I just had a fresh re-watch of this, so I'll make some comments.
SWISS MISS tends to be ranked at the bottom of Roach features for a lot of people. I think part of the problem is the fact it is sandwiched in between two masterpieces in WAY OUT WEST and BLOCK-HEADS, two obviously superior films. My take is this. There are four Roach features that I consider bottom tier as far as Roach features go, even though they all have some aspect to enjoy. They would be SWISS MISS along with the first two features and BONNIE SCOTLAND. Out of the four, I consider SWISS MISS the best. Yes, there are flaws, but the look of the film and a couple of fantastic scenes rise this above the others.
I'll have to disagree here. I wouldn't rank PARDON US as bottom tier at all, since it is one of my favorite features of theirs. I never cared for PACK UP YOUR TROUBLES very much, though. (I'll have to comment on that film if there is a review of it in another thread.) I think BONNIE SCOTLAND is much better than SWISS MISS.
I'd actually rank one post-Roach feature, THE BULLFIGHTERS, much funnier than SWISS MISS.
Yes, the film looks wonderful. One name I want to point out is the art director, Charles D. Hall. He's not to be confused with beloved Roach character actor Charlie Hall. The art director version is one of the unsung heroes of Hollywood, as years before this he worked for Universal and is the reason why those thirties horror films look so amazing. Go to imdb and look at the man's credits and think of what those films look like. You will grow an appreciation for this man. SWISS MISS, in its best and worst parts, has a Swiss atmosphere that's always great to look at and Mr. Hall deserves a lot of credit.
Roach spent $700,000 on this picture, which was the most money he spent on a L&H picture up until this point. I've never read anywhere that the sets were left over from another production. There is a charm to this picture due to the setting. Unfortunately, putting the boys in a setting with big productions values does not necessarily a funny comedy make.
The great scenes from this one would be Stan trying to get brandy out of the rescue dog along with him and Ollie trying to get the piano across the bridge. Stan is wonderful working with that dog and eventually wins a battle of the wits with the domesticated beast. The different ways he tries to get the dog to think he's in trouble to get that brandy are a lot of fun and the way he throws those chicken feathers in the air to feign snow is a clever and funny touch.
This had to have been inspired by an almost identical scene in the Mickey Mouse cartoon ALPINE CLIMBERS from 1936. In that short, Pluto tricks the St. Bernard into giving him the brandy. Since Walt Disney and Hal Roach were supposedly friendly with each other, Disney probably gave the L&H scene his blessing.
The bridge scene is a riot because it's almost cartoon like, yet those Stan and Ollie screams, so beloved by now, are what make the cartoon visuals really work. We also get a gorilla because hey, why not? Two absolutely fantastic scenes.
This scene might be dubbed "THE MUSIC BOX meets THE CHIMP." Charles Gemora plays the chimp/gorilla in the latter film as well. (The Hal Roach studios didn't seem to realize or care that a chimp and a gorilla are 2 different animals.)
I never cared much for this scene, even when I was a kid, probably because even way back then I had read about how great the scene was supposed to be. Had Roach not cut the scene where the Chef plants a bomb in the piano, at least it would have added some additional suspense, and would explain the random hitting of piano keys while they're on the bridge. (This is the classic explanation by Alfred Hitchcock on creating suspense: show the planting of the bomb first, then there's tension as you anticipate it blowing up the people in the scene. If you don't show the planting of the bomb, then later when the people leave the room, and the bomb goes off, it may be surprising, but there would have been no suspense. I suppose Roach knew this wasn't a suspense movie, and the danger of falling off the bridge was already suspenseful enough. And the piano never blows up, anyway.)
I've never seen this in HD (it is not available in HD), but I suppose the fake backdrops in the scene would look, um, fake in HD.
The rest is OK.
I'd say the whole film is at best "OK."
The worst of it are a few of the early musical numbers which go by quick enough. Character wise, I do think they make Ollie a bit too cruel when the restaurant has no apple pie, a rare case in a Roach film where they don't write well for him. The romantic couple, which involves Walter Woolf King from A NIGHT AT THE OPERA (a film that no doubt inspired this), are at least adult like in their attraction to each other, though the jealousy angle is kind of lame. It kind of stinks seeing Ollie made a sucker just to make the leading man jealous, but he seems to take it in good stride at the end.
Making Ollie a sucker by having him fall in love with a woman half his age was such a great idea that they repeated it the following year in THE FLYING DEUCES!
They had also done this several years earlier in BEAU HUNKS. In fairness, however, in DEUCES, it is a complete misunderstanding caused by Ollie's gross misinterpretation that Georgette is in love wih him. In SWISS MISS, however, Della Lind is a flirtatious tease. Big difference.
This film does have the feel of the M-G-M Marx Brothers movies. Roach felt the same way as Irving Thalberg -- the comedians needed music and a romantic sub-plot to offset the comedy. SWISS MISS is nowhere near as funny as A NIGHT AT THE OPERA and A DAY AT THE RACES. It's about on par with the final 3 films the Marx Bros. made at M-G-M.
I think Roach succeeded in making a picture that was similar to the musical-comedies being produced at other studios. This is the only film they made for Roach that looks like it was a "loan-out" picture. The presence of Eric Blore reminds me a lot of the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musical-comedies. Over the years, I've come to appreciate the talents of Eric Blore as a supporting player. I watched THE LADY EVE for the first time about a year ago, and I found his performance in that one fantastic! Unfortunately, he is given little to do in SWISS MISS, and shares no scenes with the boys, which was a wasted opportunity. His best scene, which is very short, comes at the end and involves his suprise when Walter Wolf King tells him to bring "the Gypsy girl" up to his room, since he wants to "sign her to a contract." Blore make comments like "oh, is that what you want to call it", and "I didn't know you were into those kind of things."
He doesn't realize that the "Gypsy girl" is Della Lind, King's wife in the picture.
The rest of the good stuff is the scene where they're selling mouse traps in the cheese factories and poke holes in the pipes, causing flames to shoot from the floor.
Again, Roach cut most of the song that the boys sing in this scene. Strange, since this was a "musical comedy." The whole mousetrap selling scene could have and should have been much funnier.
Also, after years of being away, Anita Garvin is back briefly and gets one nice little scene dealing with the boys when selling mouse traps, a fun exercise in circular reasoning. It's good to see her, but she came back at the urging of Stan, being semi-retired from film at this point.
There seems to be some debate on whether or not she was indeed semi-retired beofre this film. According to Randy Skretvedt, in L&H: THE MAGIC BEHIND THE MOVIES, she was back after an absence of 7 years in the boys' films. It doesn't say that she made no other films in that period. I'd have to research it. (BTW, Randy filmed an interview with Garvin on Super 8 film, which is available on the blu-ray restorations disc. On youtube, there are also some appearances where she talks on stage at a SONS OF THE DESERT convention. Fascinating stuff!)
Not one of the better films, but like all the Roach features, has something good to offer.
It is not a "bad" film by any means; it's just not a hilarious comedy like most of their other features and shorts made for Roach were.
SWISS MISS is usually grouped with L&H's 3 operetta spoofs, although it is not an operetta. In the film, however, King's character is actually trying to compose an operetta. It seems as though Roach was also trying to produce another operetta spoof without having to acquire the rights to one.
