THE LAUREL AND HARDY SOUND SHORTS:Ranking 19-15

19.COUNTY HOSPITAL (1932)

A film which may have been higher in the list had it not been for a very poorly processed car ride at its conclusion. The preceding reel and a half beforehand is very funny and well up to standard, with an hilariously inventive slapstick sequence with Dr.Billy Gilbert who holds onto a balancing weight outside Ollie's hospital room on its top floor after Stan tries to break some of the nuts he brought his partner currently recuperating from a broken leg (he also brought some hard boiled eggs, both refused by Ollie).

A humiliated Gilbert orders Ollie out of the hospital out of spite, with further amusement involving a "silly-ass" roommate (William Austin) and Stan sitting on a hypodermic needle full of a powerful tranquilliser. There was great potential for a wild ride home through the Culver City streets (located conveniently near the Roach studios), and this was apparently originally written in the script, but budgetary restrictions imposed by studio manager Henry Ginsburg, who Laurel had no time for, vetoed such an elaborate finale, and the production crew had to settle for a sedated Stan driving Ollie home accompanied by very obvious and unconvincing studio back projection, the best bits in the sequence being when the car is being driven through the streets on location which are all too few, including an amusing gag to end the film which does not quite compensate for the forced and hackneyed chase sequence that proceeded it. 

18.THE LIVE GHOST (1934)

The Live Ghost is not necessarily a laugh a minute, starting off in expository fashion and a slightly prolonged slapstick sequence as Stan and Ollie shanghai what appears to be several dozen patrons in a crummy-looking dockside bar for Captain Walter Long's apparently haunted vessel. But what especially impresses is the film's production values and possibly the most effective and atmospheric imagery ever seen in a L & H sound (or indeed silent) short film. Stan Laurel's favourite cameraman Art Lloyd was behind the lens here as he was the most prolific cameraman in their career, shooting 37 films for them at Roach, followed by George Stevens with 28 until he turned over to directing shorts at the studio, eventually progressing to A-list Hollywood productions in the 30's and 40's, then turning to big budget and epic-style features from the early 50's onwards.

The Laurel and Hardy films are not especially known for their fancy photography or elaborate production design save for a few examples (especially their features), but this title is an exception. Lloyd was Stan Laurel's favourite cameraman, and was mostly interested in keeping a flat light over the set as it allowed for the team's frequent comic improvisation. Lloyd was a little frustrated at such an arrangement but would do anything to please his more illustrious colleague, but he is given more artistic freedom on this film, and shows he could do a very respectable job at producing moody chiaroscuro visuals. This does not get in the way of the humour, though, and The Live Ghost improves as it goes along, with a splendidly amusing and stylish portrayal by L & H's favourite drunk Arthur Housman as the subject of the film's title, a slightly ambivalent appearance by Mae Busch (is or is she not a dockside floozie or worse? It turns out she is Housman's estranged wife), and some amusing turns by familiar faces such as Charlie Hall, Leo Willis and Sam Lufkin in the support cast, topped off by another piece of black humour at the hands of Captain Long.

17.OUR WIFE (1931)

Most of Our Wife is very well sustained and paced, with a brief but very funny appearance by Fin early on who floridly disapproves of  Ollie's would be engagement to his plump daughter Dulcy (Babe London in her only L & H appearance), followed by an extraordinary dive by Ollie into a wedding cake further decorated by dead flies after Stan had killed them with insect killer. The boys eventually manage to help Dulcy elope, driven off in an inappropriately small-sized jalopy, a somewhat disappointing sequence that could have worked better but is compromised by over-length.

The final marriage scene is perked up by the hard-faced Blanche Payson and her husband, Justice of the Peace Ben Turpin in a rare supporting role with the team, with a risque, pre-code inspired coda.

16.PERFECT DAY (1929)

Most certainly the best of their early talkies, Perfect Day is the most assured of such examples in its pacing and timing, with an imaginative sound effect employed when Ollie hits Stan over the head with a clutch after he literally followed the former's advice to "throw it out". The boys, their wives and Uncle Edgar Kennedy are preparing to go for a picnic (with the latter's disapproval, owing to his gouty foot), but get held up by distractions such as flat tyres, conflicts with neighbours and themselves, and overheated engines. Some of the frustrations depicted get a bit taxing for the audience as well, and one gag involving a local preacher walking past doesn't really come off, but most of the situations are slickly and sometimes uproariously well-handled, especially when the car conspires to land on Uncle Edgar's bandaged foot, with a predictable but irresistible finale. 

15.THE CHIMP (1932)

Let's hear it for one of Laurel and Hardy's most underrated and unheralded movies. It hasn't always been available in the best of prints; a reissue with reworked titled from the Film Classics distributor had the opening explanatory titles in the wrong order for example, but the opening circus based scenes are very funny with some ferociously well-timed slapstick, with the circus itself going bankrupt and the boys conspiring to own a monkey as part of the business being wrapped up.

The only disappointment is James Finlayson being wasted in a role as a ringmaster that gives him no opportunity to interact with the boys, but a blustering Billy Gilbert does this in the second half as Stan, Ollie, and Ethel the chimp, brilliantly and convincingly played by Philippines-born Charles Gemora, look for a place to sleep for the night, followed by a loose circus lion, or M-G-M as Stan names it. These night-based sequences are more sedate yet still provide almost as many laughs as the earlier circus antics; Leslie Halliwell described these scenes as "rather tired farce", but this is unfair as the variety of situations involving said M-G-M, a flea circus, and Ethel herself keep the action going at a decent clip, reworked as it is from Laughing Gravy the previous year and their final silent Angora Love. Gilbert goes a bit overboard as a jealous landlord, whose errant wife just happens to have the same name as the chimp herself, a coincidence that plays a part in a rather abrupt but amusing payoff.