Before this movie, Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy's association with M-G-M was either as the distributor of their Hal Roach Studios product or as guest stars in the studio's revue-type films like The Hollywood Revue of 1929 and Hollywood Party. So it was that this was their first time actually starring in a movie both distributed and produced by Metro. After not-so-great experiences in their first two 20th Century-Fox pictures, Stan & Babe were looking forward to being loaned to the backlot represented by Leo the Lion. It's there that they once again got to collaborate with writers Charles Rogers and Jack Jevne, director Edward Sedgwick, and fellow actor Edgar Kennedy. They also got to return to their white makeup they preferred but couldn't do at Fox. As a result, they're basically their "Stan & Ollie" characters not forced to do wisecracks like at 20th and got to do multiple visual gags at one's pleasure. Unfortunately, there's also some serious undertones since this one addresses the dangers during World War II of possible Nazi spies hiding in a small town and a civil defense official was consulted during filming and he didn't want his organization made fun of. Still, when the boys get dramatic, we feel for them as they're such sympathetic characters despite their bumbling. In his book "Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies", Randy Skretvedt thought this one was "such a bland and unamusing movie" but while I disagree with him here, I do agree on one point he made about it: he thought showing Stan trying to write his own name was "like being asked to laugh at someone who's mentally retarded" so I didn't laugh during that scene. Especially hilarious to me was the boys tit for tat with Edgar Kennedy reminiscent of similar confrontations with James Finlayson and Charlie Hall. I also agree that the film could have used a music score during some scenes like Marvin Hatley or LeRoy Shield had done at Hal Roach Studios. Before I end this review, I noticed one of the supporting players was from some other pictures I commented on this site recently and sure enough, that player was Russell Hicks who I just watched in L & H's other movie Great Guns and in Abbott & Costello's Buck Privates Come Home. He was also in other A & C vehicles like Hold That Ghost, Ride 'Em Cowboy, and The Noose Hangs High. In summary, Air Raid Wardens was a good L & H flick from their post-Hal Roach period. So now I'm moving from Stan & Ollie's first starring feature at M-G-M in which they deal with Nazis to Bud & Lou's first film at the same studio in which they also deal with those bad guys in Rio Rita.