Starring Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Walter Woolf King, and Della Lind
Directed by John G. Blystone
Music by Paul Chiang; Lyrics by Arthur Quenzer
This week, we warm up the winter with two very different comedies featuring best buddies. By 1938, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were popular enough to star exclusively in feature-length movies. This is one of the few outright musicals they did after their switch to features. It was also their last appearance as the comic relief in an operetta, and the second-to-last Laurel & Hardy movie Roach released under his MGM contract. How does the story of two mouse trap salesmen who get caught between a feuding composer and his singer wife look now? Let's begin with Edward (Eric Blore), the fussy assistant of opera composer Victor Albert (King), as he demands that the hotel owner (Jean De Briac) give his master absolutely quiet, and find out...
The Story: Albert is at the hotel to write an opera that will stand on its own without his diva wife Anna (Lind) performing. Meanwhile, Stan (Laurel) and Oliver (Hardy) are mouse trap salesmen who are trying to sell their wares. After they're tricked by a cheese seller (Charles Judels) who gives them a phony cash note, they end up washing dishes when they try to spend it.
Anna gets a job as a maid at the same hotel, hoping to prove to her husband that she can have the common touch, too, enough for his show. She flirts with Ollie and the cook at the hotel (Adia Kuznetzoff), hoping to make Victor jealous. At the least, she does make Ollie fall in love with her. Even though the cook threatens them, they still take Anna to the big Festival in town. Anna has plans of her own...and so does the gorilla who chased them in the Alps.
The Song and Dance: Laurel and Hardy get some really cute gags in this one. Their attempt to push a piano across the Alps and over a precarious wooden bridge is more-or-less repeated from their Oscar-winning short "The Music Box," and it's almost as funny here. Love how Stan gets drunk, and Ollie almost ends up falling through the bridge. Blore also gets some good moments as the annoying assistant who is totally devoted to his employer's well-being. Love the sets and costumes recreating a fanciful Switzerland between the wars, with its charming chalet hotel and typical Alpine lederhosen-and-dirndl costumes.
Favorite Number: We open with "Yo-Ho-Dee-O-Lay-Hee" as we're introduced to both the hotel staff and the reason Victor wants quiet. Victor's inspired by the sound of a cricket chirping in his room to write the sprightly "The Cricket Song." Anna finishes the song when she arrives, to Victor's annoyance. Stan and Ollie explain in "The Mouse Trap Song" why the cheese shop owner needs mouse traps in his establishment. "I Can't Get Over the Alps" is King and Blore's comic number with the locals as they reveal why they can't switch hotel rooms. Ollie croons an adorable "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" to serenade Anna under her bedroom window while Stan accompanies him on the tuba. Anna (who makes a much better brunette than she does a blonde) poses as a gypsy while singing the firey "Could You Say No?" and shaking her tambourine to all the handsome men.
Two of the movie's best numbers are instrumental comic pieces. Frustrated over the destruction of his piano, Victor practices his music on the hotel organ, which Ollie has just washed. As he plays his song, animated bubbles bobble over to Stan and Ollie; when they pop them, the notes blare out. The chorus get a big native Swiss dance routine in the square under Victor's balcony during the Festival, culminating in a local man (Franz Hug) doing some damn amazing flag twirling.
Trivia: Hug demonstrated his prowess during the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.
Charles Gamora, who played the gorilla, also played an ape in the Laurel and Hardy short "The Chimp."
This would be the most expensive Laurel and Hardy film, budgeted at twice as much as their shorts.
What I Don't Like: I really feel sorry for Ollie in particular. Neither Anna nor Victor were the most pleasant people; she used both men and the cook in the end, and never got punished for her rather obnoxious behavior. No wonder her husband wanted to get away from her. He was no saint, either. All he did the entire movie was whine about how he wanted peace and quiet - in a summer resort in the Alps? The music he tried so hard to write is negligible, and in the case of "I Want to Get Over the Alps," kind of dumb. (And I know a Laurel and Hardy movie is the wrong place for logic, but...what in the heck is a gorilla doing in the Swiss Alps?)
The Big Finale: Not one of Laurel and Hardy's best features. Enjoyable enough for their fans, but newcomers and casual viewers looking for better musicals featuring the duo will want to start with March of the Toy Soldiers or The Bohemian Girl first.
Home Media: Not currently on DVD in the US, but it can be found on streaming, including for free at Flex and YouTube.
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