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"

Unaccustomed As We Are Year: 1929 Directed by: Lewis R. Foster Duration: 20m DVD Availability: Try sendit.com (region 2 only) Viewpoint: "I'm talking to you!" In an earlier review of Unaccustomed As We Are (“…. To Public Speaking”, a self-referential title), I was kind to their very first talkie and called it “rewarding”. On reflection, you’re better pointed at Block-Heads (1938, q.v.) which take virtually all of the material on offer here and hones it to a far greater degree. True, the arguing climax to Block-Heads is more obnoxious than in this film, though Ollie blowing up his own kitchen seems almost tame here in comparison. That’s not to say that Unaccustomed… is a total washout, but even if the soundtrack were not in extremely poor condition (a silent version was only available until the late 70s) then there would still be problems with the one-dimensional staging and set-up of events here. Astoundingly for their first “talkie”, it’s one of their wordiest two-reelers, and the use of record players and off-screen crashes are there to exploit the new medium. What appears in screen suggest supreme confidence in their ability to make the transition, even if behind-the-scenes the opposite was the case. Look out for Ollie's tea spitting sequence, an early example of his perfect timing, and the charming scene where they put their hands over their eyes and mouth, as if in wait for a third wise monkey. Looking back over their first year of sound it's curious the massive leaps they made. As reliant on visuals as this is on wordplay, the thin Berth Marks is arguably the weakest of all their shorts. This is possibly due to a new problem: how to convert the slapstick into sound. It's notable that Men O' War is only half successful, and that the verbal byplay (the soda sequence, cribbed from Should Married Men Go Home? (1928) and reprised in Our Relations, seven years later) is more impressive than the boating lake sequence. Perfect Day and The Hoose-Gow are also shakily worthwhile, though highlight of the first half-dozen has to be, for me at least, They Go Boom! It seems the production team were of a similar mind - after directing six of the thirteen shorts from 1929 (seven of which were silents), Lewis R. Foster never directed another L & H movie. James Parrott, who did the final three, got to direct all seven of their shorts in the superior (for the sound films) run of 1930…