Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were comedic geniuses, individually and together, and their partnership was deservedly iconic and one of the best there was. They left behind a large body of work, a vast majority of it being entertaining to classic comedy, at their best they were hilarious and their best efforts were great examples of how to do comedy without being juvenile or distasteful.
'Do Detectives Think?' is nowhere near classic Laurel and Hardy, later films, short and feature, had stronger chemistry when fully formed and used their considerable talents better. At this point, Laurel was much funnier and more interesting while Hardy in most of the previous outings had too little to do. 'Do Detectives Think?' is still worth watching though and is an improvement on some of their previous short films, along with 'Duck Soup', 'While Girls Love Sailors', 'Sailors, Beware!' and 'The Second Hundred Years' it was up there as among Laurel and Hardy's best up to this point.
Personally would have liked more sly wit that made their later entries better, though the slapstick does entertain and is timed well if a bit too far on the simplicity.
The story is a bit busy at times and both slight and formulaic.
Laurel however is very funny, and sometimes hilarious, like as was said for a few of his previous outings 'Do Detectives Think?' is worth seeing for him alone. Hardy is at least not wasted, and he does give one of his funniest and most interesting appearances of his pairings with Laurel up to this point despite his persona being not as fully formed as Laurel's. The chemistry is much more here than in previous outings of theirs if still evolving. Support is nice, especially from James Finlayson.
A good deal of the humour is well timed, hugely energetic and very funny, with everything going at a lively pace, and there is a lot of charm and good nature to keep one going. 'Do Detectives Think?' looks quite good and is more visually experimental than their previous efforts.
To conclude, decent. 7/10 Bethany Cox
