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"

The Dancing Masters Year: 1943 Directed by: Malcolm St. Clair Duration: 61m DVD Availability: Try sendit.com (region 2 only) Viewpoint: "Isn't he light?" "In the head!" When I first started this site, my self-imposed remit was only to cover the Laurel and Hardy movies that “inspired” a review. While 90% of them are entertaining, there’s sometimes a Stan and Ollie film that just doesn’t have that much you can say about it, and for me The Dancing Masters was one of them. However, as the site grew I got inspired by the two Johns at Laurel and Hardy Central who review each and every movie, no matter how big or small. So I guess it’s their fault you’re now reading this, and their fault I had to resit through A-Haunting We Will Go. Anyway, The Dancing Masters. To tell the truth, it’s not that bad. I even laughed a few times. While there’s a mix of stiff supports that you don’t care about and some guff about invisible rays and mobsters, Stan and Ollie look and act almost like Stan and Ollie always did… sort of. They’re even funny on more than a handful of occasions, if not laugh-out-loud hilarious. And while I do have my reservations about a man in his fifties dancing in a tutu, Stan does give his “pelican dance” a lot of grace, and he almost looks like he cares in this one, at least for half the duration. Hardy fares less well, as the violence he inflicts on poor Stan (including exploding a balloon in his face!) is done with more violent intent than usual, and with the constant assertion of his physical superiority over him. In other words, this isn’t a knockabout act instilling pain on each other for kicks, this is just the antics of a bully. In fact, the entire underpinning storyline is Ollie trying to injure Stan – in a blatant steal from The Battle of the Century - while under insurance. It’s maybe this that makes the film less likeable than their usual fare (as well as the fact that it’s complete garbage, of course) in that two old friends now have no love for one another, just the bigger, stronger one trying to inflict pain on his trusting partner in order to make some cash. At least the cash is going to their mutual friend Grant, so there’s an altruistic side to Ollie’s sadism. Yet while there’s a few chuckles in the first half, the patience does begin to get tested when it stretches to an hour, particularly as most of that final hour consists of illogical recreations of past movies. As well as the aforementioned The Battle of the Century, we get an act that reprises the auction scene from their last short, Thicker Than Water. What was funny there is heartbreaking here as their entire livelihood depends upon it, not just rent to Ollie’s wife to stop him getting clobbered. When we finally get to the contrived “bus on an rollercoaster” scene (Did they use a real bus?) all sympathy is lost as the chain of events that led to that moment are just so ridiculously laboured that the picture has drawn attention to them. The writer’s hand is exposed, and consequently you’re aware that you’re watching a fabrication. (Because Laurel and Hardy films are normally so realistic, right? Sometimes I scratch my head at my own reviews!). The film ends with Stan getting repeatedly belted in the face by laughing spectators at a fairground, and Ollie breaking a leg after a bus goes flying in the air from a rollercoaster at several miles an hour. The film stops, and you’re suddenly left with the realisation that – while one of the better post-Roach features – your soul has started to bleed.