It’s amazing how some personalities from older movies and short films are still so recognizable today. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are still easy to identify even for younger generations, even if many of those same people have never watched an actual Laurel and Hardy film. The thin man and the fat man have become almost an archetype of comedy pairings, and it’s largely due to the characters that these two actors portrayed themselves as (with Abbott and Costello also contributing to the image, in a less exaggerated form.)
I saw Babes in Toyland a few years ago, and while I enjoyed it, I could tell it wasn’t quite the archetypal Laurel and Hardy film. The Flying Deuces may come after their best-known run under producer Hal Roach — it’s directed by A. Edward Sutherland and produced by Boris Morros — but this 1939 film feels a lot more like what my generation has been told to expect from Stan and Ollie. It’s a silly, light-hearted film with a simple plot and a lot of funny gags. Continue reading
