Going Bye-Bye! (1934) - film review

It is on the evidence supplied by two upstanding American citizens that the thuggish criminal Butch Long is finally put behind bars.  Stan and Ollie ought to feel proud of this achievement, but they are more concerned over the homicidal threats that Butch hurled in their direction at his trial.  Taking the criminal at his word when he said he would rip off their legs and tie them around their necks, the boys decide to leave town as soon as possible.  But how can they?  They haven’t enough money for the petrol.  Stan has the solution.  They will put an ad in the newspapers inviting someone to travel with them in their car so that they can split the cost of the journey.  As luck would have it, the person who responds to the ad is Butch’s girlfriend.  Having escaped from the train that was taking him to jail, Butch returns to his girlfriend, but manages to lock himself in a trunk, just before Stan and Ollie turn up.  Always ready to help a damsel in distress, the boys set about trying to free the man trapped in the trunk, oblivious to what awaits them if they succeed...

"Pardon me, my ear is full of milk..."  The funniest line to pass Oliver Hardy’s lips (at least in a film with Stan Laurel) is just one of the things that makes Going Bye-Bye! one of Laurel and Hardy’s most enjoyable shorts.  Not one of their better known films admittedly, but there’s enough comedy dynamite in this one to cause you to lose a shirt button or two as you fall off your chair and collapse in paroxysms of laughter.

The first reel shows Stan and Ollie at their best as a faultless comedy double act. The gags are fast, inventive and perfectly executed, and of course they never fail to get the laugh.  Just how does Stan get Ollie to pour a can of milk down his ear?  Even when the gag is repeated a few seconds later, with the same hilarious result, you can’t help wondering if trick photography (or witchcraft) wasn’t involved.  Doubtless the mystery can be resolved by using the frame-stepping feature on your DVD player, but wouldn’t that destroy the magic of the comic’s art?

The second reel isn’t quite so consistently brilliant as the first (the more screen time that is taken up by people who are not Laurel and Hardy, the less funny is the result) but at least it concludes with one of the boys’ most hilarious slapstick routines.   There are three things you should never, under any circumstances, let Stan Laurel gets his hands on: a drill, a blow torch and a hosepipe.  The consequences of allowing this to happen are revealed in this film, in a sequence that looks like something from a disaster movie.  Once the gag-laden climax has been primed, it goes off with the frenzy of a firework display organised by a platoon of kamikaze pyromaniacs.  And, for once, there is a really funny punch line.  This comedy lung-buster takes absolutely no prisoners, so be warned.

© Brian Evans 2010

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