say this is one of the best of the last shorts they did.

This DVD will NOT WORK ON YOUR DVD PLAYER at all, unless you have an NTSC & PAL player. Beware and do not buy this. It's not the price, it's the shipping cost for a DVD that won't work on your machine.