Block-Heads

In the First World War Stan is set to keep watch in a trench. The unit attacks and nobody tells him to come back. He waits in the same trench for twenty years; he does not know the war is over. In the end he is found and brought home. Ollie reads about it in the paper and goes to see his old friend. He invites him home to dinner. His wife does not like it. On the way home and in the flat, one thing after another goes wrong. John G. Blystone directs. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy take the leads. The film is among the pair's features and comes near the end of their time at the studio; soon after, they left the producer they worked for. The structure is episodic; every scene ends in a misunderstanding and a wreck. The stairs and apartment section is among its best known parts; the physical comedy is built on timing. The opening idea is unusual for the pair; the reference to the war is direct and kept short. The narrative never rescues Ollie; every attempt at kindness harms him and the film applies that as a rule. It is counted among the pair's most cited features. Who it is for: viewers who like classic comedy duos and physical humour. Who it is not for: the structure is loose, the plot thin, and the humour repetitive.