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"

Our Wife Year: 1931 Directed by: James W. Horne Duration: 20m DVD Availability: Try sendit.com (region 2 only) Viewpoint: "Goodbye, ducky lover." "Goodbye, double dumpling." "Goodbye." "GOOD-BYE!!" Our Wife is possibly not anyone’s favourite Laurel and Hardy film but there’s still much to laugh at within it. If I’m being honest, then a lot of the slapstick feels a bit perfunctory and undistinguishable from most of their other sitcom shorts (Ollie, normally the screen’s biggest masochist, even hesitates before “bumping his head”) The rest of it’s pretty bog standard yet likeable stuff, albeit with rather static camerawork and too much concentration on long shots. Watched straight after Night Owls, there’s a lot of the same routines revisited, including James Finlayson getting his head trapped in a window frame, badly surreptitious entry into a house and the “shush!” routine. The scene where they all escape in a tiny car (oddly not pursued by the furious Finlayson, which would have ruined the gag but defies logic) is also, of course, a revival of Berth Marks. However, what elevates Our Wife to a fourth bowler hat almost by itself is the inexplicably hysterical moment where Blance Payson gets so tired of Stan she just decides to punch him in the face. Simple slapstick, so well pinned to Stan’s constant misunderstanding of basic English. The short concludes with arguably the duo’s most explicit gay gag: Ollie and Stan are married by a cross-edged Justice of the Peace, Ben Turpin, and he kisses “the bride”, Ollie. Stan seems quite taken with the idea...