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"
Year: 1939
Original Story/Screenplay by: Ralph Spence, Charles Rogers, Alfred Schiller and Harry Langdon.
Directed by: A. Edward Sutherland
Duration: 67m
DVD Availability: Try amazon (region 1)/sendit.com (region 2)
Viewpoint:
"Do you realise that after I’m gone that you’ll just go on living by yourself, people would stare at you and wonder what you are and I wouldn’t be here to tell them – there’d be no one to protect you? Do you want that to happen to you?"
The Flying Deuces is the non-Roach Laurel and Hardy film (Lucky Dog excepted) it’s okay to like. Mostly it’s because they were still in the Roach mindset, dallying with a different production before returning to complete Saps At Sea, and took most of their colleagues with them: Charles Middleton and James Finlayson appear, along with Rychard Cramer and Arthur Housman in minor roles. Most important of all for Ollie though was the script editor and continuity advisor who took an instant dislike to what she regarded as his patronising and condescending behaviour. Her dislike grew, until, continuing to work with him on Saps At Sea, she finally fell in love with him and became Mrs. Lucille Hardy.
Yes, The Flying Deuces is so much part of the “canon” that it even gets played alongside the Roach movies in compilations (such as the pretty dreadful A Tribute To The Boys) and wholeheartedly uses most of their ideas, though not in a magpie sense of the Fox films, but in a sense of them continuing to play with their own back catalogue.
Despite all this, it’s pretty mediocre if we’re honest. That’s no big deal – most of their films from around this time were getting a bit slap-dash, with A Chump At Oxford largely forgettable when Stan wasn’t putting on an upper class accent, and Saps At Sea pretty much a last gasp for their old style. The major problem for The Flying Deuces in terms of it being a comedy is that it just isn’t funny. This isn’t important in a sense, though, as it isn’t unfunny, either.
That may sound like a debate in semantics, but by being not amusing the film idles along peaceably, not raising a laugh – a chuckle or two, perhaps – but then not having a negative reaction either. The Fox films go beyond this into being so horribly, horrifically unfunny they make you want to kick the TV screen in. I should know – I’ve gone through two sets this month on A-Haunting We Will Go alone. The “Shine On Harvest Moon” bit seems contrived, derivative and yet quite pleasant. Yet Stan’s OTT dance – as with the later Dancing Masters (1943), goes to prove there’s a fine line between being loveably amusing and making a fool of yourself. As age took hold, it was becoming harder and harder to bridge that gap.
Another way The Flying Deuces is pleasing to watch – and, despite the title, the flying aspect takes up less than ten minutes of the runtime – is in its philosophical ruminations. Apparently Stan was a genuine believer in reincarnation (just as Ollie was a genuine lover of horses, having once owned his own stable) and this sense of Eastern philosophy forms the subtext to the film. What elevates this to a higher standard is the musings on what would happen if Stan should be left alone in the world after Ollie has died. Without getting too morbid, it brings tears to the eyes to think of Ollie’s final days in a vegetative state, paralysed from a heart attack and eventually leaving Stan alone. There’s a sense of touching wish fulfilment with this one, seeing Stan pleased that he can at least hold the company of his old friend in another form. Sadly, it was not to be in reality, and Stan died, peacefully perhaps, but vowing never to play the character again when his partner had passed on.
There were ten feature films after this, of course, but as in nine of them they had virtually no creative input whatsoever, then this was really their last time – Stan’s last time – to make any sort of comment. Doubtless he would never have intended anything so morbid to be construed, but then the film IS morbid. Normally so full of hope, Ollie here tries to commit suicide, convincing Stan, somewhat illogically, even for him, that they have to do it together. At the end of the film one of their “nice messes” goes tragically wrong, and we see Ollie die on screen.
It’s probably the weakest feature of their still-just peak years, though isn’t too far behind Pack Up Your Troubles. It may be even slightly better. Doubtless, this isn’t their funniest or greatest film, not by any stretch, but thematically it’s perhaps one of their most interesting. Its standing isn’t helped by the appalling film stock. While I’m sure I’ve seen better prints on television, the version I’m watching is from Delta (2002) and features bleached images, a fuzzy, transferred-from-VHS look and several missing frames. The painful lack of restoration isn’t helped by this particular title being introduced by a bewildered Tony Curtis who blathers on while often being shot on the wrong camera. This slap-dash attitude towards its presentation does it no favours, making it look even cheaper than it is.
Yet the moment when the band segues into Harvest Moon is beautiful, and if Stan playing his bedsprings is derivative of Harpo Marx, then we can be consoled by the fact that he was the unfunny one out of the Marx Brothers. (Or was that all of them except for Groucho?) Lastly, while this is often trumpeted as a remake of Beau Hunks, there’s little resemblance beyond the basic situation. Perhaps when people suggest that they’re really thinking of Carry On Follow That Camel?
Postscript: I've left this review untouched because I agree with most of what I wrote back then. However, I still feel I was a little hard on The Flying Deuces, a film which is, when watched with a charitable mind, much more charming and humorous than I previously gave it credit. It's the perhaps the unremitting darkness of the piece, and the curious dreamlike quality of it all (particularly the Seine moment, which is shot in a studio) that distances the viewer a little. However, only Ollie could be so pompous as to snap "will you stop wasting my time??" while in the middle of committing suicide. The picture marks a cornerstone... after they left Roach to film this (albeit on loan) they were never the same again, even when they went back to Hal for two more pictures. In retrospect, The Flying Deuces is arguably superior to both A Chump At Oxford and Saps at Sea, and leagues ahead of all the Fox/MGM movies. However, this is where Flying Deuces must take some blame... Stan and Ollie had been hired out and found they could conduct in-character, naturally developed comedy even away from his studios. Is it due to Flying Deuces that the duo presumed they would be afforded the same creative input at any studio they moved to? More to the point, when the Fox contract was going nowhere, why didn't they ever try and go back to RKO?
