This Laurel & Hardy silent 20-minute film title asks a question that, based on what we saw, generates the answer, "No."
It opens in a courtroom where the jury has already found a large man, played by Noah Young, who has about a scruffy beard and a rather large and evil-looking face, guilty of murder. He is called "The Tipton Slasher." Judge Foozle (James Finlayson) sentences him to hang. The Slasher vows to escape and kill the judge.
We next see the judge at home with his wife, where a newspaper she's reading an inside page of, bears the front page headline-you guessed it-that the Tipton Slasher has escaped. On hearing the news, the judge did two spit takes-spitting out the coffee he had just begun to drink. She phones for protection, asking for the best detectives they have. Of course, they send our heroes, who title cards tell us are the two worst detectives in the world.
Outside the judge's house, at night, the Slasher meets a man about to enter. He asks if this is the judge's house. How he would be right outside and NOT know is a puzzler. The man says it is and that he is the new butler. I didn't think too many butlers arrived for work after dark. The Slasher steals his suit and sends him running away in his Union suit. The fact that the Slasher was about 4 inches taller did not prevent the suit from fitting the big man. He gains easy admission from the Foozles because he was unrecognizable since he had shaved.
Stan and Ollie are delayed in getting to the judge's because there was a wind outside the cemetery they had to walk past and it blew their hats off, into the cemetery. It so happened that Stan had removed his hat just as they passed the open gate, so only Ollie's blew away. But when we looked inside, there were two hats side-by-side on the ground. On his return trip as Ollie called to him, Stan's hat blew into the cemetery. We never saw a third hat.
It took several minutes to retrieve them because Ollie wouldn't enter himself, and Stan kept trying but was afraid, literally, of his own shadow cast upon a wall and kept running back outside to Ollie. Finally he retrieves the hats and they each don the other's hat. Then it took them four tries to switch hats. They kept taking them off, handing one to the other man, then switching them again and putting the same miss-sized ones back on their heads. It was repetitive like a bad skit from Saturday Night Live. I mean the kind where the general idea may have been a bit funny to begin with, then they do it over and over until the viewer is exhausted. Now the Marx Brothers might have had Chico switching hats, in fact, I think they did have a similar scene in some movie, but Chico was purposely switching the hats to retain the one he wanted to keep. That was funny. Here, it seems impossible the pair could have tried to switch and four times done it the opposite of what they desired.
On meeting the Foozles, Mrs. F asks, "Are you men good shooters?" Ollie proceeds to do the William Tell bit only using his revolver to shoot an apple off the head of his chum. Standing about 8 feet away from Stan, he so nervously jostles the gun that he misses him by a good 7 feet, destroying a bust.
Once they arrive at the house, they do nothing to actually protect the judge-they aren't staying in the same room with him and aren't guarding the doors or anything. The Slasher is about to slash the judge's throat from behind with a large knife he pulled out from inside his jacket-must have been a large pocket inside that butler's coat-but the wife came into the room, so he put the knife back inside the jacket.
Later, he is seen by the wife entering a bedroom with the large knife held in front of him so it could be seen first when he entered. She screamed but didn't seem to go to the aid of her husband. He was soaking in his bathtub, heard the scream, but did nothing but enjoy his soak.
When the wife screams a second time, the judge was lying in his bathtub, bathing, when he heard it. He got out and peeked through the keyhole and saw the Slasher, this time figuring out who it was. What did he do? Almost like a 3-year-old, he attempted to hide under the water in his own bath. The Slasher entered the room was standing no more than three feet from the judge in the tub, but never looked toward it. He spent his time looking toward the camera, with the tub to his right, as if to say, "Gee, I wonder where that judge went." He lingers there while the judge accidentally kicks the plug out with his foot and all the water drains. He is now lying in the empty tub and the Slasher is still standing three feet away, never even noticed the tub was draining. It would have been impossible for him at that distance to have glanced toward the tub and not seen the judge-with the tub full of water or not.
Meanwhile, in the bedroom, Ollie, Stan, and the missus are doing almost nothing. Stan checks his revolver just like he did at the detective office before they started this mission. Just like in there, as he snapped it back together, it fired a shot by accident. Both Mrs. Foozle and Stan panic and try to climb onto Ollie.
This is when I knew I had to write a review. This is where the stupidity level just sank too far below the surface for me to stomach. A man who sees an obvious shadow of himself and is scared-a few times, not just for an instant-that's one. Ollie unable to get his hat back, when he could just take it off Stan's head and put it on while Stan is holding his own hat-that's two. The judge thinking the killer won't see him under the water in a bathtub-that's three AND four it's so dumb! But the killer standing just three feet from the tub and not looking into it-Check, please!
We go on with more nonsense, including Stan putting handcuffs on Ollie while he was wrestling with the Slasher, and later locking the Slasher inside a closet without noticing Ollie is hiding in that closet, but the killer is finally subdued.
I really do like many of Laurel & Hardy's films, and much enjoy many other silent stars, most notably Buster Keaton. But this one was so utterly stupid from beginning to end that I just couldn't stomach it. I see others have written that they enjoyed it. Good for those that could. To me, it cannot be scored higher than a one out of ten.
It opens in a courtroom where the jury has already found a large man, played by Noah Young, who has about a scruffy beard and a rather large and evil-looking face, guilty of murder. He is called "The Tipton Slasher." Judge Foozle (James Finlayson) sentences him to hang. The Slasher vows to escape and kill the judge.
We next see the judge at home with his wife, where a newspaper she's reading an inside page of, bears the front page headline-you guessed it-that the Tipton Slasher has escaped. On hearing the news, the judge did two spit takes-spitting out the coffee he had just begun to drink. She phones for protection, asking for the best detectives they have. Of course, they send our heroes, who title cards tell us are the two worst detectives in the world.
Outside the judge's house, at night, the Slasher meets a man about to enter. He asks if this is the judge's house. How he would be right outside and NOT know is a puzzler. The man says it is and that he is the new butler. I didn't think too many butlers arrived for work after dark. The Slasher steals his suit and sends him running away in his Union suit. The fact that the Slasher was about 4 inches taller did not prevent the suit from fitting the big man. He gains easy admission from the Foozles because he was unrecognizable since he had shaved.
Stan and Ollie are delayed in getting to the judge's because there was a wind outside the cemetery they had to walk past and it blew their hats off, into the cemetery. It so happened that Stan had removed his hat just as they passed the open gate, so only Ollie's blew away. But when we looked inside, there were two hats side-by-side on the ground. On his return trip as Ollie called to him, Stan's hat blew into the cemetery. We never saw a third hat.
It took several minutes to retrieve them because Ollie wouldn't enter himself, and Stan kept trying but was afraid, literally, of his own shadow cast upon a wall and kept running back outside to Ollie. Finally he retrieves the hats and they each don the other's hat. Then it took them four tries to switch hats. They kept taking them off, handing one to the other man, then switching them again and putting the same miss-sized ones back on their heads. It was repetitive like a bad skit from Saturday Night Live. I mean the kind where the general idea may have been a bit funny to begin with, then they do it over and over until the viewer is exhausted. Now the Marx Brothers might have had Chico switching hats, in fact, I think they did have a similar scene in some movie, but Chico was purposely switching the hats to retain the one he wanted to keep. That was funny. Here, it seems impossible the pair could have tried to switch and four times done it the opposite of what they desired.
On meeting the Foozles, Mrs. F asks, "Are you men good shooters?" Ollie proceeds to do the William Tell bit only using his revolver to shoot an apple off the head of his chum. Standing about 8 feet away from Stan, he so nervously jostles the gun that he misses him by a good 7 feet, destroying a bust.
Once they arrive at the house, they do nothing to actually protect the judge-they aren't staying in the same room with him and aren't guarding the doors or anything. The Slasher is about to slash the judge's throat from behind with a large knife he pulled out from inside his jacket-must have been a large pocket inside that butler's coat-but the wife came into the room, so he put the knife back inside the jacket.
Later, he is seen by the wife entering a bedroom with the large knife held in front of him so it could be seen first when he entered. She screamed but didn't seem to go to the aid of her husband. He was soaking in his bathtub, heard the scream, but did nothing but enjoy his soak.
When the wife screams a second time, the judge was lying in his bathtub, bathing, when he heard it. He got out and peeked through the keyhole and saw the Slasher, this time figuring out who it was. What did he do? Almost like a 3-year-old, he attempted to hide under the water in his own bath. The Slasher entered the room was standing no more than three feet from the judge in the tub, but never looked toward it. He spent his time looking toward the camera, with the tub to his right, as if to say, "Gee, I wonder where that judge went." He lingers there while the judge accidentally kicks the plug out with his foot and all the water drains. He is now lying in the empty tub and the Slasher is still standing three feet away, never even noticed the tub was draining. It would have been impossible for him at that distance to have glanced toward the tub and not seen the judge-with the tub full of water or not.
Meanwhile, in the bedroom, Ollie, Stan, and the missus are doing almost nothing. Stan checks his revolver just like he did at the detective office before they started this mission. Just like in there, as he snapped it back together, it fired a shot by accident. Both Mrs. Foozle and Stan panic and try to climb onto Ollie.
This is when I knew I had to write a review. This is where the stupidity level just sank too far below the surface for me to stomach. A man who sees an obvious shadow of himself and is scared-a few times, not just for an instant-that's one. Ollie unable to get his hat back, when he could just take it off Stan's head and put it on while Stan is holding his own hat-that's two. The judge thinking the killer won't see him under the water in a bathtub-that's three AND four it's so dumb! But the killer standing just three feet from the tub and not looking into it-Check, please!
We go on with more nonsense, including Stan putting handcuffs on Ollie while he was wrestling with the Slasher, and later locking the Slasher inside a closet without noticing Ollie is hiding in that closet, but the killer is finally subdued.
I really do like many of Laurel & Hardy's films, and much enjoy many other silent stars, most notably Buster Keaton. But this one was so utterly stupid from beginning to end that I just couldn't stomach it. I see others have written that they enjoyed it. Good for those that could. To me, it cannot be scored higher than a one out of ten.