Watched this again and saw some things I didn't remember, to wit:
1.) Make-up isn't all that bad, but during the plane flight, it was applied with a trowel.
2.) This is beautifully scored and fully orchestrated, the most complex bit of music being when L & H get lost during the close-order drill. You not only see them getting scrambled up with the real soldiers, you also hear exactly that. The whole film features such clever music. I understand that producer Boris Morros was also a serious musician, he showed his stuff here.
3.) Oliver Hardy, six-foot-two, looking like 280, and 48 years old, is still taking some hard shots, climbing, dancing and hauling himself around like a 30-year-old. That takes the strength and endurance of an ox.
4.) The climactic plane ride is by-the-numbers slapsticky and corny. Myself, I think the problem is they're not battling an enemy, they're just going AWOL, though granted it's a miserable situation that we'd all want to go AWOL from. No heroism, even accidental heroism, at all. And they're terrorizing their own guys, accidentally, of course, but they are. No bravery involved. Not even accidentally ennobling themselves. And the big finish leads me to this:
5.) They killed off Ollie. I understand that this film was an underachiever if not a failure at the box office, and I know that many of their flicks ended with L & H getting maimed and twisted beyond recognition, and I know that it was Stan who thought these endings were funny and Hal Roach didn't, and they had personal, and professional, and contractual fights over this kind of stuff, but FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, THEY JUST KILLED OFF OLLIE ! Who in the world thought people would go to see a Laurel and Hardy movie where they killed off Ollie? The word of mouth had to be disastrous. And despite the careful buildup, the reincarnation punch-line was lame. This was pretty good Laurel and Hardy until the last five minutes.
