Pardon Us

source: Pardon Us

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were comedic geniuses, individually and together, and their partnership was deservedly iconic and one of the best there was. They left behind a large body of work, a vast majority of it being entertaining to classic comedy, at their best they were hilarious and their best efforts were great examples of how to do comedy without being juvenile or distasteful. Although a vast majority of Laurel and Hardy's previous efforts ranged from above average to very good ('45 Minutes from Hollywood' being the only misfire and mainly worth seeing as a curiosity piece and for historical interest, and even that wasn't a complete mess), 'Two Tars' for me was their first truly classic one with close to flawless execution. After all their efforts between that and this being decent to brilliant, their first full length feature 'Pardon Us' came up somewhat short, for me it was their weakest effort for quite some time up to this point and almost all their feature films that came after fared much better. 'Pardon Us' weakest points were the story and the pacing. The story is barely existent and feels cobbled together, like a series of sketches or a couple of shorts in one feature film which gave a disjointed feel. Although 'Pardon Us' was short, the content was not enough to sustain the length and it did feel more like a very padded short film rather than a feature film. There is a fair bit of padding and some of it comes over as over-stretched. Most of the comedy material is fine, apart from some repetition here and there. Some of the editing is a touch on the sloppy side. It is a nicely shot feature though and it is competently directed. There are a lot of amusing moments and the best parts are hilarious if not quite classic. The supporting cast do solidly enough. Laurel and Hardy, as they rightly should be, are the stars. They show impeccable comic timing, especially Laurel though it was always great when their style had fully settled and their output evolved Hardy had more to do and able to show off his equal amount of talent more. Together, one can totally understand why they were such a legendary partnership. It was fully formed by this point and felt like a proper partnership, when before 'Two Tars' you mostly had them not having enough screen time together and Hardy having little to do. Not so on either count here. On the whole, disappointing but worthwhile enough. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Laurel And Hardy made their first starring feature film for Hal Roach with Pardon Us. It's a prison picture, but this correctional facility will never be the same now that Stan and Ollie have served time there. They were not very good as bootleggers selling some of their illegal stock to an undercover policeman and got sent to the big house. Where Stan makes an inexplicable friend in the toughest con in the joint Walter Long. Ollie is not so similarly fortunate, but Long tolerates him as long as he's with Stan. Stan has an additional problem. A loose tooth has him make the noises of a Bronx Cheer at the most inopportune moment. This film has a large black cast of extras because part of the plot involves the boys escaping and eluding their captors while in blackface pretending to be field hands. Unlike a lot of films the black people here are portrayed with dignity. The sequences show the singing talents of Ollie and Stan does a nice patter with a dance. Since the blackface is integral to the plot I've not heard any objections raised to it here. It was a good beginning for Stan and Ollie in sound feature films.

...for not being very funny. Scenes drag on with slapstick and pratfalls which must have been tired and dated even in 1931. It is quite anxiety-inducing to watch as you just want it to stop. I quite liked the idea of Stan blowing raspberries at the prison's 'Top Dog' Walter Long (The Tiger). However, it's funny once, maybe twice but please stop it there. In this offering, I'm afraid the repetition of this joke falls flat and becomes an irritation. Sort of what Abbott & Costello were to do in the 1940s - you know, milk a joke to death so that it is no longer funny. I'd watched "The Big House" (1930) the day before I saw this and the inspiration from that film is obvious in both storyline and set. That film is better than this Laurel & Hardy offering and I just felt slightly let-down because I never really got a good laugh from this film.

"Pardon Us" was the first full-length film featuring the comedy duo of Laurel and Hardy. It was short by present day standards, running for just under an hour at 56 minutes. It was released in 1931 as the infamous prohibition era was coming to its end. It was the era of Chicago gangsters and hoodlums, it was the era of Al Capone, it was the era of the electric chair, it was the era of the speakeasy, it was the era of the bootlegger, it was the era of illegal alcohol production, it was the era of prisons. So against this background our happy pair of laughable chaps find themselves in prison for trying to sell their home made brew to a friendly LA cop! However there is no real story running through the film, it is no more than a series of separate sketches loosely tacked together with prison life as a common theme. Many of the prison scenes of riots and shoot-outs are in fact left over footage from an earlier film, "The Big House". Maybe MGM felt they were on a winner with something that was in the public's eye - lawlessness, crime and corruption. However it does not seem to have worked, for laughs are few and far between. The best supporting star is Walter Long who plays an extremely tough and much feared prisoner "The Tiger". Apart from one sketch involving the daughter of the Prison Governor there is no female character in the film, perhaps she should have been more prominent. Stan and Ollie's old stalwart James Finlayson appears in just one sketch in which he plays an idiosyncratic teacher in front of a class of prisoners. There are a few mild laughs here but one is immediately reminded of the famous British comedian Will Hay who as Headmaster of St.Michaels school had perfected virtually the same act around 1920; as both he and Laurel had worked for Fred Karno, it is possible that Finlayson was introduced to this act by Laurel. Surprisingly, Hardy comes over very well in one scene as a singer, he had a good baritone voice, not something we normally associate with him. Overall "Pardon Us" is very out dated so it must be regarded as a nostalgic work that has not aged well; so much so that the MGM credit has been removed from the start of the film. If you are a Stan and Ollie fan watch it by all means but for others, watch something else instead.

Stan & Ollie's "Pardon Us" is not one of their most memorable films, and not one of their funniest. Stan and Ollie are send to jail for selling beer, they later escape but are recaptured. The plot seems pretty thick compared to comedy films of that day, and there seems to be less attention paid among the scriptwriters on jokes and funny moments. The running gag through the movie is Stan's loose tooth, which makes him sound like he insults everyone. It's not very funny, and gets extremely repetitive and thus predictable. And if you look past that joke, then there isn't much left to laugh about about. And that is pretty much the problem. Not once during the movie did I laugh. Just a halfway grin on occasion. So it remains just a little film, that you watch, and then forget. There are of course a few half funny moments, Stan trying to get comfortable to sleep in his and Ollie's bed at the prison. The scene at the dentist, the scene at the prison school (with Finlayson, who makes his usual - but still great - mimics) and the ending of the film are all OK moments, but not that much more. There's an extremely huge amount of singing in the movie. Singing at the prison, and while Stan and Ollie escapes, they hide as black workers on a cotton farm, leading to classic "negro-spirituals" and similar. It's not bad at all, but it drags on a bit too much. So all in all, too much regular movie'ish plot, and too little solid comedy. It's not a bad film at all, but far from being a Stan 6 Ollie classic. A few years later, the boys would make "Sons Of The Desert", a master example on a classic Stan & Ollie movie. And it success "Pardon Us" in every way possible.

1931 was a very different time in this country. "pardon us" reflects the modes and mores of the time; remember, that was seventy-three years ago. the attitude toward blacks at that time was of one to a second-class people. so, we have laurel pointing at two black inmates and saying "look, amos 'n andy". happy, singing sharecroppers (i'd like to know if the singing sharecroppers were the crinoline choir seen in bing's "mississippi" and the marx bros "day at the races")...stan and ollie coloring themselves with grease and mud. as another reviewer remarked, they couldn't get away with that today, and rightly so. withal,pardon us is not a "great" film, but it is a great l&h film. the accompanying music is straight out of the silents. listen to it...savor it...worth the admission. hardy exhibits his fine tenor voice in "lazy moon"..the various l&h skits throughout. my favorite is when l&h declare a hunger strike but the guard tempts them with visions of a roast turkey dinner replete with all the trimmings including hot biscuits and a big, black cigar. how could hardy turn that down! laurel pipes up after all that and asks, "any nuts?" "all you can eat of them!" comes the stentorian answer from the guard. wilfred lucas (the warden), walter long (the "tiger") and jimmy finlayson (the school tutor) lend yeoman support to l&h. all three supported them in other vehicles. wilfred lucas was the dean in "chumps at oxford"; walter long appeared in "saps at sea" and, of course, finlayson appeared in all l&h films. listen to the warden's welcoming talk at the start and his congratulatory talk at the end. poor l&h...they are mesmerized by the pomposity. fine l&h film, creaky in spots, but recommended for the film buff and the l&h fan.

In Laurel's and Hardy's first full length talking picture the boys go behind bars.And Stan's loose tooth gets the boys in trouble many times, when it starts making a funny noise every time he speaks.Pardon Us offers you many funny moments with Laurel and Hardy.

Being the lads first full length feature it's not surprising that much of it feels like filler, certainly the jokes are not quick fire and the culminating outcome doesn't quite leave the viewer fully satisfied. However it should be noted that Laurel & Hardy's average output is still better than most other duos who would follow in their slipstream, and Pardon Us does have those moments that ooze comedy class. Witness both Stan & Ollie trying to control a machine gun with typical riotous results, enjoy Stanley's tooth problem that becomes a running gag, and of course enjoy Oliver's incredulous looks at the camera. It's solid if unspectacular, but certainly worth a watch now and then, 6/10. Footnote: Other user comments allude to certain aspects being un PC for the modern age, who cares is what I say, this is after all Laurel & Hardy in the 30s, it worked then and really it still works now, harmless and enjoyable fun.

I know it's old but it just wasn't that funny, and there's stuff from Chaplin, Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and then a bunch of screwball comedies from the same decade that are still funny. The plot is disjointed and the speech impediment that repeatedly screws Laurel over is funny only for about 10% of the film's runtime. I might check out some of the duo's other work at some point, but this wasn't a great introduction to be honest.