Oliver the Eighth (1934) - film review

Stan and Ollie take time off from running their barber shop to reply to a personal ad from a wealthy widow who is eager to find a new husband.   Ollie naturally hides his friend’s letter before he posts his own and is delighted when the widow invites him to her mansion.  Ollie is convinced that he has finally made it into society, but the truth is that the widow is a homicidal maniac who intends to murder him simply because of his name.  Many years ago, the widow was jilted at the altar by a man named Oliver and she has since taken her revenge by luring men of that name to her house and killing them in their sleep.  Ollie will be her eighth victim...

Oliver the Eighth was the last of Laurel and Hardy’s three reel pictures and is not one of their better offerings.   The plot is essentially a reworking of an earlier misfire, The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case (1930) and suffers from the same basic failings - a deficit of really good gags and a dismal cop out ending.  Although the boys are below par (presumably they were drained after working on their previous feature Sons of the Desert (1933)), they do manage to turn in one hilarious slapstick routine.  When Ollie sets up the gag, with a gold-painted brick, a piece of string and a candle, you just know how it is going to end, but it still manages to get a full-blown belly laugh.  Even in their weaker offerings, the impeccable comedy duo still manage, somehow, to get the laughs.  Who needs Prozac when you can sit back and watch a Laurel and Hardy film?

© Brian Evans 2010

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