Oranges and Lemons

If Stan Laurel hadn't later gone on to greater things once he was paired with Oliver Hardy, I doubt if this film would have even survived to this day. That's because it's so unremarkable and uninteresting and amateurish that I can't see any reason to see it other than to see an early Stan. The film appears as if it had no script or even a working idea for the movie (this was NOT uncommon in the 1910-1920 era just before this short was made). If there WAS a script, then whoever wrote it must have just written the words "play around an orange grove and throw citrus at each other" and that was ALL! If you want an earlier Stan Laurel film that is better PLUS it also has Oliver Hardy (but they are not yet a comedy team), try watching LUCKY DOG. It isn't great either, but compared to this little film it's Shakespeare!

Stanley wears a hat like a straw orange juicer in this rough slapstick comedy set in the orange fields of sunny Southern California, and everyone throws oranges at each other. This was standard for his Hal Roach short subjects in this go-around at the studio, when he wasn't doing lampoons of popular movies for Billy Anderson. Sometimes they'd be set in a brick yard, so the cast could hence bricks at each other. It's moderately funny, because f the supporting cast, which includes Katherine Grant and James Finlayson, as well as other Roach regulars.

The problem is that it's standard hard-knock slapstick, indistinguishable from other raw slapstick comics of the era. We look at it because it stars Stan Laurel, but he's not the Mr. Laurel we know and love.

This one-reeler has plenty of action, some of it amusing, but in general it is too unrefined and silly to work all that effectively. It is somewhat interesting to see Stan Laurel featured in a role that is quite different from his more familiar characters in the Laurel and Hardy features.

What little there is of a plot has Laurel working in a citrus grove, where he gets into a series of mishaps with his supervisor and co-workers. Some of them are really just routine slapstick, but once it gets going, there are a couple of more creative gags.

Rather than the familiar Stanley character, here Laurel's character is more impish and agile, and he is rather unsympathetic. Some of the gags use the props at hand, but a lot of it just focuses on Laurel's character racing around and jumping around. Laurel adds a little bit of interest to a feature that does have a few laughs, but that overall is really only fair.

Oranges And Lemons finds Stan Laurel among the farm workers of California during the harvest season picking the ripe fruit off the vines. Funny that in 1923 there are no Mexicans among the migrant workers because they were certainly there even that early. There is one particular fruit that Stan wants to pick that being the boss's daughter Katherine Grant.

Traces of the familiar Stan Laurel of the talkies and partnered with Oliver Hardy can certainly be discerned. From the fields the action of the film moves to the packing house where the fruit is crated to be shipped. Stan flees there from his boss, but proves to be mighty resourceful for such a ninny. Best scene is him taking advantage of a co-worker's paunch and the creative way he used a seesaw to stack crates.

Pleasant enough silent comedy for Stan Laurel's legion of fans.

This was part of a 3-DVD box-set, and this disc came with the Laurel and Hardy shorts Mud & Sand, Just Ramblin' Along, The Tree in a Test Tube and the Three Stooges ones Brideless Groom and Sing a Song of Six Pants; it also came with Malice in the Palace, and the features Atoll K(or Utopia) and Flying Deuces. While the full running time of my copy of this is 11 minutes, the first of the eleven was dedicated to a text intro explaining how much effort Stan(who is the only member of the duo to appear in this; I believe this was before they teamed up) put into his work, making up the gags to fit the situation, rather than the other way around. Maybe that is to try to class up this(it needed it; to be fair, it does mention that before Oliver joined him, the shorts did not get to be as popular), because, honestly, this is pretty uninspired. Nothing is particularly clever, the music doesn't seem to fit, and the whole thing feels like they're making it up as they go along, introducing characters and scenarios every time they run out of steam with what they're already doing. This takes place at a fruit packing plant. The pace is uneven. I recommend this purely to the biggest fans of the guy. 5/10