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"

Come Clean Year: 1931 Directed by: James W. Horne Duration: 20m DVD Availability: Try sendit.com (region 2 only) Viewpoint: "What flavours have you?" "Strawberry, pineapple and vanilla." "What flavour do you want?" "I’ll have chocolate." On reflection I’ve probably been a bit too analytical in my Laurel and Hardy reviews of late, something the “it’s all just comedy”-orientated Stan would hate, if he were around today and reading sites on the Internet. With this in mind, perhaps it’s lucky that I haven’t really got a review of Come Clean at all, as I was laughing so hard! Timing is such an intangible thing, and whereas Stan and Ollie can sometimes do their slapstick and it not quite come off (a rarity, I’ll grant you) here it’s pitch-perfect all the way, from dumb gags like sitting on a bowler hat to the lifts routine. What’s extraordinary is how sparing some of these gags are. While the very funny “Ollie pretends to be out” routine was an inspired lift from Should Married Men Go Home?, surprisingly they never used the ice cream set-up again, and move on from it before it even has chance to get tired. Personally, I could have gone the entire film just watching Stan ordered non-existent ice cream flavours and died happy. So if it’s so good, why did I have a lasting memory of the film being so average? Well, half-way through and it gets flat. Mae Busch appears as a suicidal psychopath who pushes the short towards a “R” rating with that wet blouse of hers. Things then turn into a standard farce with a surreal ending that only half comes off. Yet for the first half alone this is easily four bowler hats. You do have to question how much effect the material sometimes had on the stars, particularly Ollie. The subject of infidelity (even if here, unlike in real life, he was innocent of it) mixed with a doting wife who calls him “poppa”. Then there’s his failure to save someone from drowning – Stan has to do it – something that, in reality, haunted him when he couldn’t save his stepbrother Sam from a similar fate in the Oconee River.