The story goes that Hal Roach had to build his own prison set after negotiations with M.G.M. fell through to rent one of theirs, and finding the cost prohibitive for a short he ordered the movie expanded to feature length.
I don't know if this story has been confirmed, but if true it would explain the lack of continuity in certain scenes, and the musical numbers used to pad out the running time.
But for all that there's some wonderful stuff in here. Great gag of Stan and Ollie planning to sell bootleg hooch; the next cut has them being marched straight into prison. Wonderful check-in gags and the mugshot scene is hysterical "If they come out good can I have a copy?" says Stan.
But the best scene for me is the classroom set piece with Jimmy Finn. This had me convulsed with laughter. Asked to name a comet, which has previously been described as a star with a tail on it, Stan answers Rin Tin Tin! In the second half the standard slips slightly, and Stan and Ollie in black-face is not exactly PC these days. However it was not meant to be racist, and Ollie gets to sing "Lazy Moon", which is fine.
Pardon Us is perhaps lacking the cohesive plots of some of the boys' later films - compare this to Sons of The Desert, for example. But for the most part it's an enjoyable film, and worth seeing.
I don't know if this story has been confirmed, but if true it would explain the lack of continuity in certain scenes, and the musical numbers used to pad out the running time.
But for all that there's some wonderful stuff in here. Great gag of Stan and Ollie planning to sell bootleg hooch; the next cut has them being marched straight into prison. Wonderful check-in gags and the mugshot scene is hysterical "If they come out good can I have a copy?" says Stan.
But the best scene for me is the classroom set piece with Jimmy Finn. This had me convulsed with laughter. Asked to name a comet, which has previously been described as a star with a tail on it, Stan answers Rin Tin Tin! In the second half the standard slips slightly, and Stan and Ollie in black-face is not exactly PC these days. However it was not meant to be racist, and Ollie gets to sing "Lazy Moon", which is fine.
Pardon Us is perhaps lacking the cohesive plots of some of the boys' later films - compare this to Sons of The Desert, for example. But for the most part it's an enjoyable film, and worth seeing.