Busy Bodies (1933)

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

This is a Laurel & Hardy short film that runs for slightly under 20 minutes as most of their works, is in black-and-white, but has sound. These two were the big exception as they managed a successful transition from silent film stars to still being stars in the sound era. The director here is Lloyd French, who worked with Stan and Ollie on several occasions and was one of the most prolific filmmakers of his time. What is especially impressive is that he only made films for roughly 15 years and yet has a body of work that includes over 100 credits. Anyway, his work "Busy Bodies" is not too funny or memorable I must say. Laurel and Hardy work at a sawmill and you probably already can imagines how much chaos they cause their. They go against themselves, against other people in this film and most of all against the inanimate objects in the sawmill. Lots of mayhem ensues. Maybe too much for 20 minutes actually. The two were in their early 40s when they made this one. Probably not among their finest works, but there is one truly hilarious moment, namely when a supporting character tells Stan that he likes his kind face and Hardy's face expression is simply priceless after that. Not enough though for 20 minutes. Not recommended.

BUSY BODIES is another of Laurel & Hardy's best shorts. In fact, the shorts which featured the pair as handymen inevitably provided the best backdrops for their unique brand of slapstick-heavy comedy; check out THE MUSIC BOX and THE FINISHING TOUCH for more of the same.This one's well remembered as the one set in the sawmill, as the accident-prone twosome get up to all sorts of mischief. The short almost writes itself with a string of outrageously funny gags in which the pair fall foul of various tools as they attempt to carry out their work. At one stage, BUSY BODIES becomes a live-action cartoon when Ollie is sucked into a chute and we see his body being thrown around; great special effects.Unsurprisingly, both actors are at the top of their game here and watching their interplay is funny in itself. The short as a whole feels fresh and inventive and it's the sort of thing I could watch again immediately upon finishing it, it's that good. Check it out!

The other reviewers have pretty much summarized the plot line and gags in this outstanding L&H short. For me it contains the most eloquent of all Ollie's looks at the camera in his films.Ollie is bending over, and Stanley manages to plane a large strip of fabric off of Ollie's backside. This results in Ollie's incredulous look at the camera. Then in classic L&H fashion, he continues to stay bent over, waiting to see what Stanley will do. Stanley gets some glue, slathers it on the strip of fabric, and then smooths it down nicely on Ollie's rump, and pats it, signaling to Ollie that all is well. During this sequence Ollie continues to stare at the camera, and the sequence of his expressions is priceless. It's a distillation of all the takes Ollie has ever made toward the camera.This is a delightfully funny short.

This is one I remember from childhood, and while the passing of a few decades means Laurel and Hardy's antics might no longer be absorbed with the unquestioning adoration and unbridled willingness to laugh at anything and everything they do, it's still easy to forgive them for the occasional lapse of quality. The boys knew what their audience liked and wanted and they delivered it over and over again: the same facial expressions, the same reactions, the same phrases. What sets them apart from other comedy teams whose collection of prepared reactions and responses haven't stood the test of time is the inventiveness they managed to maintain for most of the 1930s.The boys are employed by a saw mill in this one, and at the beginning of the film all is well with the world. Of course, this being a Laurel & Hardy film, such a state of affairs isn't allowed to last and it isn't long before they're trading punches with workmates and Ollie has a paint brush glued to his chin. Stan barely utters a word for the first five minutes which is, perhaps, an indication of how this film could easily have been made without sound. All the gags are visual (apart from the unique car radio).