Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Orla Zuniga It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

JohnHowardReid A rather bizarre but nonetheless amusing and vastly entertaining addition to the Laurel and Hardy canon, this film re-united the team after a year of enforced separation (during which Hardy teamed with Harry Langdon for Zenobia) owing to Babe's contract over-run with Hal Roach. The movie was made on the RKO lot for independent producer Boris "Man on a String" Morros. Before achieving his later notoriety as a counterspy, Morros was a musician who conducted the Paramount Studio Orchestra in the 1930s. Perhaps it was his influence that led to the inclusion of two remarkably choice highlights in The Flying Deuces: In the first, the camp orchestra which is playing an innocuously atmospheric "desert sands" theme, suddenly as the comedians draw near bursts into "Shine On, Harvest Moon". Delightedly, Oliver himself sings the refrain while Stan gives one of his splendidly loose-limbed jigs. Oliver then joins in the dance, lifting his coat-tails in an exaggerated curtsy. Both dancers step off in a marvelous exit, raising their derbies in true vaudevillian style. In the second musical highlight, Laurel "performs" (with the assistance of an expert off-camera harpist) an inspired Harpo Marx take-off by strumming an hilariously inappropriate "The World Is Waiting For the Sunrise" (the duo are due to be shot at dawn) on an improvised bed-spring. Both these sequences are superbly timed and executed whereas a few of the other comedy acts seem a little forced (the prisoners fending off their pursuers by popping champagne corks), or a trifle overlong (the airplane acrobatics), or even mechanical (Laurel repeatedly bumping his head on a low ceiling). Nonetheless, Flying Deuces is vintage L&H. One of their funniest wheezes ever is an eye-boggling scene in which Stan attempts to find a vacancy on a hillside crowded with drying shirts - a chucklesome conceit climaxed by classic routines (Oliver agitatedly scrubbing a wash-board in a vain bid to look busy) and exchanges ("Now concentrate on trying to forget . . ."). All the same, Flying Deuces is thoroughly a-typical in its astonishingly bizarre plot and premises. And it was doubt¬less to embellish some of these sequences and effects that Rudolph Maté was hired. At this time, Maté was a leading cameraman. He had actually photographed L&H's Our Relations in 1936 but neither of the comedians liked his work. They preferred flat lighting and insisted that their regular cameraman, Art Lloyd, be borrowed from Hal Roach to photograph their scenes. Lloyd's work, with its dated use of highlights and pancake make-up gives the film a museum look that makes it appear far more ancient than 1939. Jumpy film editing and echo-chamber sound add to this impression. Yet The Flying Deuces has been rather handsomely produced, with lots of extras, elaborate sets, aerial photo¬graphy by Elmer Dyer, and an agreeable support cast led by Reginald Gardiner, Charles Middleton, James Finlayson (in a small cameo) and Jean Parker. Above all, it's a very funny, very entertaining film which doesn't deserve its mixed or mediocre reputation. The basic story is certainly odd - but should it be con¬demned on that point? In any event it serves as a peg for some wonderfully inventive Laurel & Hardy buffoonery.

Leofwine_draca I think most fans - myself included - of Laurel & Hardy consider their earlier work (at the beginning of the 1930s) to be their best. The films they made later, like this one, suffered from being a bit too long-winded, and were always bogged down with slightly wearisome romantic sub-plots. Nonetheless, THE FLYING DEUCES is one of their most accessible feature-length productions, and a film that it's difficult to dislike.Much of the comedy here comes naturally and feels unforced. Watching the guys attempting to simply wash themselves in their room is a delight in itself. The plot makes sense, and when the pair are sent off to Africa to enlist with the Foreign Legion, the laughs don't stop coming. There's a fine song and dance routine, a lovely jail cell interlude (featuring James Finlayson, no less) and a classic chase-based climax. Little to dislike, really.

Mark Honhorst This was my introduction to the classic comedy stylings of Laurel and Hardy. I bought it at Half Price Books for one dollar, on a double feature with "Utopia" which I haven't seen yet. I must say, it was a delightful introduction to their craft for me. I love both of the duo's personalities. I love Laurel's mellow, dimwitted, and carefree persona, as well as Hardy's constantly frustrated, irked, and grumpy one. The film gives us scene after scene of great comedic sequences, and culminates in an exhilarating climax in a plane. The very end is funny too. I won't give it away, but I will say it involves a very funny horse. It is by no means a perfect film, though. Some of the plot lines go nowhere, ie: Ollie in love, and the escaped shark;The lines are often said with little to no emotion, and the pacing is sometimes bad (a more frequent musical score probably would have helped these two problems), but it is still a very amusing film with plenty of moments you just can't help laughing out loud at. Thanks to this film, I'll probably be shelling out money left and right to get my hands on more of their stuff.

theowinthrop In 1939 - 1940 Laurel & Hardy's long contractual relationship with Hal Roach was coming to an end. The boys actually never had a joint contract with Roach - Stan and Babe had signed up in the 1920s at different times. Stan's contract was ending first, but Babe's would be finished within a year.Most people assume that the three men worked very smoothly together. The decline in their work is ascribed to a lack of sympathy shown them by MGM and 20th Century Fox in the 1940s. This is not quite true. Roach, as a producer, was cost conscious, and if he felt something was over-budget he squawked. This led to collisions with Stan. At least once it harmed a film - the feature "Swiss Miss", where a vital element in the scene involving the rope bridge was dropped. Similar cost cutting may have hurt "Bonnie Scotland" (which has an ending that does not even try to settle a plot problem). As early as 1937 Roach began to look into ending the boys partnership. He tried to create a "Hardy" family series (no pun intended) in which Babe was married to Patsy Kelly, and their son was Spanky MacFarlane. A still photo exists of Babe holding Spanky (both trying to out-stare each other) with Patsy looking somewhat bemused. But nothing came of this. In 1939 Roach produced the film "Zenobia", starring Babe as a small-town physician in the anti-bellum South. A request to help a circus elephant causes him trouble. The owner of the elephant is Harry Langdon, and there were rumors at the time that Roach was toying with a new teaming of Hardy and Langdon.Under the circumstances of Roach's antics, it is just possible that the decision of Stan and Babe to make "The Flying Deuces" with Boris Morros as producer was a counter-move: a type of testing the waters to see if the boys needed Roach to be there in order to make successful comedy features. If so, they were smart to do it. "The Flying Deuces" is not one of their greatest comedies (like "Sons Of The Desert") but it is a very amusing one.Although a story and screenplay is listed as the source of the film, one imagines the real source goes back to a short subject movie made a few years earlier called "Beau Hunks". In that short Babe is broken hearted because the woman he loves has married another man. The woman in question is actress Jean Harlow. Babe insists that he must join the Foreign Legend in order to forget his false love. But he insists Stan go with him. Stan can't quite grasp this - why should he join, as he has no reason to forget anyone. Babe immediately says that it is selfish of Stan not to join his friend in trying to forget. So they leave for North Africa. The rest of the short deals with their hard life as legionnaires (under Commandant Charles Middleton) and the fact that the horrified Hardy keeps finding that every man in the Foreign Legion is there trying to forget Jean Harlow (as is the leader of the Riffs!).As you can see there are elements in "Beau Hunks" that are picked up in "The Flying Deuces". Here, while in Paris, Hardy falls for Jean Parker, but she has a boyfriend. Hardy resolves on suicide in the Seine, and ties a heavy weight to himself AND Stan (who should share his fate, as a good friend). But they are prevented by French Legionaire officer Reginald Gardiner, who convinces them to join the Legion in order to forget the sad affair. They agree (Stan is told to get rid of that thing, promptly unties himself from the weight, and throws it into the Seine, causing Ollie to be pulled in). They show up in North Africa, at a fort run by Charles Middleton, and discover that Gardiner is an officer there too - as is his new wife, Jean Parker!The difference in the two films is that the feature enables more material to be put in. When they are going to their quarters, Stan and Ollie break into a soft shoe and song of "Shine On Harvest Moon" (no doubt influenced by similar moments where they did singing and dancing in "Way Out West" the year before. They get into trouble when they are outraged with the small pay they have unwittingly agreed to by signing up. Their behavior keeps escalating until they end up in the guardhouse, awaiting court martial and probable execution, with Jimmy Finleyson as their jailer. And then they make a final break for freedom at the controls of an airplane. The plane crashes, and (for the only time in their films) one of them dies...temporarily. Earlier they had a discussion on reincarnation, and now they see the wisdom of that theory.It is an extremely amusing film for all the players (Middleton having a royal fit when he reads an insulting message left by Hardy on his desk; Gardiner going ballistic finding the boys in Parker's boudoir with her, and Finleyson unable to understand how the boys as well as nearly twenty soldiers raced into the cell they were locked into - so that he couldn't find them - and then they all reappeared). While not as polished as their best work, it certainly was in the top of their second tier of good feature films (better, anyway, than "Bonnie Scotland").It may have worked for awhile. After "Zenobia" and "The Flying Deuces", Roach did not seem to bring up re-teaming Babe with anyone. The boys made "A Chump At Oxford" and "Saps At Sea" with Roach. Then both contracts were over. Unfortunately, they then signed with MGM and 20th Century Fox, and the long decline began in earnest.