Jitterbugs

Just watching this film on the Talking Pictures TV channel, I don't know this movie. I am a huge Stan and Ollie fan, and have seen far too few of their movies and simply couldn't resist viewing it.

Frankly I am ashamed of the atrocious rating for this movie here on IMDb, I can only assume it's culled from the abysmal reviews.

To my mind Laurel and Hardy still outshine a large percentage, of the tat that passes for 'comedy' these days. Their movies are still funnier than a great amount, of 'comedy' dross that the film industry still try and palm us off with. As a Brit I have to say that the absolute worst culprits, are the American film companies.

Fox wanted 'commercial $ makers and their 21st century compatriots, are still up to the same fiscal shenanigans.

There is nothing new in either the film nor TV industries, profit motives before quality every time.

But with Laurel and Hardy their comedic quality will always shine through, and frankly continues to transcend time itself.

i watch this when i was on holiday in tennerife when this film was on. I kind of enjoyed it.It's not the best or worst comedy i have seen, but has got some good chuckles all the way through. There were some bits i din't understand. But then i am not a laurel and hardy fan! But it was good old traditional slpastick mayhem form the duo in this madcap comedy.

Jitterbugs is good entertainment for a rainy afternoon,but far from an example of their best work. Both, although past their prime, are delightful playing the various characters moves into the plot. Stan in drag is fun, but not up to his Hal Roach moments in faux-fem roles.

Ollie demonstrates his comic genius and graceful dance moves too.

I love the two man band sequence and as a southern gentleman he is a delight.

Bob Bailey in his screen debut is fine, but his real skill was in radio as Johnny Dollar.

Vivian Blaine sings a few mediocre tunes that should have been left on the cutting room floor. With the wealth of music available in the Fox library they should have been much better.

All I all, it is fun and worth the 1 and 1/4 hours.

Following 1940's SAPS AT SEA, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy became free agents--selling their talents to studios such as Fox and RKO. While these and other studios were willing to pay them more than they'd been getting from Hal Roach Studio, the quality of all these post-Roach films took a significant hit. Unless you are a die-hard fan of the team, you really should watch their earlier stuff--it's just so much funnier and better.

While JITTERBUGS isn't a bad film, it's a mere shadow of their former style and glory--mostly because it has too much plot and too much singing. The beauty of the older Laurel and Hardy films was that they could take very simple plots and milk it for all it was worth just by allowing them to slowly do their thing. Here, however, the film is very plot-heavy and like all these later lesser films, the duo are more supporting actors instead of the whole show. Here, Vivian Blaine and Robert Bailey take away from the focus on Stan and Ollie--with Blaine singing (way too much) and Bailey as a smooth-talking grifter. In the older films, Stan and Ollie were THE focus--supporting characters were never intended to have much personality and were there merely for the use and abuse of the team. Here, the audience is simply distracted by these lesser talents--and I wanted much more Stan and Ollie!!

Now despite these distractions, the film works very well on occasion. First, when the boys are performing as a two-man band, this scene is very clever and the music very catchy--so, of course, this small scene is never repeated and apart from this tiny scene, there is not Jitterbugging at all--despite the title! Second, there are some funny moments--particularly when Stan dresses up like Ms. Blaine's aunt. While it may not sound all that funny, Stanley handles it well and you can't help but laugh--especially when he utters the line "I feel so gay"--you gotta see it to appreciate it!

So overall, it's a very, very mixed bag but an overall product that still has you wondering why the studio didn't just let Stan and Ollie "do their thing"? Why insert other characters or include lots of distracting singing and show tunes?! With the greatest movie duo in history, it was insulting to given them material that just wasn't up to snuff. And speaking of not being up to snuff, how about that floating gas scene where the wires were so obvious and visible?! Didn't Laurel and Hardy deserve better than just some cheap stunt than looked third-rate?

Although lacking in much of the standard L & H humor, this film has other merits going for it. Ollie's impersonation of Southern gentleman Colonel Watterson Bixby of Amadillo County, Texas offers him the felicitous opportunity to play a character close to his own Southern upbringing. Once again in drag, Stan's characterization of Bostonian dowager, Emily Cartwright, offers him the joyous occasion of reusing his Lord Paddinton upper-crust accent tempered with a slight nuance of local Boston color. The scenes in which they appear are a sheer delight chiefly because they carry it off with such finesse and aplomb. Fans may be disappointed at the lack of the usual slapstick, but Stan and Ollie are so splendid in the roles within roles that they more than easily compensate for it. This film as well as "The Bullfighters", with its more tried and true formula, make these two outings the best of their Twentieth Century Fox excursion.