Sons of the Desert

1933 comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: The boys have promised their fellow Sons of the Desert that they will be attending a convention in Chicago. Their wives
don't like the idea, so they devise a plan to lie about a doctor-recommended trip to Honolulu so that the fat one (Hardy) can convalesce. The plan doesn't work out too well.

It doesn't exactly wear its seventy-seven years well. A lot of the humor, especially anything that has to do with Charlie Chase. He squirts water from flowers, paddles other men when they bend over to pick up his wallet, and has trouble keeping in his giggles while he makes a prank phone call. Laurel and Hardy take turns falling in large containers of water and banging their heads on things. I actually didn't think this movie was as funny as the recent Laurel and Hardy movie (Block Heads) that I watched, but it's more cohesive and has a much more believable story. I also like the roles the wives play, and there are some clever verbal exchanges and baffling spoonerisms from Laurel. The most interesting line for me, at least in the context of the early-30s, was one of Chase's lines about a woman being an old organ pumper. Risque! I like the way this Laurel and Hardy stuff never seems too strained. There are some moments when it becomes completely obvious that these are guys who know they are trying to be funny, but a great deal of this is pretty natural.