Interesteg What makes it different from others?

Supelice Dreadfully Boring

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

non_sportcardandy The first recollection I have of seeing Laurel and Hardy movies goes back to the 1950's when we would huddle around a TV set watching 15 minute shorts.The huddle was made up of grade school classmates and the reason for it was that not every family had a TV set at home.Most the time watching L&H I would end up laughing till I cried rolling around on the floor holding my sides because they hurt,unforgettable.Bohemian girl I remember enjoying even though in butchered up segments and knowing there must be more to it.Finally in the 1960's I would see the complete version and found it a jewel.There are so many funny lines and scenes in this movie.One of my favorites is after the Dandy has been duped of his valuables Oliver starts to put on airs to the point of rapping his new cane demanding service,real rags to riches.The opera part sets well with me especially the songs where the words are clear enough to be understood even though I've never been to an opera.What I like is the Gypsy theme with the setting,costumes and romanticism.For me it makes for something that I seek in movies...escapism.Part of this is brought about because some of the Gypsy parts were being played by persons with ethnic looks.Some times the movies really miss the target when casting persons in an ethnic part and I find it a distraction.On that subject the Gypsy Queen parts in this movie I would not miss if they were taken out.Laurel and Hardy don't have to look like Gypsies,no matter the setting they still are always Stan and Ollie.An opera that provides escapism combined with L&H is a total winner for me.

bob the moo Laurel and Hardy are gypsy's who are illegally camped on the land of Count Arnheim. Hardy's wife has both him and Laurel under the cosh and openly flirts with other men in front of him. While Laurel and Hardy are in town pick pocketing from rich men, Mrs Hardy plans to run off with her lover. When they are forced to leave the town, the caravan manages to pick up the daughter of the Count and Mrs Hardy convinces Hardy that she is his (despite being 6 years old). When Mrs Hardy does run off she leaves Laurel and Hardy to look after the girl.Having just seen `Swiss Miss' and being very disappointed, I was worried that this feature would misuse the duo as well and fill the running time with stuff that is of no value in terms of comedy. To a certain degree my fears were realised when the first 10 failed to show either Laurel or Hardy onscreen. Further to this there were rather too many songs in the film, but on the other hand Laurel and Hardy were the focus and did have plenty to do in an amusing (if unremarkable) film.The plot is pretty dumb – for the first half it appears to have nowhere to go, then it drops in a little girl which immediately tells you how the film will end – even before the `twelve years later' title comes onto the screen. However this is only mildly annoying as it only got to me in the final 15 minutes where the ending was obvious and it felt that the film just wanted to have a `plot' to justify the longer running time, and this was the best it could do (due, I suspect, to the death of Todd). But anyway, enough negativity. The actual comedy is pretty good, the routines are good and the banter between the two is quite good – a scene where Hardy's `victim' is mistaken for a man robbing Hardy is very funny!Despite being cursed with daft hair styles, Hardy and Laurel are on good form. Hardy shines especially with his to-camera looks and holds his usual character – albeit Mrs Hardy is a lot harder on him here than in the shorts! Busch was a good Mrs Hardy simply because she was funny as well as sharp. Usually the role is usually just an ogre – here it's a funny ogre. Laurel, on the other hand, has a much more outward character than usual and is more willing to stand up to Hardy – at some points didn't like this that much as it changed the dynamic between the two. Of the rest of the support cast there are mainly `straight' roles that drive the story, but the ever reliable James Finlayson is on hand with the good old `d'oh' and double take.Overall this feature still feels a little padded (so does Laurel if you look at him actually!) with songs, and the plot just sort of `happens' in the final quarter, and doesn't really work that well. However Laurel and Hardy are given the lion's share of the material and they are funny despite the lack of one or two really strong standout scenes. Not as good as their shorts or their better features but still worth a watch.

The_Movie_Cat What a good thing it is that Laurel and Hardy movies are not open to great critical debate. That way, you don't have to worry that The Bohemian Girl isn't one of their better efforts. We don't have to argue that, as with the fitfully amusing Swiss Miss, the operatic elements fail to gel and should have been removed. Yes, as a music-free short this would have been vastly superior, but so what? Laurel and Hardy aren't satirists; they don't indulge in Freudian critiques or social commentary, and all the better for it.Their brand of simple, slapstick fun is submerged, but if you can wade through the irrelevant gypsy sequences then it's there, just as funny as ever. Just the simple things, like Ollie smacking himself in the face with a potato, or Stan asking a town crier ("Nine o'clock and all's well") "Say, could you tell us the time?" – then following it up by nicking his bell.An unusually portly Stan here gets to do something I've never seen him do before – break the fourth wall with an Ollie-style double take to camera. Look at the scene where Stan steals a wallet, backflips it to Ollie with not a single look back, and Hardy catches it in his hat and curves it back onto his head – all in one fluid motion. This is the first Laurel & Hardy film I'd seen since the apocryphal Bronson Pinchot/Gailard Sartain version, For Love Or Mummy. This only serves to heighten appreciation of how good the real duo's timing was.It is weird seeing the two as conmen, but they're still as likeable as ever. Stan even gets to do the "floating finger" routine. Other elements quite racy for 1936 include adultery and child abduction. Yet great visual gags abound – "Give me part of the banana" orders a bossy Hardy before Stan hands him the skin. There's even some surreal stuff, like Stan's female/deep singing voices and his stretchy ear. Okay, both of those are throwbacks to Way Out West, but if they work, why not use ‘em? A classic four-minute scene has Laurel getting inadvertently drunk while trying to fill bottles of wine.The somewhat overbearing opera fixations are even punctured by a Stan who eats Ollie's breakfast because he doesn't know how long a song will take to finish. There's even room for James Finlayson to get in on the act.Yes, The Bohemian Girl isn't Laurel and Hardy at their best. Yet when even their average films are this funny, then who cares?

bigvalbowski Bohemian Girl won't rank up with the best of the Laurel and Hardy features but it's a fine attempt with a number of wonderful scenes. Only the bland singing and the overly dramatic plot stop this picture from claiming a spot alongside Way Out West and Blockheads as one of the boys finest.The best scenes include a wonderful pickpocketing scene, a crazy wine-drinking sketch and the final image of an overgrown Ollie and a shortened Stan. Some Laurel and Hardy regulars make brief but amusing appearances. Mae Busch is as tyrannical as ever as Oliver's wife. She has the gall to have an affair right in front of her husband and yet Ollie is too much of a gentleman to stop her. James Finlayson has a nice turn as a palace guard adopting that wonderful double take of his to great effect.Bohemian Girl is not the film that you'd show to a first time Laurel and Hardy watcher. It lacks the rhythm of their best pieces. However, for a loyal viewer, it provides a few of the boys finest routines.