User Reviews

As Blockheads opens, World War I is raging, and Stan and Ollie are in the trenches. As the troops prepare to go over the top, Stan is ordered to guard the post. As a flashy montage brings us to 1938, Stan is still at his post, unaware that the war is over. In a great shot, he tosses a can of beans onto a mountain of cans that has been accumulating for 20 years.

Meanwhile, marital bliss has finally come to Oliver Hardy. Dressed in an apron, he cooks breakfast for Mrs. Hardy (Minna Gombell). He's a total wimp, completely dominated by his wife (she even gives him an allowance!). Yet when Mrs. Hardy tries to get him to realize that today is their anniversary, he isn't even close. "Was that the day I fell off the bicycle and skinned my knee?" When he finds out what day it is, he talks about whispering "sweet nothings" in his wife's ear. As he tells her that he's going to be gone for an hour, Mrs. Hardy says, "And make that hour short!"

When Ollie leaves, presumably to buy his wife a present, he hears about a soldier who stayed in the trenches for 20 years and didn't know the war was over. "I can't imagine anybody being that dumb." As he looks at Stan's picture in the paper, he quickly changes his mind. "OH YES I CAN!"

Ollie goes to the soldier's home to see Stan. Stan decides that sitting in a wheelchair with a pillow on it is more comfortable than a park bench. The chair, however, was designed for an amputee, and in order to sit in it, Stan tucks one of his legs under him. Ollie of course thinks that Stan has only one leg. There is one goof in this part of the film. As Ollie goes to get some water for Stan, Stan turns on the water, soaking him. Yet as Ollie walks over to him, his suit is totally dry! Soon a soldier comes by demanding the chair, so Ollie has to carry Stan. It's only when they both fall out of Ollie's car that he realizes that Stan does have both legs.

Of course, this only a prelude to a series of disasters, including Stan dumping sand on Ollie's car, then destroying the car as he tries the automatic garage door opener, and helping Ollie to blow up Mrs. Hardy's kitchen. In the features, Stan is often given magical powers. He can make a fist, fill it with tobacco, light it, and smoke (real smoke comes out of his mouth). Walking up the stairs, he pulls down the shadow of a blind. Later, after running up and down thirteen flights, he takes a glass of water out of his pocket. Ollie is full of disdain. "Why don't you put some ice in it?" Naturally, Stan removes two cubes from his other pocket.

Billy Gilbert returns, with the same thick German accent and short fuse he displayed in The Music Box. Only this time he's a big game hunter. After the explosion in the kitchen, Mrs. Gilbert (Patricia Ellis), locked out of her apartment, goes across the hall and is shocked by what she sees. The only thing standing in the kitchen is a large bowl of punch, which Ollie brings in to serve. Of course, he trips and the entire contents of the bowl land on Mrs. Gilbert. The only thing she can find to wear is a pair of Ollie's pajamas. Things get quite hilarious as Stan and Ollie have to hide Mrs. Gilbert, first from Mrs. Hardy and later from the extremely jealous Mr. Gilbert.

One of Lauel and Hardy's most entertaining and fun features.

Lots of funny bits comprise this Laurel and Hardy feature, many of which could conceivably have been reworked into individual shorts. The story finds Stan discovered while still manning his sentry post from the first World War, but twenty years later! Subsequently, Ollie looks him up at the Old Soldiers Home and from there it's one disaster after another. I've always differentiated Laurel and Hardy from other comedy teams like Abbott and Costello in the sense that they do things funny rather than simply doing funny things. Although there are a fair share of funny things happening in this flick as well, with able assists from the likes of Billy Gilbert, James Finlayson and even former Our Gang bully, Tommy Bond. Stan's smoking pipe bit always manages to crack me up and the topper this time has him brushing the ashes out of his hand when he's done smoking. Minna Gombel is on hand as Ollie's less than understanding wife, but on the other hand, what's to understand? Rounding out the main cast is Patricia Ellis as Mrs. Gilbert, who's quite pretty while doling out her own share of laughs with the covered chair gimmick. A very funny treat for fans of the comedy duo that would please just about anyone.

I hope that when you see this great Laurel & Hardy feature film the print has the actual concluding joke - a bit macabre but fitting as it is. As the film is usually shown today, the joke may be briefly glimpsed (in some prints) before the film ends. More about that later.

BLOCK-HEADS has some claim to being the best of the final Laurel & Hardy / Hal Roach feature films (A CHUMP AT OXFORD is it's closest competitor). In it Stan and Ollie begin in 1918, as the men are about to go over the top from a trench in the last battle of the war. But Stan is ordered by the Captain to guard the trench, so Ollie goes out alone. We watch a brief, spartan montage showing 20 years passed and Stan is still in the trench. He has survived on cooked canned beans - and there is a mountain of cans on the side of the trench. As he is about to eat he hears a plane's motor approaching, and starts machine gunning the plane. The plane lands, and the aviator comes over angrily demanding what Stan is doing. When Stan explains he is fighting the war, the aviator laughs and tells him the war's been over for 20 years. Despite some questions about the truth of this ("It better be true, or someone will get in trouble!", says Stan) he leaves the trench.

Ollie has become a henpecked husband to Minna Gombell, and they are planning to have their first wedding anniversary, when Ollie learns that Stan is still alive. He goes out to the old soldier's home where Stan currently is, and sees his friend sitting in a wheel chair, apparently with one leg. In one of the most touching moments of their joint film careers Ollie's facial expression is deeply saddened by his friend's loss. He sits down and chats with Stan (who is glad to see him), and he starts wheeling him to his car - he'll take Stan home for dinner. Stan tells him "I'm better now!", and Ollie smilingly accepts this. But then another man comes and takes the wheelchair back (over Ollie's temporary objections). A minute later, while carrying Stan he momentarily has to put Stan down. Stan manages to stand up - he has both legs after all - and Ollie suddenly realizes this when Stan is back in his arms. Ollie drops Stan. A moment later, in Ollie's car, he says with great frustration, "You're Better Now!!"

BLOCK-HEADS has been called the ultimate expanding disaster film of Laurel & Hardy - a type of expanded version of their sound short HELPMATES from a few years earlier, where Stan is supposed to get Ollie's house ready after a wild party before Mrs. Hardy comes home. Instead he ruins Ollie's wardrobe (Ollie ends up dressed up in a costume like a 19th Century Admiral) and Stan cleans up the house - but burns it down accidentally. In BLOCK-HEADS Ollie lives in an apartment house, and Stan manages to wreck Ollie's car (actually it's Minna Gombell's car) and blows up Ollie's kitchen. He also smashes the marriage (or appears to - Gombell is last seen headed for the old soldier's home to have them take Stan back). Stan is also responsible in part for a near confrontation between Ollie and his neighbor James Finleyson (which almost ends up in a fist fight - but Jimmy still manages to clock Ollie in the end).

But finally there is the problem of the Gilberts. Patricia Ellis and Billy Gilbert are the Gilberts, the next door neighbors of the Hardys. Billy Gilbert (who had frequently popped up in Laurel & Hardy shorts like THE CHIMP, TOWED IN THE HOLE, and COUNTY HOSPITAL) is a big game hunter who has just returned home. Gilbert is very jealous of his pretty wife, and she manages to get into the Hardy apartment innocently enough to help them clean up, but her clothes get ruined. They lend her some of Hardy's overly large pajamas, but Mrs. Hardy is in the apartment, and they have to sneak her out in a trunk. But Mr. Gilbert returns, and he starts sneering at Stan as a home wrecker. But shortly after he realizes there is a woman in the trunk, and he starts calling Ollie an "old dog" for putting one over his old lady - and then starts mentioning his own extra-marital activities. Mrs. Gilbert, hearing this, rises out of the suitcase and confronts her husband.

But Billy is soon chasing Ollie and Stan with a shotgun. And he is firing it every now and then. Soon they are in the courtyard of the apartment house complex and he fires, and dozens of men jump out of the windows of the apartments! Today that is the point the film ends. Most people do not mind, but there is a better end that exists. The last shot was to show Billy Gilbert sitting and reading in his parlor. We see stuffed animals all over the place - and finally Stan and Ollie's on the wall. Ollie's head turns towards Stan's and says "Here's another nice mess you've gotten me into.", and Stan starts to cry. Interesting actual ending of a first rate comedy.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are the most famous comedy duo in history, and deservedly so, so I am happy to see any of their films. It starts in the trenches of World War II, and Stan is the soldier left alone to guard, and two decades later (1938), he is still there pacing and eating beans, with no idea the war was over. Fellow soldier Ollie meanwhile is married to his wife (Minna Gombell), and remembers it is their first anniversary, so she plans a meal for the two of them. Ollie does see Stan in the paper, and goes to see him, and looking like his leg is missing, when he's actually sitting on it, he takes pity and takes him home, he does eventually see the leg before they leave. It does take a little while to get upstairs, as they miss the elevator (once out of order), as Ollie gets into a small fight with James Finlayson, and kicks a ball downstairs, but they get in eventually. His wife storms out seeing Stan, and they manage to explode the kitchen with a lit match and gas, with neighbour Mrs. 'Toots' Gilbert (Patricia Ellis) offering to help clean up. Mrs. Hardy returns to the mess, very angry, and Mrs. Gilbert is under a sheet shaped like a chair, before getting a trunk after Mrs. Hardy has left, and Mr. Gilbert (Billy Gilbert) comes in, and seeing his wife in the trunk, wearing pyjamas as well, it ends with them being chased by him and his hunting gun. Filled with wonderful slapstick and all classic comedy you could want from a black and white film, it is an enjoyable film. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Music for Marvin Hatley. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were number 7 on The Comedians' Comedian. Very good!

There's nothing rough-edged about this feature film. By this stage of their careers, Laurel and Hardy knew pretty much exactly what they were doing, and it works as well here as anywhere else.

It's 1917, World War I, and Hardy and the rest go over the top while Laurel is left behind in the trench to guard his post until relieved. Laurel is forgotten by the Army.

Twenty years pass and Laurel sticks to his daily routine, marching back and forth in the trench, throwing his empty bean can on a mountain of empty cans. Finally he's discovered and taken to an Army hospital in Los Angeles, where he winds up squirming into an amputees wheelchair so that it appears that he has lost a leg.

Hardy sees Laurel's photo in the newspaper and rushes to the hospital. Seeing Laurel with only one leg, Hardy offers to carry him home and give him a good meal. In the movie's funniest scene, Hardy is hefting the compliant but stupid Laurel along the sidewalk. At one point Hardy drops his hat, falls down trying to retrieve it. Laurel gets to his feet, helps Hardy up, hops back into Hardy's arms, and the trek continues all the way to the car before Hardy realizes what's up.

Back at the apartment, the Army theme is dropped and it becomes a familiar tale of Hardy getting mixed up with his own wife and a pretty next-door neighbor who is married to a blustering big game hunter. "I don't bring 'em back alive. I bring 'em back dead. I come back alive!" It's certainly one of their better features.