Silent Films: pre-team 1921-1927 Laurel and Hardy Silents 1927 Laurel and Hardy Silents 1928 Laurel and Hardy Silents 1929 Laurel and Hardy sound films (alphabetical order): A-Haunting We Will Go Air Raid Wardens Another Fine Mess Any Old Port! Atoll K (aka Utopia) Babes In Toyland Beau Hunks Be Big! Below Zero Berth Marks The Big Noise Block-Heads Blotto The Bohemian Girl Bonnie Scotland Brats The Bullfighters Busy Bodies Chickens Come Home - The Chimp A Chump At Oxford Come Clean County Hospital The Dancing Masters The Devil's Brother aka Fra Diavolo Dirty Work The Fixer Uppers The Flying Deuces Fra Diavolo aka The Devil's Brother Going Bye-Bye! Great Guns Helpmates Hog Wild The Hoose-Gow Jitterbugs Laughing Gravy The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case The Live Ghost Me And My Pal Men O'War The Midnight Patrol The Music Box Night Owls Nothing But Trouble Oliver The Eighth One Good Turn Our Relations Our Wife Pack Up Your Troubles Pardon Us Perfect Day Saps At Sea Scram! Sons of the Desert Swiss Miss Their First Mistake Them Thar Hills They Go Boom! Thicker Than Water Tit For Tat Towed In A Hole Twice Two Unaccustomed As We Are Utopia (aka Atoll K) Way Out West Specials: Cameos Cartoons For Love Or Mummy Laurel and Hardy Memories "Stan"

Any Old Port! Year: 1932 Directed by: James W. Horne Duration: 20m DVD Availability: Try sendit.com (region 2 only) Viewpoint: "What a terrible cat's after me!" A largely toothless Laurel and Hardy short that I can happily sit through without cracking a smile… for the most part, anyway. There’s something terribly misconceived and disjointed about this one – witness the majority of the story expecting us to laugh at Walter Long threatening violence against a woman. The physical threats he puts Stan and Ollie under are also far too realistic to amuse, not to say nothing of the moment where they’re momentarily prepared to walk out and leave the helpless damsel to her fate. Laurel and Hardy should be our heroes, but often here it’s as if they’re trapped in a serious movie about implied domestic violence. Just the scene alone where the Judge is scalped by the electric fan is enough to give anyone nightmares. I always find the Laurel and Hardy output for 1932 extremely hit-and-miss: they start off by enlivening a very mediocre Thelma Todd-Zasu Pitts short with a cameo (On The Loose), they have a genuine classic (Their First Mistake), a couple of solid but overrated shorts (may I be struck down for heresy, but I mean The Music Box and Towed in a Hole) and a pair of real stinkers (The Chimp/Twice Two). To add to this they also released their second feature (Pack Up Your Troubles) which was even more disjointed and lacking focus than Any Old Port! and County Hospital. The boxing scenes are actually pretty humorous and show that Stan was still agile even in his forties, but even small incidents like how little rapport Harry Bernard has with the boys (did they not get on in real life or something?) distance the viewer from this short. Perhaps what the real problem is is that a first reel on board the ship with James Finlayson and an ostrich was scrapped and destroyed, meaning we start with the second reel. The replacement second reel, a boxing match that concludes the short, is a lot funnier than I remembered it, pushing it towards average territory. Yet Any Old Port remains one of Stan and Ollie’s least inspired. That said, only the really cruel would retitle it “Any Old Rope”.