Pardon Us (1931) - film review

It is the age of prohibition, a time when jobs are scarce and alcohol scarcer still.  Stan and Ollie hit upon the bright idea of brewing their own beer but then make the mistake of selling their produce to a police officer.  In no time at all, they find themselves in prison, sharing a cell with a hardened convict named The Tiger.  Normally, The Tiger would have taken great pleasure making mincemeat of his cellmates, but Stan wins his respect when he makes a raspberry sound through his loose tooth.  Having gained The Tiger’s confidence, the boys become hapless participants in a prison break-out.  On the run from the authorities, Stan and Ollie hide out on a cotton plantation where they disguise themselves as negro workers.  Their new-found freedom will prove to be short-lived...

Laurel and Hardy’s first feature may suffers from a lack of structure and an unnecessarily rambling plot but it still manages to raise a smile, thanks to the innate ability of cinema’s best loved duo to transform the most mundane comic situation into a side-splittingly funny routine.  The film was intended as a short but evolved into a feature once producer Hal Roach realised that he had enough material for a full-length film.  The preview audience was unimpressed with the first cut and so various changes were made – scenes cut, new scenes added – which made it more watchable. 

Pardon Us barely qualifies as a Laurel and Hardy classic.  It is plodding, overlong, poorly structured and short on good jokes – but it has one or two magical moments.   Ollie’s soulful rendition of Lazy Moon is the film’s main delight, making palatable a sequence that would otherwise be considered deeply offensive by today’s politically correct standards.  The comic high point comes when the boys try to put out a fire (a scene only recently restored to the film), treating us to the kind of inspired laugh-out-loud slapstick for which L&H are renowned.

© Brian Evans 2010

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