Me and My Pal

This short shows Laurel & Hardy at their best. Very little slapstick, as the comedy itself is played to the hilt. It's the essence of the running gag, the joke that keeps coming back, and back, and back, each time in a different way and funnier than before. The storyline is simple, and elegant - a common human obsession - getting addicted to a jigsaw puzzle - is first played rather normally, than slowly but inescapably grows and grows. This is like a Seinfeld episode before there was a Seinfeld.

It really shows their genius to create something like this, with a minimum of props and a direct storyline that doesn't get sidetracked, and all the byplay, including the wedding, eventually fits together like a jigsaw puzzle itself. Soon all the characters are involved in the puzzle, in one way or another, and it sucks them in like a giant vortex.

Obviously, this is one of my favorite shorts and is a good one to introduce someone to Laurel & Hardy.

It's the morning of Oliver's wedding to oil baron Peter Cucumber's daughter. While waiting for the taxi to take them to the ceremony, Oliver and his best man Stanley become absorbed

Not the best from the boys, the gags aren't constant, but it's watchable and amusing. L & H had enough talent to make anything, no matter how routine, to shine.

Ollie is in the midst of being married, which will then lead to a big promotion when Stanley brings over this puzzle. The puzzle occupies everybody's time, thus the cause for all the laughs in this fun short with the puzzle becoming an object that is revered by all who come in contact with it. Wonderful sequence with 6 people hovering over the puzzle at one time, like children. Needless to say, Ollie didn't get married, but the film did end with Stan finding the missing piece to the puzzle.

This isn't one of the better shorts by Laurel and Hardy however it does prove that given practically no plot, the team was able to make even the simplest idea watchable and fun.

When the film begins, you learn that Ollie is about to marry a very wealthy heiress to a huge oil fortune. As he gets ready to go, Stanley drops by and gives Ollie his wedding present--a jigsaw puzzle. Oddly, it's as if the puzzle is possessed, as everyone coming to the house ends up mesmerized by putting it together--even though the wedding should have begun by now. Again and again, people come to the house but end up transfixed. Even the cabbie refuses to take Ollie to the wedding because he is much more interested in assembling the puzzle than making a buck driving Ollie.

There's a tiny bit more to the plot than that--but not much!! As I said, the plot is weak here and it's the barest of ideas--yet it still manages to work. You can't help but laugh as this tiny problem snowballs into a total catastrophe! See it and understand how the team was able to turn practically anything into gold during their heyday.

Ollie is getting ready to Marry the daughter of Oil Magnate Mr Cucumber (Laurel-Hardy regular James Finalyson), When Stan brings over a 200 piece Jigsaw puzzle in which everybody becomes sucked in to play with it,as well as Ollie and Stan there's The Policeman,Telegram messenger and the Cab Driver, Mr Cucumber and his daughter wait impatiently in the Church until he decides to drive over to ollie's house to see what's up, when a Jigsaw piece goes missing and the guys become paranoid about who has taken it resulting in a full scale slapstick fight,So policemen thinking it's a riot become involved and arrest everybody except Stan & Ollie who are hiding in a Sofa and up a chimney, So yet another of Ollie romances ends in disaster

Wonderfully made, funny short comedy with the best comic actors who ever lived

9/10