Pretty much agreeing with you, metaldams. Up until the last 10 minutes, SAPS AT SEA is a really entertaining film, especially regarding the apartment scenes.
Which isn’t to say that the opening at the horn factory isn’t good. The bit with Stan trying to get the car to work is pretty funny, especially Stan’s tendency to go through the back door (you can tell Ollie doesn’t let Stan drive often). I could have done without the whole audience gathering behind them (feels a bit too much like a laugh track), but otherwise it is a good showcase for Stan’s abilities as a comic actor.
The apartment scenes are the highlights of the film. We get treated to several great supporting players who we won’t see again after this (James Finlayson, Charlie Hall, Ben Turpin in his last film). Finlayson especially gets some great moments to work against Stan who constantly causes him frustration and confusion with every little thing he does (the doll, wrecking his ridiculous balloon invention). Honestly, I’ve got nothing bad at all to say about the apartment scenes. They’ve got pretty much everything that I can ask for in a Laurel and Hardy comedy. Great supporting cast, great physical comedy and, of course, an explosion just for good measure.
Things don’t go downhill right away. There still are a few funny moments when Laurel and Hardy first get on the boat (Laurel trying to read Hardy a story, both failing to understand the concept of milking a goat). But once they get stranded, everything just falls apart. Now, Laurel and Hardy can work fine with limited resources. TOWED IN A HOLE is a great example of this. However, TOWED IN A HOLE also took place on land, so Laurel and Hardy still had some room for good physical comedy. Here, they’re trapped in the middle of the ocean where all they can really do is run around a small boat. While Richard Cramer is a fine choice for this role, this limited space also doesn’t give him a whole lot to work with besides threatening them with “Nick Junior.”
The synthetic food scene is just painful to watch. I can kind of see what they’re going for given Laurel and Hardy’s expressions and this kind of thing did work well with the Three Stooges (anyone remember the “coughing up feathers” gag?). When it came to expressions, though, Hardy was a lot better at expressing frustration and confusion while Stan also excelled in confusion (his crying was funny if it wasn’t used for very long). Here, they’re just miserable...and that’s it. Even if it were just a minute, I probably wouldn’t have found this memorable at all, but at several minutes, it’s just tedious.
The horn finale isn’t terrible, but like metaldams says, it’s one that works a lot better with the Three Stooges. Like I’ve mentioned, the space is incredibly limited and mainly amounts to Hardy running around and a couple shots of Hardy punching Richard Cramer. PUNCH DRUNKS actually had tension in its finale, with Larry having to run through the streets to find a radio playing “Pop Goes The Weasel.” Here, all it amounts to is Stan somehow not being able to put a trombone back together.
Not a bad way to end their run with Hal Roach, I just wish that there was a better actual conclusion to this film. Well, let’s see if the post-Roach stuff is truly as bad as it’s made out to be.
8 out of 10
