Amidst the expected humor of a Laurel and Hardy flick, there's a bittersweet aspect to this story of a soldier who doesn't make it, leaving his orphaned young daughter behind. The soldier's ex-wife is given short shrift since she left him for another man; one wonders why she had no room in her heart for her own daughter, a situation not dealt with in the story.
There's some battle action in the early part of the film, allowing our boys to create some havoc with an armored vehicle. It calls to mind the exploits of Sergeant Alvin York during World War I, that story brought to the big screen in 1941 with Gary Cooper in the title role. It would be just like Stan and Ollie to inadvertently capture a German platoon while screwing everything else up.
The search for the grandparents of their war buddy's little daughter takes on a huge dimension once Stan and Ollie are out of the service. With the last name Smith, the search could take forever, and it almost does. Comic gags on the name Smith bring them to a black man, who's identity seems to go over Stan's head, along with Stan's own quest to Poughkeepsie to locate the Smith Brothers of cough drop fame. I also got a kick out of the boys' lunch wagon, 'Caterers to the Elite' as they bill themselves. The elite that is, who could pay ten cents for a ham or egg sandwich. Those top one per-centers of the era could probably afford a lot of those.
The film ends on a successful note with Laurel and Hardy locating the appropriate Smith family before the welfare association of the era could force the boys to give up their young ward. I'd have to say that as the representative of the Eastern Welfare Association, Charles Middleton earned his future role of Ming the Merciless.
There's some battle action in the early part of the film, allowing our boys to create some havoc with an armored vehicle. It calls to mind the exploits of Sergeant Alvin York during World War I, that story brought to the big screen in 1941 with Gary Cooper in the title role. It would be just like Stan and Ollie to inadvertently capture a German platoon while screwing everything else up.
The search for the grandparents of their war buddy's little daughter takes on a huge dimension once Stan and Ollie are out of the service. With the last name Smith, the search could take forever, and it almost does. Comic gags on the name Smith bring them to a black man, who's identity seems to go over Stan's head, along with Stan's own quest to Poughkeepsie to locate the Smith Brothers of cough drop fame. I also got a kick out of the boys' lunch wagon, 'Caterers to the Elite' as they bill themselves. The elite that is, who could pay ten cents for a ham or egg sandwich. Those top one per-centers of the era could probably afford a lot of those.
The film ends on a successful note with Laurel and Hardy locating the appropriate Smith family before the welfare association of the era could force the boys to give up their young ward. I'd have to say that as the representative of the Eastern Welfare Association, Charles Middleton earned his future role of Ming the Merciless.