UTOPIA, or ATOLL K, or whatever you want to call it, was the very first Laurel and Hardy movie I ever saw...and for a while it was the last. The poor quality, the terribly handled story, and the fact that at least one of the actors looked like he was near death certainly did not appeal to me and I assumed that if all of their films were like this, they weren’t worth checking out more. Thankfully, the next Laurel and Hardy film I saw was WAY OUT WEST. Watching it again years later, is it still as bad as I remember? No, not as a whole, although certain aspects still are.
So let’s start by talking about the two most discussed points: Stan’s health and the dubbing. Stan does indeed look terrible here, but to his credit, his actual performance is a lot better than I’d expect given his condition. His movements, his facial expressions, they still are quite good. It is a shame that he does look so sick here, but the fact that he still could give a good performance despite his condition is quite impressive.
What’s not as impressive is the dubbing. Generally I find the dubbing process to be too distracting, and whenever I watch a foreign film, I almost always choose the subtitles option if it’s available. The dubbing here, though, is just at another level. Outside of the distracting fact that Laurel and Hardy have to interact with people who don’t speak their language and feel like they’re in different movies, the dubbing here is extremely poor. Apparently, the great voice actor Paul Frees dubbed the English voice for Antoine, but if that’s really him...wow, he was given some awful direction!
Ok, so what about the rest of the movie? Well, it starts off with Laurel and Hardy being scammed by lawyers who clearly pocket most of Laurel’s inheritance for themselves and lie to them that their island is tax free. It’s super annoying, but I’m going to talk more about this later, because it ties in to the major problem with this movie. After that scene...the movie actually is funny. Yeah, Laurel and Hardy have some pretty good material to work with and do deliver it well despite their conditions. Stan and Ollie trying to load stuff on the boat on the dock, Giovanni stealing Stan and Ollie’s food and drinks, Stan dropping the engine parts in the ocean, all the stuff falling on Ollie when they arrive at the atoll, the scene in the bedroom with the bats...this is a much funnier movie than I remember it being. Although the other major characters had already been introduced by this point and the political aspect had been hinted at, the comedy still remains in the forefront throughout the first 2/3 of the movie...
And then the last third happens. Hmm...Ok, so let’s talk about the main characters and their problems: Stan and Ollie want to escape taxes thanks to their awful experience with the lawyers; Antoine is a stateless man who has been rejected by every country; Giovanni is a bricklayer from Italy with dreams of building more than he can working for someone else; and Chérie is a singer escaping from a mismatched marriage. As I mentioned in my PACK UP YOUR TROUBLES review, I didn’t like the Richard Cramer scenes because what was addressed was too serious of an issue for Laurel and Hardy to take on. Here, they try to take on at least 4, while also throwing in an anti-anarchy message. The castaways start a government on the atoll that’s based around having no laws or taxes, only to discover that they need to implement laws and taxes and are sentenced to be hanged by the citizens for implementing them. The “we need taxes” message doesn’t work because of how terribly handled that opening was. Most of Laurel and Hardy’s money was clearly stolen by crooked lawyers, not taken by actual government taxes!
And then the ending...that horrible ending. When I first saw this movie years ago, I thought that this was the worst ending to a movie I had ever seen. I’ve seen some pretty bad endings since then, but even years later, I still consider it among the worst movie endings I’ve seen. Here’s what happens to our main characters. Giovanni goes back to Italy to build fences. Ok, fine, I really didn’t care about him that much anyway. Laurel and Hardy get to their island only to find out that they lost it since they didn’t pay their taxes. Like I said, the lawyers told them that the island was tax free, further enforcing the idea that their money was stolen rather than actually taxed by the government. Chérie ends up marrying the guy she didn’t want to marry. I get that he saved her, but...come on, why do either of them need to get married? It’s clearly an awful union. And Antoine...gets killed by a lion. Yep. The character who I felt the worst for, dies! I know Stan liked his freak endings, but you can’t just kill off serious characters like this! It makes it seem as though they’re ignoring all of these real life problems and saying, “Eh, who cares?” This is why Laurel and Hardy couldn’t handle extremely serious real-life issues. They tried to tell a political story here and failed miserably at it!
So, yeah, the parts of it that I remember being awful, are still pretty awful for the most part. But, like I said, a lot of these problems really don’t come up until the last third. Prior to that, it is actually a funny movie with decent acting that showed even in old age, Laurel and Hardy could still be a good comedy team. It’s just a shame that they had to get lost in all the political hijinks. This is not the horrible movie I remember it being, but it’s extremely underwhelming considering what it could have been judging from much of the comedy.
6 out of 10
So, yeah, not the best way to go out, but it honestly does impress me how much better the post-Roach stuff for Laurel and Hardy was than I was expecting. It would be nice if we still could have gotten some more later Laurel and Hardy classics, but the fact that we have what we have already is enough for me.
