ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Robert J. Maxwell Nicely done short. Hardy is laid up in the hospital with a foot swollen with gout. Laurel visits him and turns the room into a shambles. At one point, Hardy is hanging from the ceiling by his injured leg while the doctor, Billy Gilbert, is hanging on to the other end of the rope outside the window. They seesaw back and forth.When the wreckage settles and the smoke clears, Laurel sits on a syringe full of sedative and when he tries to drive Hardy home he falls asleep at the wheel. Rear projection has the old Model T Ford swiveling around in the middle of speeding traffic, sliding backwards, and so on.Interesting the way that Laurel's cries of distress differ from those of Hardy. Laurel's are almost feminine shrieks, while Hardy's are the full-throated ululations of a terrified animal, perhaps some kind of bovine.If you like Laurel and Hardy at all, you'll surely like this one.

Randy Skretvedt "County Hospital" is a perfectly fine L&H short until the final sequence. I always enjoyed the scenes where Stan roams the hospital halls looking for his buddy (trying to figure out what a "solarium" is) and accidentally wanders into the maternity ward; he's mightily relieved when he finds out he's on the wrong floor! I also very much enjoy Ollie's scenes with doctor Billy Gilbert and silly Englishman William Austin. The film is also enlivened by the nurses, played by Estelle Etterre (who laughs hysterically when she finds that Stan has accidentally injected himself with a sedative) and May Wallace (who joins in the laughter and says, "He'll sleep for a month!" -- so much for medical ethics). Personally, I always liked the scene where Dr. Gilbert is flung out the window of Ollie's room on the top floor--it adds a little action to a film where the longest scene is a single take of Stan trying to eat a hard-boiled egg. Also, the gag with the egg dropping into an unseen container by Ollie's bed and making a metallic clunk is NOT a mistake--the joke is that we think at first the egg has dropped into a chamber pot (ask your grandparents what that is), but as Stan brings it up into view we're relieved to see it's only a pitcher. The same gag happens in the team's earlier short "Helpmates," where Stan drops an alarm clock into an unseen container under his bed.As for the final sequence with the back projection, it's not so much the quality of the film running behind the boys as a problem of sluggish editing. If the shots had been much shorter--and if we'd had a few more cutaways outdoors than just the one of the car skidding on a wet road--the sequence might have worked. Roy Seawright, who did the special effects scenes at Roach's, was a good friend of mine and his crew generally did top-notch work-- check out the split-screen scenes in "Our Relations" and "Brats," the animated bubbles in "Swiss Miss," and all of the effects work in Hal Roach's feature "Topper."

bob the moo With Hardy laid up in hospital with a broken leg, Laurel decides to pay him a visit, brining with him a gift of nuts and hard boiled eggs. He finds a relaxed and worry free Hardy, however the chaos the unwitting Laurel unleashes unto an unprepared hospital threatens to change all that.The feeling of being a bit forced prevents this short from being considered Laurel and Hardy at their best. An example of what I mean is evident in the first few moments, Laurel finding Hardy's room gives rise to a little confusion but Laurel overplays his normal/confused/normal expression switches and for no real reason. Likewise many of the jokes are things they know work, but have to force to fit. There are some funny bits that are both subtle (Laurel eating the egg) or physical (hanging out the window) or climactic (the drive home) and most of them are good but it doesn't feel as fresh and lively as it often has.Laurel overplays but Hardy is as good as ever. He is given less to do than he should have been and the film is allowed to rest too heavily on Laurel, but both still do pretty well. Overall this is an enjoyable short but feels like they are were lacking ideas and were treading water a tad for this one. That said, Laurel and Hardy treading water is often still better than many modern comedians who struggle to have an output of 1 or 2 films a year, never mind L&H's output!

lmscheck This is in my opinion one fine short that is generally underrated by the critics (perhaps caused by its clumsy back projection scene at the end of the picture). There are some very well staged gags - and probably one the best pantomime scenes of Stan Laurel: He merely sits down to eat an egg at Ollies bed; the audience roars with laughter, although nothing really funny happens; he just sits there eating. But HOW he does it - it's pure Art of comical pantomime!