Topic: Thicker Than Water (1935) - Laurel and Hardy

[metaldams]

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      ......and our journey of discussing Laurel and Hardy shorts comes to an end this week with THICKER THAN WATER.  We still have features to discuss, but Hal Roach in general was easing his way out of the shorts by this time to make features and streamliners.  Charley Chase went over to Columbia shortly after this, Thelma Todd sadly passed on and Our Gang was sold to MGM a few years later.  Obviously in 1935 Roach saw the short market drying up with double features becoming more popular.  As Stooge fans we all know in 1935 The Three Stooges were just getting started, so perhaps we see why Harry Cohn had leverage in all those yearly contract negotiations with the shorts market drying up.  Hal Roach saw it in the mid thirties.

     As for the short itself, another perfectly pleasant film.  It seems the big slapstick shorts like HOG WILD and THE MUSIC BOX are now a thing of the past and we're getting domestic shorts to wrap things up, but Stan and Ollie do a great job with these.  Daphne Pollard, who also appeared with Shemp in some shorts around this time, is about as full steam ahead a domineering wife as can be, made all the more comical by the fact she was well under five feet tall.  The gag where she has to stand on the chair to hit Ollie over the head with a frying pan is funny and there is even a point where she stands next to Ollie while Ollie is sitting on the arm of a couch - Ollie is still taller.

      One of the Stan and Ollie shorts in the tradition of SONS OF THE DESERT where Ollie likes to act like he's in control with his wife to Stan - when he's clearly not.  Said frying pan gag, Pollard demanding Stan giver her and not Ollie the rent and her forcing Ollie to miss the ball game so he can wash dishes shows who is boss.

      Stan and Ollie work together excellently - the dishwashing scene is a highlight, watching Stan meticulously dry dishes only to give them back to Ollie to get wet and wash again.  The confusion with the bidding is another highlight and the ultimate highlight is the well rehearsed verbal confusion over who gives who the money, with an exasperated Jimmy Finlayson being the icing on the cake.

      The ending of the short with a Frankenstein - Igor transfusion experiment between Stan and Ollie that I think works wonderfully as the final few minutes of a short - I'm just glad they left it at that and didn't do an entire short experiment with it ala TWICE TWO.  We also get a few funny fourth wall breaking gags involving Stan physically dragging the screen using a wipe method, including the end of this short and their short film career.

[Umbrella Sam]

A good enough way to end Laurel and Hardy’s run of short films, though it does feel a bit run-of-the-mill. Then again, Laurel and Hardy’s other domestic comedies set the bar quite high, so maybe that’s the reason it doesn’t seem quite as interesting.

The dishwashing scene is pretty good and it’s also fun to see the grandfather clock get destroyed. Like THE FIXER UPPERS, though, the short stands out more for its supporting cast than it does the actual gags. James Finlayson makes his first appearance since FRA DIAVOLO and his return is very much appreciated. The whole dialogue with the money mix-up works mainly because of his performance. Daphne Pollard gives a particularly mean performance and I also think part of the reason this works is because of the whole height contrast with Ollie.

The running gag with the wipe transition is pretty cool and, along with the ending with Laurel and Hardy switching roles, helps the short to stand out a bit. Could have been better, but considering that they had to focus more attention on the features, it’s understandable why these last couple efforts weren’t exactly the best.

8 out of 10

[metaldams]

Could have been better, but considering that they had to focus more attention on the features, it’s understandable why these last couple efforts weren’t exactly the best.

8 out of 10

I do enjoy these last few efforts while completely seeing nothing elaborate was invested in - the performances simply carry these things.  But off to the features we go, my next review should be Sunday night or Monday.

[metaldams]

While watching the BONNIE SCOTLAND commentary, Leonard Maltin mentions Daphne Pollard was 4'9".  Tiny, making her domineering streak that much more comical.

[Dr. Mabuse]

A solid finale to Stan and Ollie's career in shorts. "Thicker Than Water" proves that The Boys still had plenty of gas in the tank when it came to the art of the two-reeler.  Laurel was reluctant to abandon shorts for features, but Roach really had no choice from a business standpoint.

8/10

[HomokHarcos]

Laurel and Hardy's last short film for Hal Roach. They actually got out of short films before all of the other major Roach stars in 1935. Charley Chase and the Todd/Pitts/Kelly series both ended in 1936. Roach wanted to stop all short film production right there, but MGM basically demanded he produce more Our Gang comedies since they were so popular. In 1938, when Roach's distribution deal with MGM ended, he agreed to sell the series outright to them, leaving The Three Stooges as the undisputed kings of short comedies. This short is average for Laurel and Hardy, which still means it is a good comedy because they were so great. The most memorable part is when they get stuck in an auction and are forced to keep a clock. That's a nice clock. The ending practically caused me to do a double take with the way Stan and Ollie's bodies were mixed up. I know this is not their last Hal Roach film, but it's sad to see them leave short films behind.

[NoahYoung]

      The ending of the short with a Frankenstein - Igor transfusion experiment between Stan and Ollie that I think works wonderfully as the final few minutes of a short - I'm just glad they left it at that and didn't do an entire short experiment with it ala TWICE TWO.  We also get a few funny fourth wall breaking gags involving Stan physically dragging the screen using a wipe method, including the end of this short and their short film career.

In my mind, a Dr. Balinkoff-Igor(1) experiment, though this short precedes it by about 30 years.

(1) https://gilligan.fandom.com/wiki/Dr._Boris_Balinkoff

Who got transfused:
Mary Anne, The Professor (of course)
Ginger, Igor
Gilligan, Mr. Howell
The Skipper, Mrs. Howell

Later, Igor and Balinkoff with a cat and a dog! (I forgot which was which!)

I wouldn't be surprised if this short inspired the plot of the GILLIGAN episode. Many (including me) have felt that Gilligan and the Skipper were heavily inspired by Laurel and Hardy. Alan Hale did many camera-looks throughout the series. Plus, his father worked with the boys in OUR RELATIONS, so there's a good chance he actually met them.

THICKER THAN WATER is actually a below-average short in my book, keeping in mind that there has to be a fair amount of below-average shorts for the rankings to have any real meaning. It is still way better than any episode of FRIENDS, for example. (I don't like FRIENDS.)

I get a ONE GOOD TURN vibe while watching this short. Both have auctions. Both are structured similarly in 3 acts.
First act: Laurel and Hardy's every day living environment is established. Some of their possessions are destroyed due to Stan's ineptitude. (Fire destroys their tent and clothes -- Stan placing dishes on a hot stove causes Ollie to drop them when picking them up off the stove.)
Second act: A money problem arises, and they fail miserably trying to resolve it. Both times, an auction is the centerpiece.
Third act: a 3rd party reacts when hearing about the boys' failed scheme -- and a very unusual ending occurs with the boys essentially switching characters.

I doubt that was a coincidence.


L&H shorts are usually not memorable because of special effects accomplished via an optical printer, in this case the optical wipe. This short just doesn't have the energy that most of their shorts have. The dishwashing bit is great, as is the verbal exhange with Finlayson and Pollard. But everything else in the short is flat and pedestrian for them.

In their domestic comedies, one or both of them is usually trying to pull one over on their wives. In this case, Ollie's intentions are good, so to me the humor in them losing $290 isn't funny. I also think it is much funnier when both of them have wives who appear in a film.

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We've always been led to believe (or at least that's my impression) that The Depression was horrible for most people from late October 1929 until the beginning of WWII, when it actually got worse! Then I see how L&H's living conditions were portrayed on the screen, and you can see the big change in the 4 years between 1931 and 1935, when ONE GOOD TURN and THICKER THAN WATER were made, respectively. In the former, the boys are homeless living in a makeshift tent. In the latter, they appear well-to-do, Hardy moreso than Laurel, however. Yes, they still are in debt, but so are many people in the year 2024! My point is that it appears that the Roach studio was always trying to present the boys (and Our Gang, too) in conditions that would ring true for the majority of their audience, though I doubt Roach expected people living in tents to go to the movie theater. Skipping ahead a few years, 1938's BLOCK-HEADS presents life for the Hardys as fairly prosperous with a bright future. Their apartment building is fairly upscale, and everyone in the building and on the street is dressed very well. I've always gotten the sense when watching that film that there was a big relief and people had not only seen the light at the end of the tunnel, but had actually passed through it. Too bad WWII was just around the corner.


BTW, they passed up a perfect opportunity for a "tell me that again" scene, when Stan tells Ollie to buy the furniture outright.