“The transfer of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy from the All Star Series to a series to be known as the Laurel & Hardy Series is a perfectly logical one inasmuch as they proved during the current year that their personalities completely overshadow any descriptive title which otherwise might be given to their comedies.” These are the words of the “Exhibitors Herald”. Should Married Men Go Home? is the comedy that legitimised Stan and Ollie’s success in terms of production, as it marked the beginning of the first series under their own names. It is the second of the duo’s films with a matrimonial theme, focusing on that domestic inferno from which no-good husbands try to escape, only to self-sabotage and end up defeated. It is one of the couple’s recurrent leitmotifs, in this case set up with an unusual premise: Stan bursts onto Hardy’s landing, dressed to the nines and armed with golf clubs, ready to wreak havoc on the golf course with his friend. Ollie, on the other hand, seems intent on spending a quiet day together with his spouse (Kay Deslys, who acted alongside Chaplin in The Gold Rush). We believe it, at least for a while, but Stan’s apocalyptic invasion of his reluctant friend’s home is destined to reveal a much more mischievous plan. The film reworks the clumsy extra-marital approaches of the earlier Their Purple Moment, but chooses to deviate onto the safe(r) terrain of physical comedy. Besides, when you want to transform a golf course into a battleground, it is always better to leave it to the professionals.

Alessandro Criscitiello

It all comes down to timing, in both music and comedy. However, for the latter to work, one often has to deliberately mess up the point of entry or exit, giving new meaning to the notion of perfect rhythm. And so, what else can Laurel & Hardy do – on the clarinet and horn, respectively – other than sabotage the harmonic unity of the orchestra in which they are playing? Fired and evicted, they are forced to reinvent themselves as travelling musicians. It is an opportunity to add a new dimension to their structureless art, on the streets of a city that seems more treacherous than a jungle, with all those gaping voids hidden under manholes and steamrollers ready to flatten their instruments. You’re Darn Tootin’ begins with music and ends with a dance. In the wake of The Battle of the Century (screened at the festival last year), a petty squabble gradually expands to take on the dimensions of a mammoth brawl. The sidewalk becomes a stage on which bodies collide according to a precisely planned and executed choreography. Glenn Mitchell’s The Laurel & Hardy Encyclopedia calls it the greatest street battle the duo ever staged. As a bonus, the final steps are reserved for a collective striptease number.

Andrea Meneghelli