Block-Heads (1938)

Directed by John G. Blystone. Starring Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel, Patricia Ellis, Minna Gombell, Billy Gilbert, James Finlayson, George Sorel.

Solid Laurel and Hardy laffer, their last with producer Hal Roach working for MGM. WWI soldier Laurel stays on duty in the trenches long after the war has ended (twenty years, in fact!), and when he’s finally caught up to reality, old war buddy Hardy picks him up from the veterans’ hospital to try and reintegrate him back into society. The premise and setup is actually the weakest part of this outing—it can drag out at times, particularly in a sequence with Laurel in a wheelchair where the punchline is manifest well in advance; ultimately, that first act barely even connects to the rest of the story, which is little more than a series of funny episodes involving Ollie’s wife (Gombell),a flirtatious neighbor (Ellis), her temperamental big game hunter husband (Gilbert), kitchen explosions, long trips up and down stairways, etc. Builds to a head as expected, but it simply trails off in the final scene, lacking a good concluding gag (one was written but discarded for being too “gruesome”—L&H’s heads mounted on walls like animal trophies with Ollie declaring, “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!”). Original Jimmy Olsen and “Our Gang” actor Tommy Bond has a small role as a brat with a football; Chill Wills provides the dubbed voice of the little person exiting the elevator.

70/100