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"

County Hospital Year: 1932 Directed by: James Parrott Duration: 18m DVD Availability: Try sendit.com (region 2 only) Viewpoint: "Hard boiled eggs and nuts!" The general consensus with County Hospital seems to be that it's one of their superior pieces, only let down by a finale that uses horribly unconvincing back projection. I guess it comes down to what you find funny about Laurel and Hardy in the first place. For myself, I like to see humour that grows organically out of the situation, rather than feeling grafted on in the absence of real gags. There's a 2+ minute introduction to this one that sees Stan at his most contrivedly accident prone, as well as possibly angering Chaplin's lawyer. All the stuff with the water dispenser and thinking Ollie was pregnant is just too forced and (no pun intended) laboured for me. Far better are the brief snatches of personal interaction between the two, such as Ollie's many utterances of the title quote. Personally I prefer Laurel and Hardy when they play on verbal humour, their slapstick origins a supplement to their byplay, rather than their sole raison de etre. Think of the fun that could have been had with Ollie describing how he broke his leg in the first place - here it's just left to our imagination, or left unexplained as an oversight. The sense that County Hospital was lacking something at the scripting stage is exemplified by the introduction of an "Old Bean" English stereotype to pad out the runtime. The pedestrian incidental music doesn't help much, and I remembered it as Ollie hanging out of the window, which would surely have been funnier. Maybe that's the problem - when I was young this would have been hysterical. Seen in an adult context and the largely unfocussed series of comic violence don't quite come off, in the same way that gags about syringes leave you feeling a bit cold. The back projection? Well, I don't have that much of a problem with the scale of it, but the matching of film stock is way off. In a sense this kind of awful effect can make it even funnier, but here it's just too bad to be good. It also raises a question about purists and restoration. Should it be restored for DVD with the film stocks digitally treated? No one has actually suggested such a thing yet, but after the pointless but harmless colorisations (you can always turn the colour down) it's surely a matter of time. Would it make Country Hospital better? Not funnier, no, but possibly better. Because apart from that one lapse in production quality, this is one of the better made shorts, a factor which may have scraped it an average mark. Sadly... [Did I really award this two solitary Bowler Hat Stars? I must have been a grouchy mood when I wrote this review, surely?]