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 Fixer Uppers Year: 1935 Directed by: Charles Rogers Duration: 20m DVD Availability: Try sendit.com (region 2 only) Viewpoint: "At least I'll be rid of you!" The first time I wrote a review of The Fixer Uppers for this site it was one of my most scathing. Looking back, I’m not altogether sure why. There is a certain amount of datedness about the concept, of course: after thirteen years of working together and over seventy shorts, they chose for their penultimate short a drawer room farce, and a remake (of Slipping Wives, 1927) at that. Yet while it’s not personally my idea of a great Stan and Ollie film, there’s very little that’s offensive about it, or even below-par. Ollie’s hammier than usual, possibly trying to force laughs into the rather languid pace, but with Arthur Housman things are reasonably on track. The sets do smack of déjà vu and there’s precious little comic material in there, but it’s certainly nothing awful like I once made it out to be, just… forgettable. One notable thing here is Ollie’s weight. Comfort eating, largely due to missing his deceased Father, saw him balloon to 250lb by the time he was fifteen, and he looked unhealthily overweight in many of the post-Roach movies. Yet while he was working for Roach, he was rarely fat per se. His 6’2 frame had a certain athletic build that belied his love of sports, and while he was no Schwarzenegger his body fat ratio probably wasn’t through the roof either. The reason for mentioning it? Well, one of the fundamental dichotomies of his life was that he hated being large but realised his livelihood depended upon it – yet here he’s noticeably thinner than usual, and the difference between him and Stan is nowhere near as marked. Is this why The Fixer Uppers doesn’t contain the same comic punch as normal? Discuss…