County Hospital

This is one of the Laurel & Hardy comedies that show how resourceful they could be in getting the most out of the limited resources within a confined setting. Most of the gags work well, and only a somewhat uneven finale keeps it from being among the better of their two-reel comedies.

The simple story setup has Oliver in the "County Hospital" as a patient in traction, with Stanley stopping by to visit. You would hardly expect that anyone could get into so much trouble in a confined space, but they come up with a lot of comedy ideas, from hard-boiled eggs to the traction equipment, and more, with a couple of particularly good ones.

The climactic sequence is a bit hard to figure, because the back projection so obviously does not match the main footage. It's so much out of sync that you almost wonder whether it was done deliberately for the sake of comic effect, or whether it had to be left that way due to limits on time or money. In any case, this is a funny comedy with a few bits that are quite good.

There is a scene in James Parrot's short County Hospital, which stars Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, where, upon visiting his best friend Hardy in the hospital, Laurel sits idly, salting a hard-boiled egg and eating it. There's no joke, there's no real punchline, and there's no real purpose; it's about as literal as a scene could get. If only there was a way to tell the late writer H.M. Walker along with Parrot and Laurel that they may have fundamentally erected the popular idea/concept of anti-humor all the way back in 1932.

Although it does feature crisp sound and dialog, County Hospital is still so much a Laurel and Hardy short because of the fact it is more about situational humor than dialog-driven humor. Some readers of mine may mistake the idea that I have a disdain for situational humor, although, when I see the humor done smoothly and humorously, that couldn't be further from the truth. Laurel and Hardy knew what they wanted to accomplish and that was the concept of slapstick, silly humor. The wise-cracking, satirical humor that could make you laugh and ponder was left to Charlie Chaplin and the Marx brothers, which could arguably be why their films come to mind quicker than most Laurel and Hardy films do, on the topic of classic comedy films.

The short concerns Laurel arriving to the hospital to comfort Hardy after he received a broken leg, which already feels like the sequel to another one of their shorts gone awry. He brings hard-boiled eggs and nuts - to which Hardy replies with the sole line that essentially sums up the characters in each of their shorts - but Hardy realizes that while Laurel means well, he consistently causes trouble for the both of them. Hardy cannot remember the last time he endured such a restful experience, with two more months in a hospital bed to go, but Laurel ruins all of that with his well-meaning but trouble-causing actions.

County Hospital's only burden is its atrociously fake scene involving a sleepy Laurel trying to drive a vehicle with Hardy in the backseat, a scene that is understandable given the thought of the technological limitations of the early 1930's along with the short's budgetary issues. It's little bother; the film that was made instead was a fun piece of work, with self-referential gags and questionably pioneering ones as well.

Starring: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Directed by: James Parrot.

Another fine comedy from Stan and Ollie. Stan pays a hospital visit to Oliver, who is up in traction with a broken leg, enjoying the peace and quiet. Of course it isn't long before that peace is destined to vanish.

Stan is so wonderfully inept in this one. Visiting Ollie as he hasn't anything else to do today, not bringing Ollie candy as "It costs too much" and not having been paid for the last batch. He comes up with his legendary gift.

Don't think any other comedian eating a hard boiled could be funny, but in Laurel's effortless hands it's great. The trouser gag is absolutely hilarious.

Only the climax is a let down, spoiled by poor rear projection work and going on too long. We are rescued though by the boys' L-shaped car (at least that's how it ends up!) Stan and Ollie: best there's ever been.

As we all know Stan Laurel does not do well in a crisis, especially those of his own making. Just a simple act of kindness visiting his good buddy Oliver Hardy in the hospital causes mayhem in the hospital and also out on the road.

By the way do any of you doubt the reason that Ollie is in the hospital in that contraption with a broken leg is because Stan did something to cause it?

Anyway the highlight of this is poor Ollie hung up with his leg still in the cast while Dr. Billy Gilbert is hanging out the high window at the same time. Poor befuddled Laurel can't figure out what to do.

William Austin playing his usual silly twit Englishman is Ollie's roommate and I have to say that the boys and Hal Roach were most generous giving Gilbert and Austin their share of laughs.

In the end a tranquilizer kicks in as Stan is driving Ollie home. What havoc is wrought.

One of their funniest short subjects.

"County Hospital" is a perfectly fine L&H short until the final sequence. I always enjoyed the scenes where Stan roams the hospital halls looking for his buddy (trying to figure out what a "solarium" is) and accidentally wanders into the maternity ward; he's mightily relieved when he finds out he's on the wrong floor! I also very much enjoy Ollie's scenes with doctor Billy Gilbert and silly Englishman William Austin. The film is also enlivened by the nurses, played by Estelle Etterre (who laughs hysterically when she finds that Stan has accidentally injected himself with a sedative) and May Wallace (who joins in the laughter and says, "He'll sleep for a month!" -- so much for medical ethics).

Personally, I always liked the scene where Dr. Gilbert is flung out the window of Ollie's room on the top floor--it adds a little action to a film where the longest scene is a single take of Stan trying to eat a hard-boiled egg. Also, the gag with the egg dropping into an unseen container by Ollie's bed and making a metallic clunk is NOT a mistake--the joke is that we think at first the egg has dropped into a chamber pot (ask your grandparents what that is), but as Stan brings it up into view we're relieved to see it's only a pitcher. The same gag happens in the team's earlier short "Helpmates," where Stan drops an alarm clock into an unseen container under his bed.

As for the final sequence with the back projection, it's not so much the quality of the film running behind the boys as a problem of sluggish editing. If the shots had been much shorter--and if we'd had a few more cutaways outdoors than just the one of the car skidding on a wet road--the sequence might have worked. Roy Seawright, who did the special effects scenes at Roach's, was a good friend of mine and his crew generally did top-notch work-- check out the split-screen scenes in "Our Relations" and "Brats," the animated bubbles in "Swiss Miss," and all of the effects work in Hal Roach's feature "Topper."