The Fixer Uppers

This one takes the basic idea of a neglected wife pretending to have a lover to make her husband jealous from Slipping Wives, a 1927 silent short that Laurel & Hardy both appeared in, although not as a comedy team, but it quickly departs at a tangent. The neglected wife here is Mae Busch, in a more sympathetic role than usual as the neglected wife in question. Her husband is Charles Middleton, a frequent foe of the boys who, rather than brimming with gratitude to Ollie for showing him how neglectful he had been, challenges him to a pistol duel.

The story is a bit daft, and it's true that this isn't one of Stan & Ollie's stronger shorts, but those two only have to appear on screen to make us smile. They sell greeting cards in this one, and Stan is the writer of such gems as 'A Merry Christmas, husband, a happy New Years nigh, I wish you Easter Greetings, hooray for the fourth of July.' 'We call that our four-in-one,' Ollie advises the unhappy wife.

Fixer-Uppers, The (1935)

*** (out of 4)

Laurel and Hardy are card salesmen who meet a woman who feels neglected by her husband. In order to make her husband jealous Hardy agrees to play the part of her lover but when the husband catches them he challenges Hardy to a duel. Several hysterical scenes are here including the kiss between the woman and Laurel and another wonderful segment involving a drunk who makes matters even worse.

Bohemian Girl, The (1936)

*** (out of 4)

Laurel and Hardy end up taking care of a six year old girl not knowing she's really a princess. This isn't the best L&H feature out there but there's enough smiles and laughs to make it worth viewing once. I doubt I'd ever watch this one again but the potato scene with Laurel is hilarious as is the wine drinking scene. The film really picks up towards the end. Thelma Todd's final film.

THE FIXER UPPERS was one of Laurel and Hardy's final short films, and its a classic. One thing to note, there were more clever lines and situations at work here, as opposed to the usual crashes and explosions. The boys manage to mess things up either way, now working as greeting card salesmen who happen upon weepy customer Mae Busch --who wants to use Ollie to make her stubborn husband jealous!

This was a good switch for Stan and Ollie, and with Charles Middleton playing the "deadly serious" husband, who happens to know how to use a gun! Middleton was always a fun bad guy for Laurel and Hardy, usually playing a bitter, revengeful chap, ready to strangle them. In one goofy bit, Hardy phones him and lets the insults fly, followed by Stan, prompting Middleton to hang up and declare he'll kill them both, the sooner the better!

By the way, Mae Busch never looked lovelier, and exceptionally well dressed, as opposed to her usual exasperated housewife roles opposite Hardy. Not to forget she was a leading dramatic actress in silent films. Arthur Houseman is again cast as a loony drunk (with an ice pack on his noggin), one of the boys customers, probably the best actor ever to play such a role.

The bedroom scene with the cops carrying Stan and Ollie (who drank too much also) into Mae's room ---before her husband arrives --is outrageous. This short was originally computerized colored for vhs with a few other L & H films.

Note that some of Laurel and Hardy's short films are on European dvds that will not play on U. S. made dvd and blu ray players. Be sure to check where the box set was produced.

MAE BUSCH is having domestic problems with her husband, CHARLES MIDDLETON, and comes up with a scheme to get him back by making him jealous. She uses Christmas card salesman OLIVER HARDY as the man but things go wrong when Middleton not only becomes jealous but threatens to kill Hardy in a shooting duel.

STAN LAUREL steals the show in his usual bumbling way and ARTHUR HOUSMAN comes close to doing some scene-stealing of his own as a drunken neighbor.

It's foolish stuff, of course, typical of the sort of scrapes Laurel and Hardy were famous for, their Christmas card greetings written by Stan being both dismal and daffy.

Middleton is excellent as the villain of the piece, playing his part without a trace of humor in order to make him the fearsome character he is as Busch's jealous hubby.

Good for a few laughs, but definitely not one of the duo's best.

Sorry if I`m hurting anyone`s feelings but this is one of the weakest of the L&H shorts . My problem with it is not so much a threadbare plot but the set-up and the coincidence of the husband arriving home at that precise point . Like science fiction comedy relies on sincere credibilty for it to work and sincere credibilty is in short supply when Stan and Ollie sit in a bar when they should be getting the first train out of town . Wouldn`t you in the same circumstance ? And the flaws in the script aren`t helped by the very stagey performances of the supporting cast .

That said both Stan and Ollie greatly rise above the material on display and do give very good slapstick performances with the telephone scene and the duel working simply because L&H have the greatest chemistry of any comedy duo that have ever lived . Even when the scripts aren`t very good Stan and Ollie can still bring a grin to my face

Six out of ten