One thing I find interesting about watching Laurel and Hardy’s films is seeing how the influence of their silent shorts never really went away, even as they perfected a formula that required a decent amount of dialogue. Nowhere is that more evident than in BUSY BODIES. For one thing, Stan only speaks 24 words and since the only major supporting player is Charlie Hall, who doesn’t even have that large of a role, the short plays as essentially a silent comedy that benefits from being able to hear Hardy’s voice when screaming or freaking out.
I also really like the setting. Laurel and Hardy had done some stuff with construction sites before and worked in the business in THE FINISHING TOUCH, but as far to my knowledge, this is the only short where we actually see them working at a construction site. They don’t just take gags from previous shorts involving construction, either. There definitely are gags in here that we haven’t seen previously, most notably Hardy’s problems with the window.
Yeah, I really like Charlie Hall’s performance in this too. I especially love how later in the film, even when Laurel and Hardy are nowhere near him, he still manages to have bad luck from their antics, having fallen in paint at the very end. Besides his brief appearances, though, this is entirely Laurel and Hardy’s show, and this is another great example of how they can carry a majority of a short on their own, despite its very minimal plot.
Among the highlights for me are Stan opening the wrong window, the running gag with the boards, Stan and Ollie’s car getting cut in half, Stan accidentally cutting Ollie’s tie off, Ollie getting stuck. I’d go on, but I’d basically be listing every single gag in the short. BUSY BODIES is a perfect Laurel and Hardy short. Every gag works and there are no slow points. It just continues to get better and better as it goes along, which is saying a lot considering that its standards are high from the very beginning.
10 out of 10