source: Pack Up Your Troubles

source: Pack Up Your Troubles

Every once in a while we see a movie about the military enlistment of someone who has trouble taking orders; examples include "Stripes" and "Your Mother Wears Combat Boots". One of the earliest examples was the Laurel & Hardy flick "Pack Up Your Troubles", wherein the boys get drafted into WWI. Following the typical fine messes into which they get themselves, one of their compatriots asks them to do him a favor should he die. This leads into what must have been one of the more serious plots that their movies ever had. While the movie is comedy through and through, it was a surprise to see Stan and Ollie display a more human side in this movie. I liked seeing them show that, wacky though they were, their characters had the courage to do the right thing when all hope seemed lost. Of course, one could ignore that and simply revel in the antics. And boy are there some funny ones! I hope that people keep watching Laurel and Hardy forever.

"Pack Up Your Troubles" is a much funnier and better made film for Laurel and Hardy. The plot is more solid with a tighter narrative and the comedy has been blended in well. The opening of the film is 1917 - the year America entered the First World War. Stan and Ollie are drafted into the army where they befriend a fellow private. Sadly, this other soldier is killed in action and Stan and Ollie take it upon themselves to look after the deceased's little daughter. With the war ended, they need to avoid the dreaded orphanage as the child's mother shows no interest. Stan and Ollie try to locate the child's grandparents and this is what dominates the majority of "Pack Up Your Troubles." The team are on top form and they have great material to work with. Besides the comedy, there are moments of drama. Laurel and Hardy handle the more serious material very well. The scene where they realise their soldier friend has died is greeted with no humour or slapstick of any kind. James Finlayson has a brilliant cameo as the army officer, whose army quarters are accidentally smelling of litter. Watch his expression as he blows his whistle! Another regular supporting comedian, Billy Gilbert, makes an appearance as a rather irate future father-in-law at a wedding. I enjoyed the way the film ended, it was quite moving.

PACK UP YOUR TROUBLES only begins to pick up at the point the boys decide to track down the father of a little girl in their care. The best scenes involve their relationship with the cute tyke, who has a wonderful scene with STAN LAUREL where she puts him to sleep with her own version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Another highlight has the boys needing $2,000 and going to see a bank manager who has a good laugh when he sees that their restaurant business is nothing more than a traveling cart on wheels. "I'd have to be unconscious to give you any money for that," he cries, and presto he knocks over a heavy vase that falls on his head. The boys escape with the money and even wackier developments follow. Finally, the situation is straightened out when they accidentally run into the girl's grandparents who intend to see that L&H get the proper award for finding their lost grandchild, just in time for the happy ending. A bit too plot heavy, but there are many scenes that are good for the kind of laughs you expect from any Laurel and Hardy film. Worth seeing, but not one of their best.

This was the boys' second feature length movie after Pardon Us, and this time there is a more cohesive plot to hang the comedy scenes on. Stan and Ollie find themselves fighting in WWI after displaying their usual (and very funny) ineptness undergoing army training. On returning home they rescue the child of a friend who didn't make it back, and with little to go on, set about finding her grandfather. Of course his surname is Smith! This is a well balanced and well paced movie, with much to enjoy. L and H's rounding up of what looks like half the German front line (entirely unintentionally, I might add), Ollie's one-two pummelling by "Steamboat" Smith, Stan falling asleep when the little girl tells him a story, etc. Think I loved the wedding scene the best though, with the boys managing to get their wires crossed yet again. Billy Gilbert has a nice cameo scene here, as does Jimmy Fin as an army general whose home gets a bit whiffy thanks to Stan and Ollie! Good fun: shows the team were beginning to work out how to make a feature length movie work for them after all those classic shorts.

I have watched Laurel and Hardy since when I was a child (thankfully) back in the early 70's. But I had never watched Pack Up Your Troubles before until today in 2015. It's crazy, but it is what it is. L&H was shown mostly as shorts in syndication and a few of their feature films, but only the ones that were their most juvenile ones (even as far as the shorts go). So where do I start? I just laughed at this one from start to finish. Stan looks very stoned or as I'm sure the times dictated dim witted, but in modern times he looks drunk or wasted. That in itself is funny. Then I am watching this as a Vet personally and it's hilarious for the recruitment Shanghai'd to the boot camp to the actual war. along the way there is a really really heavy drama trip put on us by a woman that would abandon a cute 3 year old blond girl, very sad, if you are into the film it may make you cry a little like I did (and of course, I cried later). Anyway, this is Laurel and Hardy in their still young days, connecting still as the common people, and not as total child buffoons. I like how Ollie stands up to the government to protect the child, and she is totally adorable, almost as much as Shirley Temple. Watching this has so many scenes in it that are memorable it''s like watching a 2 1/2 hour film instead of just 1 hour, and it's all good. If you never watched this before you should watch it and avoid spoilers because as much as it may fall into line, you will be surprised by this one. 10 of 10. God bless Laurel and Hardy and 1930's America.

Two years after Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante were "The Doughboys" and a year after Wheeler and Woolsey became "Half Shot at Sunrise" and a foil for Edna May Oliver, Laurel and Hardy took on their own battle in the trenches of "the Great War", creating all sorts of havoc among their own allies. The first quarter of the movie has them doing all they can to avoid the draft (a very funny scene where they pretend that they both only have one arm), the next quarter is them proving their ineptitude, and finally the last half has them back in the states taking care of the young daughter of an army buddy and avoiding the police and child protection services who want to take her away from them and place her in an orphanage. A bit funnier than their previous film ("Pardon Us"), this actually seems to be several of their two reelers rolled into one to make a feature length comedy. It's still pretty creaky and not always funny. The last half has a few moderately funny moments when the boys are trying to hide themselves and the little girl from the police and growing crowd, but its pretty maudlin material to be totally enjoyable. But Laurel and Hardy, about to make the jump out of shorts into features permanently, had better things coming, so their earlier films can be referred to as missed opportunities that don't hold up as well as their later Hal Roach films but still offer some slight amusement.

Once again, Stan and Ollie find themselves being potentially done in for trying to do the right thing. Through a series of events, the boys find themselves in France in the service. They are totally incompetent as soldiers, of course, but they make the acquaintance of Eddie Smith, who helps them get by. Eddie gets a Dear John letter and gets the boys to promise that if anything happens to him, they will see that his baby gets taken to his father's home. Well, the sad thing happens and they are in his debt...a promising made. They are released from the Army as heroes for inadvertently rounding up a battalion of German soldiers. Once back in the states, they begin the arduous process of finding a man named Smith. This allows them to make some hilarious mistakes, including telling a bridegroom at his wedding that they have his child. A mistake, of course. This is a touching, loving effort. But, of course, these guys seldom catch a break.

It was back in 1991 when I was shopping at Target in Jacksonville, FL, that I stumbled onto this VHS tape from Video Treasures. It was a Laurel & Hardy movie I hadn't heard of before and while I think I checked out Randy Skretvedt's book "Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies" from the library there beforehand, I don't remember reading about the review of this particular movie at the time though I'm sure I read about it after seeing this when I checked the book out again afterward. Anyway, when the little girl-Jacquie Lyn-was doing the story of "The Three Bears" with sleepy Stan's reactions in close-up, I remember a relative I was living with laughing heartily at that and while it was funny to me as well, I don't remember laughing as loudly. I just watched it again this morning and I found myself laughing not only at that but most of the rest of the picture as Stan & Ollie join the army during World War I, make friends with a guy named Eddie Smith, and then try to find Eddie's parents after he dies in battle with his daughter I mentioned in tow. Hilarious supporting turns from usual L & H players like James Finlayson and Billy Gilbert as well as Grady Sutton and George Marshall who co-directed with Ray McCarey. In Skretvedt's review, he mentions a sequence cut from all reissued prints because of its too-violent-for-comedy status: Temporary guardian Rychard Cramer abuses his wife and Jacquie, then when L & H find out-he sends his goons after them but the boys manage to subdue them with boiling water! He also said a print survives dubbed in French. I'm not in a real hurry to see that one. So on that note, I highly recommend Pack Up Your Troubles. P.S. On this videotape I mentioned earlier in the review, Stan's daughter Lois put some home movies before the feature showing her on her fourth birthday and fifth birthday parties, and then showed her playing with Jacquie either in a sandbox or riding in a toy plane (cute seeing them kiss a couple of times there), a gift from her Uncle Babe (Hardy). She mentioned she hadn't seen her in a while and was looking for her. Well, a year later, Leonard Maltin & Richard W. Bann updated their book, "The Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang" and revealed in the C section of the Appendixes called The Rest: Their Glories and Their Ruin that Jacquie Lyn was given-by her son-a copy of this videotape for Christmas, saw those movies of her and Lois, and contacted her through The Sons of the Desert organization where she found out they only lived a couple of miles away! After Ms. Lyn left pictures after making a couple of Our Gang shorts-Free Wheeling and Birthday Blues-her family remained in Los Angeles where she eventually married a banker. I'll explain why she left when reviewing Birthday Blues. Update-12/26/14: I've now seen the deleted sequence which was colorized on YouTube. It's not as violent as I was afraid since we don't see Cramer hitting Jacquie. Also, that boiling water is from some pots that Stan uses to pour on the bad guys which is quite funny!