Block-Heads (1938)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

I just watched Block-Heads as part of the newly-released "Essentials" DVD collection, and thought it was very enjoyable. Although it was one of the boys later efforts for Hal Roach, the energy and slapstick were still to be seen in full force. I have scanned the user reviews for Block-Heads on IMDb, and did not see any reference to something that I believe slipped by the censors, and obviously most viewers. I was a bit startled to notice that at the 54:50 mark of the film, as Mrs. Hardy slams the non-working phone down, she seems to utter the s-word! Check it out, and see if you hear what I hear. This curse word seems to be quite audible, more so than Edgar Kennedy's s-word slip in "Perfect Day." Minna Gombell, playing Mrs. Hardy, had obviously worked herself up into such a state of agitation, that this word just seemed to slip out, and strangely, no one seemed to notice!

Relations with producer Hal Roach were strained when the boys made this short feature (or long short) and it wouldn't be long before they made the fateful decision to throw in their lot with 20th Century Fox, a move that would mark a slow, painful and irreversible decline. This is one of the last of the films that shows them almost consistently at the top of their game - although even here the cracks are beginning to show. When comedians start relying on re-working their own material from nearly a decade before - as Stan and Ollie do here in the final reel which is a virtual scene for scene remake of their first talkie Unaccustomed as We Are - you know something isn't right.This one's probably best remembered for the opening sequence which sees Stan still guarding his company's trench twenty years after the end of the Great War. It's a funny idea, and the boys get a huge amount of mileage out of it. When Ollie reads about his old friend's remarkable return from the dead he naturally wants to see him again. Big mistake. Within hours of meeting up again Stan has managed to bury Ollie's car in builder's sand, drive it into his garage door, blow up his kitchen, get him into a fight with James Finlayson and send his wife packing. Added to all the usual slapstick and pratfalls are some truly surreal moments such as when Stan pulls down the shadow blinds and when he smokes a pipe made out of his thumb. Definitely one of the boy's films that can be watched over and over again.

Do you have the feeling that the folks in the army deliberately forgot to tell Stan that World War I was over? Maybe they just didn't want the troop ship to sink on the way back from France.If that was the case Ollie made the mistake of his life when he decided to invite his long lost buddy Stan over to meet the wife and have a good home cooked meal. Ollie's happily married now to Minna Gombell and when we first meet them he seems to be one happy well adjusted man.Blockheads really starts when Stan is reunited with Ollie at the old soldier's home. I guess a grateful government is giving Stan free room and board for being the last man discharged from World War I. Still there's nothing like home cooking.I think Blockheads offers us the proposition that Ollie can be a well adjusted if somewhat fatuous individual by himself. It's only apparently when he interacts with Stan that things just seem to happen.And in fact that's what Blockheads is, a series of gags from the time that Ollie meets Stan at the home and just assumes he's an amputee because he's decided to sit a wheelchair rigged up for one. Right up to the point where big game hunter Billy Gilbert, the Hardy's next door neighbor chases the both of them out of the house because he catches Mrs. Gilbert in Ollie's pajamas. How she got in them? You have to see Blockheads to find out.Best gag I thought was Stan dealing with an obnoxious neighbor who has just bullied Ollie into fetching the neighbor kid's football. Very priceless bit of comeuppance. To see how in the space of an hour Laurel manages to literally become a home wrecker, catch Blockheads.

Block-Heads (1938) **** (out of 4)WW1, 1918, Laurel and Hardy are in the trenches when the commanding officer orders Laurel to guard the place and do whatever it takes to keep it safe. Flash forward twenty years and Laurel is still there guarding the same trench unaware that the war ended two decades ago. He is eventually brought back to America and gets his picture in the paper where Hardy sees him and decides to bring him back to his place for dinner.While I haven't seen every Laurel and Hardy feature this one here is without a doubt the funniest I've seen and I'd probably go as far as calling it one of the best comedies ever made. With a short running time of under an hour, Block-Heads really doesn't have any plot to think of but instead we're treated to all sorts of wonderful site gags as well as some funny lines that kept my eyes full of tears due to how hard I was laughing. Then opening five minutes inside the trenches isn't too funny and contains some rather violent stock footage of the war but after that everything is on the up and up.Things kick off in a high gear right when the duo are reunited in a wonderful segment where Hardy thinks Laurel has lost one of his legs and insists on carrying him around.When things get back to an apartment building we get a very long segment (nearly half the film) of the two trying to climb thirteen levels of stairs and getting into all sorts of trouble including a wonderfully hilarious scene with L&H regular James Finlayson as well as a run in with Our Gang member Tommy Bond. Like other Laurel and Hardy films, the pacing is lightening fast with gags running left and right and to me, every single gag worked in this film including the mind numbing scene where the desk clerk gets a football upside his head.