Topic: The Chimp (1932) - Laurel and Hardy

[metaldams]

http://www.lordheath.com/menu1_235.html

http://laurelandhardycentral.com/chimp.html

       Well, it's been a while, but I'm reviewing a Laurel and Hardy short again!  We come back to our journey with THE CHIMP, and I know it will warm Paul's heart talking about a film with a dude in a gorilla suit.  I would not call this a classic Laurel and Hardy short, but it is a good one.  They can't all be classics, but this being an average short for the boys speaks well of their filmography.  It's 1932 Laurel and Hardy, and the subtle things that made them great are all there.  I love the way Ollie fidgets with his hands when explaining to Billy Gilbert they may catch pneumonia.  I like the facial gestures Stan makes to the gorilla indicating they're in cahoots.  I like Ollie speaking to the audience about the ridiculousness of having a lock for the outdoor trough to lock the gorilla in.  The screams and noises they make when running away from "MGM" the lion.  All the Laurel and Hardy comfort foods are present.  We even get Billy Gilbert trying his best to get his blood pressure up with every line he speaks.

      One of the reviewers in the Laurel and Hardy Central link above speaks of the seediness of the atmosphere, and I tend to agree.  Everything really does look run down and I'm not sure if this was intentional or simply a product of pre code Hollywood, but agreed on that point. 

      From a slapstick point of view, two stand outs for me.  The domino effect in the circus gag where Ollie is on top of all those tables and eventually gets a weight landing on top of him is brilliant.  After all that, the tables collapsing and falling on Stan feels like a great final shot to punctuate after the gag peaks.  Also just dig the gorilla and Stan falling out the window and landing on top of Ollie.  That always gets a laugh out of me.

      As for the gorilla itself, it works for a while but by the time we get the gorilla dancing, things get a tad ridiculous for me.  I guess that was my breaking point, but the end was near at this point and the ending is as sudden as a lot of the Stooge endings.  It's a gorilla randomly firing guns, eat your heart out, Jules White.

      Praise for the horse's ass bit.  Good short overall, a perfectly fine Laurel and Hardy film.

[Umbrella Sam]

Yeah, this one’s pretty good. Really, I only have a couple problems, though both do affect the quality quite a bit. One is the fact that it’s a three-reeler; this idea really doesn’t feel very fleshed out enough to be a three-reeler, especially since half of it takes place in a circus while the other half takes place in a hotel, with fairly weak connections between the two halves, though definitely better than in ANY OLD PORT. The bits with the flea circus in particular felt like they could have been cut out.

The other problem is that the second half is basically a reworking of LAUGHING GRAVY, which wouldn’t be too big a deal except that we know that there is a better version out there. While there aren’t too many gag similarities between the two, the atmosphere definitely is, though it’s done better in LAUGHING GRAVY. The atmosphere I’m talking about is one of gloom, even though it’s a comedy. LAUGHING GRAVY felt like it balanced it out well; there was definitely tension and even heavy emotional moments, but it used it in a way that made us want to see Laurel and Hardy keep their dog and friendship. Here, it doesn’t work that way. While I imagine circus life can be very depressing, the more gloomy tone feels unnecessary, especially considering that Laurel and Hardy really don’t have all that much connection to the gorilla; they even plan on selling it the next morning, and even the weather isn’t as bad as in LAUGHING GRAVY, so not as much feels at stake until the very end.

With that said, the short still does have a lot of great moments that make up for this for the most part. The circus bits are definitely a lot of fun to watch and I’ll even admit that I actually laughed quite a bit at the gorilla dancing later on. Billy Gilbert is also great as usual; absolutely love the way he says “I don’t care if you all get Pewmonia!” in such a frustrated yet also serious way. Gilbert was definitely one of the best supporting players for the duo. Oh, yeah, and them falling out the window is also another great moment.

THE CHIMP does feel like it would have been better as a two-reeler, though it’s still got a lot of fun moments and is worth checking out at least once.

8 out of 10

[metaldams]

Umbrella, you should go in your profile and advertise your blog in your signature like I do my bass videos.

[Umbrella Sam]

Umbrella, you should go in your profile and advertise your blog in your signature like I do my bass videos.

Alright, just added it.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Well, it's O K, fairly mechanical stuff, though the circus section is more inspired than the rooming house section.  And Charles Gemora may indeed have been the best monkey-suit guy in Hollywood for many, many years, but I tend to agree with Paul Pain that a guy in a monkey suit is just a guy in a monkey suit. 
    Also, that appears to be an adult chimp costume, and after that event ten or so years ago when an enraged adult chimp, drugged by an idiot, literally bit off a woman's hands and face,  I think it's fair to say that interaction with an adult chimp has lost much if not all of its comic sparkle.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

And BTW, there are two pretty good prints of this right now on youTube.

[Paul Pain]

http://www.lordheath.com/menu1_235.html

http://laurelandhardycentral.com/chimp.html

       Well, it's been a while, but I'm reviewing a Laurel and Hardy short again!  We come back to our journey with THE CHIMP, and I know it will warm Paul's heart talking about a film with a dude in a gorilla suit.  I would not call this a classic Laurel and Hardy short, but it is a good one.  They can't all be classics, but this being an average short for the boys speaks well of their filmography.  It's 1932 Laurel and Hardy, and the subtle things that made them great are all there.  I love the way Ollie fidgets with his hands when explaining to Billy Gilbert they may catch pneumonia.  I like the facial gestures Stan makes to the gorilla indicating they're in cahoots.  I like Ollie speaking to the audience about the ridiculousness of having a lock for the outdoor trough to lock the gorilla in.  The screams and noises they make when running away from "MGM" the lion.  All the Laurel and Hardy comfort foods are present.  We even get Billy Gilbert trying his best to get his blood pressure up with every line he speaks.

      One of the reviewers in the Laurel and Hardy Central link above speaks of the seediness of the atmosphere, and I tend to agree.  Everything really does look run down and I'm not sure if this was intentional or simply a product of pre code Hollywood, but agreed on that point. 

      From a slapstick point of view, two stand outs for me.  The domino effect in the circus gag where Ollie is on top of all those tables and eventually gets a weight landing on top of him is brilliant.  After all that, the tables collapsing and falling on Stan feels like a great final shot to punctuate after the gag peaks.  Also just dig the gorilla and Stan falling out the window and landing on top of Ollie.  That always gets a laugh out of me.

      As for the gorilla itself, it works for a while but by the time we get the gorilla dancing, things get a tad ridiculous for me.  I guess that was my breaking point, but the end was near at this point and the ending is as sudden as a lot of the Stooge endings.  It's a gorilla randomly firing guns, eat your heart out, Jules White.

      Praise for the horse's ass bit.  Good short overall, a perfectly fine Laurel and Hardy film.

metaldams, this sums up my feelings almost exactly.  The only thing I have to add is that Billy Gilbert is simply fantastic in his part; he really was a good actor, albeit of a specific type of role.  You also failed to note the recurring them of the gorilla's name being Ethel, the same as the landlord's wife.

[Paul Pain]

Well, it's O K, fairly mechanical stuff, though the circus section is more inspired than the rooming house section.  And Charles Gemora may indeed have been the best monkey-suit guy in Hollywood for many, many years, but I tend to agree with Paul Pain that a guy in a monkey suit is just a guy in a monkey suit. 
    Also, that appears to be an adult chimp costume, and after that event ten or so years ago when an enraged adult chimp, drugged by an idiot, literally bit off a woman's hands and face,  I think it's fair to say that interaction with an adult chimp has lost much if not all of its comic sparkle.

Hey, there was a retired race car driver, St. James Davis, who got mutilated by a chimpanzee a number of years back.  I agree, it does take a lot of the humor out of things.  It also makes me seriously question the use of any primate as a service animal.

[Umbday]

Incidentally, The Chimp was one of four restored L&H prints that screened at Film Forum in NYC a couple months ago. (The others were Berth Marks, Brats, and Hog Wild.) All looked quite good and went over well. Lots of young kids and (young) parents in the audience, which was encouraging to see. An interesting thing about the audience response to The Chimp was that the title performance by Charles Gemora received some of the biggest laughs. Perhaps the sharp print allowed the audience to see clearly that Gemora was actually acting (with his eyes) behind the mask. So, the chimp's exasperated reactions to Stan and Babe actually registered with the audience.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

From my end, that's good to know.  Rest assured, I don't by any means want this short ( or any L & H short ) to lose any comedic value ever, and if a good print of this got big laughs at a recent family showing I'm happy to have my theory blown out of the water.  No disrespect, of course, and deep sympathy to the recently mauled victims.  I've said all along that these films were made for cinema, not video, and that we unfortunates who have never seen them in a real movie theater are simply not using the product as originally intended, no fault of our own.
     I may have mentioned that one of the few times I was lucky enough to see one of these ( and only one ) in a real movie house, as opposed to sitting hunched over a laptop, or even on a big TV, it was Big Business, and, my god, you never heard such laughter.  Roars of laughter.  Tidal waves of laughter.

[Paul Pain]

From my end, that's good to know.  Rest assured, I don't by any means want this short ( or any L & H short ) to lose any comedic value ever, and if a good print of this got big laughs at a recent family showing I'm happy to have my theory blown out of the water.  No disrespect, of course, and deep sympathy to the recently mauled victims.  I've said all along that these films were made for cinema, not video, and that we unfortunates who have never seen them in a real movie theater are simply not using the product as originally intended, no fault of our own.
     I may have mentioned that one of the few times I was lucky enough to see one of these ( and only one ) in a real movie house, as opposed to sitting hunched over a laptop, or even on a big TV, it was Big Business, and, my god, you never heard such laughter.  Roars of laughter.  Tidal waves of laughter.

It's hard to beat BIG BUSINESS any day of the week in any time frame.  The only part that is lost on today's kids is the fact that they are door-to-door salesman.  The rest is mostly still understandable in any audience.

[Dr. Mabuse]

A Laurel and Hardy gem that improves with age. The 25-minute length works fine — certainly better than most L&H three-reelers. Stan and Ethel's relationship is nothing short of sublime. Classic line: "I just saw MGM!"

9/10

[HomokHarcos]

For some reason I always find primates to be very funny, whether it's a monkey, gorilla or chimpanzee. This movie features a chimp, but like most movies back then all primates other than humans tend to be grouped together as "monkeys". I like seeing circus stories, it's kind of cool to see a type of entertainment that was ubiquitous then but almost gone now. Of course we also have a scene when they are talking about the chimp, but the landlord thinks they are talking about his wife. This would be Laurel and Hardy's second last three reel comedy. I think the higher frequency of feature releases probably contributed to that.

[NoahYoung]

A Laurel and Hardy gem that improves with age. The 25-minute length works fine — certainly better than most L&H three-reelers. Stan and Ethel's relationship is nothing short of sublime. Classic line: "I just saw MGM!"

9/10

Even more classic:
Ollie: "You said you loved her!" about a minute before the film ends.

I think this film is better than its reputation from the old books written in the 60s and 70s covering their films.

Big question: Just where are Billy and Ethel Gilbert's kids? Ethel (his wife, not the chimp) is out galavanting late in the evening, and Billy is running a run-down boarding house. Ethel can't be more than 25 or so (Billy was a lucky guy), so their kids couldn't be more than 6 or 7 years old. (Gals married at a young age back in those days, and bore children quickly!) Ethel was a hotty, but she married an older guy who ran a run-down boarding house. The actress is not Dorothy Granger, but the picture of Ethel is Dorothy Granger!

Billy: "To think that you could do this to me. You, the bearer of my name. The mother of my children!"