Helpmates (1932) - film review

With his wife away from home, Ollie makes the most of his new-found freedom by hosting a riotous dinner party.  This next morning, his house looks like it has been simultaneously struck by an earthquake and a meteor.  Ollie has barely had time to sober up before he receives a phone call from his beloved informing him that she will return home that afternoon.  In a panic, Ollie calls his old friend Stanley and begs him to help clean up his house.  Never one to let his buddy down, Stan turns up and begins trying to put things in order.  Inevitably, Stan’s efforts merely make matters worse, but after covering Ollie with soot, drenching him with water (several times), smashing up all his crockery and provoking a small gas explosion, the house finally begins to look habitable.  As Ollie sets out to collect his wife from the station, Stan decides to light a fire...

There is a wide consensus that Helpmates is one of the best (if not the best) of Laurel and Hardy’s short films.  It is certainly one of their funniest, even if most of the gags featured in many of their other films.  What makes this one so special is that it focuses on Stan and Ollie’s relationship and doesn’t distract us with incidental characters or silly plot points.  Helpmates is basically about one man trying to help out his friend, only to wreck his house and his marriage in the process - but still they remain friends. 

Watching this little gem, it is not hard to see why Laurel and Hardy were so popular and are still considered the greatest comic double act of all time.  Their slapstick routines have the unerring precision of a meticulously crafted clockwork automaton.  Even when you become accustomed to their style of comedy, even when you can see the gag being set up and know how it will end, you just cannot help laughing.  Stan and Ollie always bring some little twist or nuance that transforms an amusing little gag into something that compels you to laugh your stomach up into your oesophagus and fall onto the floor in a ball of hysterics.

The humour is not the only appeal of these early Laurel and Hardy films.  There is also a warmth, a humanity, that makes them particularly enjoyable to watch.  Today’s brand of comedians may (if they are lucky) get us to laugh but they are generally not the kind of people you would want to know personally.  By contrast, Stan and Ollie are a pair of laughter merchants that you cannot help liking.  Ollie may play the great dictator for all it is worth, taunting his friend with threats and sarcastic comments, but we still love him.  Stan may be a one-man disaster zone who makes Ollie’s life a living Hell,  but we’d still invite him round to tea if we could (even if we knew we would have nothing left to drink out of afterwards).  In their films, Laurel and Hardy personify the perfect friendship, ill-matched buddies who stick together come what may.  It is this, as much as their incomparable talent for slapstick, that has made them such an enduring and iconic screen duo.

© Brian Evans 2010

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