Way Out West

Stan and Ollie head west to deliver a dead miner's deed to his daughter. Instead of finding the rightful heir they fall for a scheme run by a saloon owner and his wife and hand the document to the wrong person. Getting it back is the rest of the film. James W. Horne directed for the Hal Roach studio. The two most remembered sections have nothing to do with the plot. The first is the dance they perform with the musicians as they enter town; the second is the scene where they sing Trail of the Lonesome Pine. That recording was reissued in Britain years later and charted. The mule, the climb up a building on a rope and the endlessly misread dialogue are the pair's best-working templates. It runs sixty-five minutes and no scene is stretched. It is among the most cited of Laurel and Hardy's features. Who it is for: viewers who like classic slapstick. Who it is not for: anyone looking for plot; the story is only a pretext.