Topic: County Hospital (1932) - Laurel and Hardy

[metaldams]

http://www.laurelandhardycentral.com/countyh.html

http://www.lordheath.com/menu1_139.html

      COUNTY HOSPITAL will always be special to me because it was the first Laurel and Hardy film I saw as an adult, meaning early twenties.  Before that, I would occasionally see Laurel and Hardy films before I was a teen, though nowhere near as often as Stooge films.  I couldn't name a single film by title before then except BABES IN TOYLAND, a holiday TV staple that I remember watching yearly at my grandmother's house.  A friend made a VHS tape for me with a few Laurel and Hardy films on it, COUNTY HOSPITAL being the first.  I've been a fan since.

      Personal history out of the way, this is mostly a great short.  Really a great short for Stan Laurel in particular.  Like Harry Langdon, a comic who no doubt influenced Laurel, Laurel can get laughs out of doing very little.  Just the way he moves around in the hallway cluelessly looking for room 14 next to "the aquarium."  I really can't take my guys off the guy, his blank expression and confused movements are priceless.  The best bit, though, is the camera fixated on Laurel doing a simple task like eating a hard boiled egg.  On paper, it sounds boring, but the slow methodical way he does it....I can't take my eyes off him.  I think the inappropriateness of the situation helps too.  He visits Ollie in the hospital, is totally oblivious to Ollie not caring for the hard boiled eggs and nuts, and instead of trying to make conversation, just sits there mindlessly and eats an egg.  Really great comedy doing very little.

      Of course, not all is done with very little, as the sight gag of Billy Gilbert taking the weight and hanging out the window while it pulleys poor Ollie up in the air with a broken leg hanging upside down is one of the great sight gags.  Gets a huge laugh out of me.  What is not a great sight gag, and the elephant in the room, is of course the awful rear projection car trip at the end.  For all the praise Hal Roach rightly gets and stuff like Columbia and Educational gets put down for being low budget, I have never seen the latter studios be as blatantly careless as here.  The phoniness is beyond distracting and takes away any laughs, a blight on what is otherwise a great comedy short.

      As an aside, what careless nurses.  Can you imagine a hospital where a visitor accidentally takes a sedative, the nurses laugh, don't inform the visitor, and let him drive outside in a car?  Hey, it would have made great comedy if done with care.

[Umbrella Sam]

Yes, this is definitely Stan Laurel’s show for the most part. What I did find interesting was just how well he actually can work on his own, especially knowing that he had failed at this in the past. Somehow, it works though. I was genuinely surprised, when reading that Lord Heath link, to learn that the scene with Laurel eating the egg lasted over a minute, as it sure didn’t feel that way. Hardy still gives some reactions and I suppose that does keep Laurel’s act from being repetitive a little bit, though Laurel actually handles the comedy very well.

Billy Gilbert, of course, is great as the doctor and him struggling out the window as Hardy’s leg is hanging is really funny. I do think, though, that having him throw Hardy out of the hospital as well as Laurel is pretty unfair. While I’m normally fine with Hardy getting punished as a result of Laurel’s incompetence, this just seemed too cruel. The doctor obviously knew Hardy had no control over the situation and even made clear that he needed more rest at the hospital beforehand, and he suddenly stops caring about his medical opinion. I understand his anger, but it should have been directed towards Laurel. Also, yes, the nurses being so careless was kind of annoying too.

Then there is the rear projection in the car. On the Essential Collection DVD, it quotes Hal Roach as saying that they were trying to make a gag out of how bad the rear projection was, and, to be perfectly honest, I actually think they succeed. The rear projection is so bad and so unrealistic that it’s hilarious just how unconvincing it is, and the fact that it’s so untypical for Roach makes it even funnier. If every chase had been like this, then I would probably find it annoying, but considering this is so below the standard that this studio basically set the bar for, I can’t help but laugh; and if a comedy makes me laugh, then it’s doing its job, even if it’s in an unconventional way.

Not a perfect short, but it’s very entertaining throughout and is one I’d definitely be willing to watch again.

9 out of 10

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

This is one of my faves, for all the reasons mentioned above plus Ollie's disgusted " hard boiled eggs and nuts".  And about the car grand finale:  Hal Roach said they did it on purpose as a kind of joke?  Well, maybe.  Certainly by the time the car is doing a 360 with the background not changing with it,  we're into complete outrageousness.  But I've read at least one opinion that the complete unreality might also be reflective of Stan's drugged state.  I don't buy it 100 percent,  but I know I've had dreams ( not drugged dreams, either, just regular REM sleep ) where I'm driving an out of control car and it looks very much like this.  I bet some of you have too.  I may be rationalizing what's just sloppy film making, and Roach might be, too, but there is a tinge of nightmare here.  But I find this one a very funny short, even , by God, the finale.

[Paul Pain]

This short is just plain awesome.  From the beginning to the end, it's a barrel of laughs.  Yes, only Stanley could bring a snack for his hospitalized friend and bring a snack that the friend hates.  Only Stanley would then shrug his shoulders and sit down to eat it noisily.  Only Stanley can do this and make the faces he does.  This short features quite a deal of animated banter, and really features Stan much more than Ollie.

Yes, the hospital staff is quite pathetic the entire way, but what follows is hilarious.  I do believe that the ending car scene was designed that way.  It's just too wild, especially with the car spinning.  It looks like they filmed driving through the streets of LA and then played it in quadruple speed.  Yes, I think the thought of it reflecting Stan's drugged state is a good thought, but it's still just speculation.  For a one-off, I can't complain about it especially given Ollie's wonderful reactions the entire way.

9/10

[metaldams]

I definitely can see how the ending can be a joke with the bad rear screen projection...it's just not a joke I find humorous.  Stan's drugged state?  Maybe, an interesting interpretation, but to me it's just bad film making.  Had to be self conscious, no way a Hal Roach short would be that cheap without thought, but if it is self conscious, it's breaking the fourth wall of film making in a way not as endearing as say, Ollie looking into the camera and saying, "Hard boiled eggs and nuts...hmmph!"

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Even if we all had a confab and agreed among ourselves that the ending was cheap, stupid, and beneath contempt, I think we'd still agree that this is one of the great ones.  In fact, I think that's pretty much what we've just done.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

And sorry, one more thought which I wouldn't bother you with if this weren't one of my favorites: I think, with absolutely no substantial evidence, that what Ollie is suffering from is the gout, rather than a broken leg.  This would be why he can't eat hard-boiled eggs and nuts, at least by 1930's medical practice.  Of course, with that size cast, gout would be no worse than a broken leg, and no less painful, but as Ollie hangs upside-down, one hopes that it's "only" the gout as opposed to a broken leg, when considering the long-term consequences.  When Ollie hobbles out on his own, ungainly as he seems, one is encouraged ( I hope ) that his leg is not as shattered as the cast would indicate.
     The second act of L&H's 1950's British theater act opened with Ollie in a hospital bed exactly in the same position as we first see him here in County Hospital.  I bet it got a big laugh.

[Dr. Mabuse]

Charley Chase's "Now We'll Tell One" (1932) uses some of the exact rear projection as "County Hospital"  — with Charley on a motorcycle! Though the results are equally embarrassing, the Chase short utilizes more live-action cutaways while the motorcycle sequence is better edited than Stan and Ollie's rear-projection nightmare.

[metaldams]

Charley Chase's "Now We'll Tell One" (1932) uses some of the exact rear projection as "County Hospital"  — with Charley on a motorcycle! Though the results are equally embarrassing, the Chase short utilizes more live-action cutaways while the motorcycle sequence is better edited than Stan and Ollie's rear-projection nightmare.

Yes, I bought the Charley Chase vol. 2 DVD set recently and noticed that.  I too definitely thought of “County Hospital.”

Welcome to the board!

[Dr. Mabuse]

I watched "County Hospital" again last night and it's still hilarious . . . except for those two minutes of sloppy and poorly edited rear projection.  The car sequence would have fared better with a few additional live-action cutaways and tighter editing (some of Ollie's reaction shots are carelessly repeated). 

Released the same year as "County Hospital," the runaway-taxi climax in "Free Wheeling" was a superior fusion of rear projection and live action.  If it worked for Our Gang, it should have worked for Stan and Ollie.

A Laurel and Hardy gem nevertheless.

8.5/10

[HomokHarcos]

A simple premise that works. Stan eating an egg by himself, and he doesn't seem to notice that Ollie thinks it is rude. Also, since this is a Laurel and Hardy movie when Stan visits Ollie in the hospital and makes things worse for him. I thought it was funny that the hospital workers were laughing at their incompetence, it reminds me of the Tex Avery short Shhhh.... when the nurse laughs at the misery she is causing. I didn't know that the rear projection was supposed to be a parody, I suspect that may be a copout way for Hal Roach to defend it.