![]() Stan Laurel" and "Oliver Hardy and Wife"), are introduced as late arrivals to the "Sons of the Desert" fraternity meeting where the exhausted ruler announces the club's 87th annual convention to take place in Chicago, where all members are expected to attend. As the story goes, Stan and Ollie (Laurel and Hardy), best friends ("two peas in a pod") and next door neighbors, both married (with their front doors reading "Mr. Seiter, starring the comedy team of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, is not a foreign legion story set in the Sahara desert as the title might imply, but a domestic comedy with "Sons of the Desert" the name of a fraternity lodge brothers organization where Stan and Ollie are members, Oasis 13, Los Angeles, California. SONS OF THE DESERT (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1933), a Hal Roach feature presentation directed by William A. And we do learn that honesty is the best politics. Gags and lines are flawlessly executed in Sons Of The Desert. A great line and Laurel is so preciously innocent delivering it, but I would have expected a gag like that to have been in an Abbott&Costello film. When Ollie asks why Stan called a veterinarian, Stan innocently replies that he didn't think the man's religion should have any bearing. And Lucian Littlefield plays a veterinarian who is called as Stan is blissfully unaware of his specialty. Fellow Hal Roach comedian Charley Chase pops up at the convention scenes as a particularly obnoxious reveling conventioneer. Let's just say they're both in for a lot more water on that cold and rainy night. Next best series of gags is the boys in joint attic of their two homes trying to get some sleep and hide from the wives who come home unexpectedly. They all get wet every which way imaginable. Best series of gags involve Stan, Ollie, and Mae Busch with a tub full of water as Ollie is trying to pretend he's ill. What happens afterward is sheer laugh bliss. But not for long as the wives decide to kill time at a movie and happen to spot their husbands hamming it up for a newsreel cameraman who was covering the Sons Of The Desert convention. The ocean liner sinks that was supposed to take Stan and Ollie to Hawaii and the wives are in a panic. So the boys decide to say they were going to Hawaii, but two things happen. And the fact that Ollie preferred Stan's company to Mrs. But I suppose in their world they just hated that Sons Of The Desert Lodge so much that even a vacation in Hawaii with just Stan and Ollie is preferable. It doesn't make rational sense if the idea is that they're ignoring their wives. Although for the life of me I can't figure out why Dorothy Christy and Mae Busch as the wives of Stan and Ollie respectively would rather their husbands vacation in Hawaii together as opposed to going to Chicago for their Lodge Convention. I would be hard put to disagree and I find this the most flawless of their comedies, taking full advantage of the characters that Stan and Ollie have created and what movie fans have come to expect from them. Hardy seem to rate Sons Of The Desert as their best feature film. ![]() ![]() At any rate, if you have never seen the famous duo, this is a good place to start. Also, there was a play- on-words here about some woman "who likes to pump the organ." Well, this film was made a year or so before the Hays' Code went into effect. Charley Chase, a famous silent comedian, is also in the film as are a few things you wouldn't associate with Laurel & Hardy: some sexual stuff! Really! There is a dance number in the middle of the film where I swear I saw a see-through blouse on the main dancer. Oddly enough, on the second viewing of this film I found a bit slow going, which I didn't find the first time. The women are the bosses and Hardy's wife is the toughest of the two, throwing plates at Olllie's head! These are tough old bags. Hardy does his normal routine, too, with the dirty looks, the scheming and the pratfalls. Along the way, we see all the trademarks of these two famous comedians: Laurel scratching his head, crying when in trouble, having the better heart of the two and providing some clever slapstick and dialog. As it turns out, they go anyway and, well, it's one wild scene after another. Our heroes - Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy - simply want to go to the annual convention of their group - "The Sons Of The Desert" and want their wives' approval to make the trip. There are a lot of funny scenes squeezed into one of the thinest "plots" you'll ever see in a story. ![]()
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