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"

Scram! Year: 1932 Directed by: Raymond McCarey Duration: 20m DVD Availability: Try sendit.com (region 2 only) Viewpoint: "On what grounds?" "We weren't on the grounds, we were sleeping on a park bench." I had great childhood memories of Scram!, yet watched many years later it perhaps doesn't hold up to anyone except the most easily pleased. Possessing the most simplistic of plots, the constant physical schtick Stan and Ollie get themselves into in order to fill out the runtime seems unusually contrived. Stan can't even laugh without smacking himself in the head, though the depiction of a policeman as a violent bully is an interesting social commentary. Though any such commentary was probably unintended and they were just trying to rip off Chaplin. Unusually, it isn't Stan and Ollie that rule the picture for once. Filmed just before they were due to take a holiday later the same month, they seem to be going through the motions somewhat here. Note how when Stan laughs hysterically - something that normally produces hysterics in me - you can see in his eyes he doesn't really mean it. Though the whole drunken laughing scene is so dumb in context here that it wouldn't really make anyone laugh above ten. No, the real star here is Arthur Housman, on screen for over half the short and absolutely superb throughout. Rumours have it that his drunken acting was pure meth(od) acting, so it's no wonder he's so convincing. Apart from extolling the virtues of drunk driving, Housman does wrestle the few funny moments out of this film, and was asked back twice. For a movie then this is still probably average, and there's never been a Laurel and Hardy movie (at least, until they left Hal Roach) that is truly bad. Though the incessant stream of stock incident music - not always very well edited - can grate, and the climax is so inanely obvious you'd be more surprised if it wasn't the judge's house. It fades to black and we hear lots of crashes - maybe this one really called for one of Stan's surrealist endings...