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"

Bonnie Scotland Year: 1935 Written by: Frank Butler and Jeff Moffitt Directed by: James W. Horne Duration: 78m Availability (NTSC video only): Try Amazon Viewpoint: "Who’s running this army, you or me?" An archetypal – yet not formulaic – Laurel and Hardy film, Bonnie Scotland offers little new yet manages to be hilarious all the same. Stan and Ollie are their traditional character types – Hardy all overblown pomp and perpetual victim of physical abuse, while Stan looks on, guileless as ever, misunderstanding even the most simplest of information. Still half a decade before their final split with Hal Roach (the picture was the first to be made off the back of a new contract negotiation), this still seems them at the peak of their powers, and their timing is immaculate. All their usual shtick – the sitting on each other, the hitting each other with hats - is familiar but hysterical. One of the more original scenes sees a (Mc)Laurel & Hardy so dumb they offer their criminal line-up photos to a lawyer as proof of identification. Another sees Ollie mythologically sneezing out a river after being plunged into it by Stan’s snuff box. What makes this particular sequence so amusing is not only how clearly signposted the gag is, but the obvious special effect used to achieve it. Made in the days before the monitoring of humane treatment of animals, I wonder what the association would have had to say about all those stranded fish? There are criticisms, of course. James. W. Horne’s direction often feels a little too rigidly blocked, the subplot (with a “Scottish” girl of cut-glass English accent, made well before Brando’s era of naturalistic acting) is superfluous, if not overpowering, and the film is probably around twenty minutes too long. Most importantly, though, the part of the film that takes place in India (ironically, despite the title, it’s more than half) isn’t as funny as what proceeds it. It’s strange, but as with the equally flat Beau Hunks from four years earlier (also directed by Horne, though he went on to shoot Way Out West so we can forgive him), Laurel and Hardy don’t really work in an army setting. This is surprising, as we tend to generally regard them as anarchists, but whereas Chaplin’s Liberal reactionary persona could have pulled this off, Stan and Ollie are perhaps too apolitical to seriously challenge authority on any intellectual level. Though further discussion of the Laurel and Hardy political stance (and yes, I am aware that discussing the political agenda in a Laurel and Hardy film is taking it perhaps a bit too seriously), we can of course relive the horrible nightmare that was their Republican wish-fulfilment in 1943’s Air Raid Wardens. The movie concludes with some motivationless “Indians”, the chief of which is a blacked-up actor with, again, a cut-glass English accent. The question of Laurel and Hardy’s perspective on race is brought up in other films (Pack Up Your Troubles) and covered in more detail with Pardon Us (qv.) but suffice it to say that what is dated now wasn’t seventy years ago, and so we just have to accept it. Disappointingly, the film ends with a somewhat underwhelming bee/chase scenario, amid a series of unconcluded and underdeveloped plot strands. What did happen to Alan and Lorna? We’re supposed to care about them, but it goes unresolved on screen. And perhaps a few more script edits might have capitalised on the mirage thread, inroduced yet ultimately leading nowhere. Yes, Bonnie Scotland eventually loses all momentum, and does speak of opportunities missed. But for even a bog standard, mildly underachieving Laurel and Hardy vehicle, this still packs more laughs per square inch than most modern comedies do today.