Topic: Busy Bodies (1933) - Laurel and Hardy

[metaldams]

http://www.lordheath.com/menu1_227.html

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

      BUSY BODIES is simply the pure joy of watching grown men commit comic destruction.  There's very little plot in this one.  The plot is Stan and Ollie go to work, and mayhem ensues.  That's it.  There's something almost creepy about the way Ollie is talking about what a beautiful day it is with Stan on the way to work and how he loves what he does for a living.  Stan, who utters barely a word in this short (according to the liner notes in the DVD book, only 24 words), simply smiles in approval and cleverly plays a record through the hood of a car for musical enjoyment...no streaming services back then, kids.  Their attitude feels so forced, as if you know things aren't as wonderful as they say. You know the only way to resolve this is with some comic mayhem, and the boys deliver in spades.

      Men carrying wooden boards make great targets for Stan and Ollie heads....repeatedly.  Ollie getting his hands caught in that window makes for a wonderful sight gag, dig the way Ollie gets twisted around as a result.  What's also fantastic is when Ollie asks Stan to open the window, instead of opening the window Ollie is stuck in, Stan opens the window on the wall - as if fresh air is what's on Ollie's mind.

      The stuff with Charlie Hall is fantastic.  Stan and Ollie's comic relationship with him will peak in a couple of shorts a few years from now, but man, they're still good here, Hall stupidly letting his guard down with Stan and paying the price.  Ollie getting his chin caught in the brush and Stan cutting poor Ollie's tie is another highlight, but the real main event is the whole business of Ollie falling into that conveyor belt, through that duct and eventually having him and Stan crash into that house.  One of the greatest comic sight gags of all time from any comedian, it's a perfect comic avalanche that is a pure joy to watch.

      In the middle of that mess, as mentioned by one of the laurelandhardycentral.com reviewers, Stan simply lends Ollie his hat, which Ollie thanks Stan for, which would be in stark contrast to the fear The Three Stooges would have towards Moe in this situation, who would murder his fellow Stooge.  I dig both styles, there is a real life balance between anger and in dignity, and the point of good comedy is not to find it.  Going on either opposite end of that spectrum works, and The Three Stooges and Laurel and Hardy are both great at finding those extreme ends.

      Overall, BUSY BODIES is a masterpiece and one of the must see comedy shorts.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

I've seen this too many times to have a rational opinion of it except to say I'd love to be one of the lucky few who sees this in a real cinema with a full house.  I'd bet the audience screams.

[Umbrella Sam]

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

[metaldams]

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

THE FINISHING TOUCH is a great short, as is any short where Laurel and Hardy do manual labor.  That is usually their best stuff.

[Umbrella Sam]

THE FINISHING TOUCH is a great short, as is any short where Laurel and Hardy do manual labor.  That is usually their best stuff.

Agreed, THE FINISHING TOUCH is one of their best silent films, as is LIBERTY which, even though they didn’t do manual labor, still involves a construction site. I wonder if this kind of idea would have been possible as a feature?

[Dr. Mabuse]

The ideal introduction to Stan and Ollie. In fact, it was the first L&H film I ever saw.  A masterpiece on the level of "Two Tars," "Big Business," "Helpmates" and "The Music Box." Two-reel perfection.

10/10

[metaldams]

The ideal introduction to Stan and Ollie. In fact, it was the first L&H film I ever saw.  A masterpiece on the level of "Two Tars," "Big Business," "Helpmates" and "The Music Box." Sheer perfection.

10/10

("Busy Bodies" was released in October 1933.)

Noted and fixed.  Thanks.  Ignore the “edit” above, I initially modified my comments into your post instead of quoted them into a separate post like I meant.

[Paul Pain]

I finally made time to watch this one, and boy was I treated to a fantastic 17 minutes.  This may be now the best L&H talkie I have gotten to see.  Sight gag after sight gag just flies, and boy was the violence high in this one!  It's Laurel and Hardy at their best: misusing tools to harm Ollie and cause large scale destruction.

It's quite apparent in this one just how much of a comic genius Stan was.  He couldn't have delivered a better performance than this. Ollie was also at top-notch, but Stan really drives this one more than usual.

Talk about a fantastic series of cruelties here though: the Charlie Hall scenes, the contortionist window extraction, flying sinks, the sawdust chute, the bandsaw, and, most of all, the shaving scene.

Shaving scenes are one of those things that make you grimace and laugh.  For example, when Shemp tests the blade by running it down his town.  Here, using the plane as a razor, with those sound effects, had me literally falling out of my chair in riotous laughter.  I can't speak highly enough of this.

10/10

[HomokHarcos]

This is great, and really a throwback to their silent comedies, most notably The Finishing Touch. It shows that you don't need dialogue to make a great talkie. Buster Keaton, knew this in fact and still thought that speech should be kept to a minimum, with the sound only replacing the intertitles. Sight gag after sight gag, like Ollie getting his hand stuck in a window. I love this style of slapstick comedy. By this point most live-action comedy didn't have this style. It's like watching an old cartoon, in fact this kind of reminds me of Goofy. If there any Three Stooges fans that aren't too familiar with Laurel and Hardy and would like to get into their work, Busy Bodies would be the perfect starting point. I wonder how they did the scene where Ollie gets his finger stuck in the window.

[NoahYoung]

I agree that this is a great short, but when you have watched it for almost 50 years (like I have), you start to get nitpicky, however small the nit may be.

First -- before anyone gets their knickers in a twist, it's in my top 10 L&H talkie shorts.
I love the denim-overall shorts -- this being one of them. What I would say to anyone just discovering L&H, without giving them specific titles, is "If they are wearing denim-overalls, watch it!"

It's funny that they still wear dress shirts and ties, and their derbies, even when wearing overalls. 

OK, here's the nit:
No plot -- they never really needed a plot -- but for crying out loud, give me an explanation of the end goal. Just what the heck are they trying to accomplish? The only time you know is when Stan tries to shave off Ollie's beard. I guess Ollie is building a window frame, and can't get it open, so he uses an oversized hammer (a mallet?) to try to loosen it up. But why are they picking on Charlie Hall? He doesn't seem to really know them, since no one addresses anyone by name. When Stan gives Charlie the cigar, the first time I saw it, as well as anyone else who I've shown it to, I expected the cigar to explode. But it doesn't. This reminds me of Keaton's THE HIGH SIGN where we expect him to slip on the banana peel but he doesn't. So he gives the audience THE HIGH SIGN. Keaton later supposedly didn't like that short because he felt he was insulting his audience by doing this.

Interesting "fact" I learned from this film: Did you know that a nail hammered into a pipe causes it to leak, but you can also fix the leak by hammering another nail into it! 

I never noticed Stan not speaking until well into the film, as well as not speaking much at all. It was only recently reading online reviews that I realized it. None of my many L&H books mentioned it, either.

[Samurai]

This has become a personal favorite. Much like 'Towed in a Hole', it's an exercise in boundless ineptitude. Between those two shorts, there is but one plot point...attempt to repair a worn out boat. 'Two men go to work' is more a plot from Seinfeld. The more I think about the parallels, the more I realize how simplicity + talent = timeless entertainment.

There is much to choose from, but my favorite bit begins when Stan planes Ollie's heiny, and brush/beard hilarity ensues. Stan leading Ollie to the vise (brush handle/chin first), then to the 'Barber chair' (by the hand...like an 8 year old) always make me loff. Between those two gems, Stan manages to cut off part of the brushbeard...along with Ollie's tie. How that simple act continues to make me loff out loud, I can't explain.

Throughout this whole ordeal, Ollie is surprisingly calm, almost sheepish. He has been down this horrific road countless times, and knows all too well, he cannot do a damn thing to help himself. Any action would only cause more self harm, so of course, that is exacfly what he does. Simply brilliant!

Finally, Stan shaving Ollie gave me some serious Stooges vibes. Odd as it seems, the one act that could/should legitimately harm Ollie, is the only one that doesn't.

[NoahYoung]

It's also one of their handful of talkies that can play well as a silent film. I say this because Blackhawk Films issued a silent version (as they did with just about all the L&H talkies) which I see listed on eBay just about every day.

One of the beautiful things about L&H is that they didn't eschew silent comedy in their talkies. I think Buster Keaton would have been more successful in talkies if he had followed L&H's lead.