Rent Laurel and Hardy: Vol.5: Our Relations/Dual Roles Shorts (1936)
3.8 of 5 from 13 ratings
3h 35min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Among the full-length Laurel and Hardy films, 'Our Relations' is one of the most polished and perhaps the most ingenious. Clever editing and optical work create the illusion of two sets of Laurel and Hardy, with confusion arising between Stan and Ollie and their identical twins, Alf and Bert. Also included are two classic shorts employing a similar dual-identity motif, 'Brats' - in which they play their own small sons - and 'Twice Two', introducing us to Stan and Ollie's twin sisters!
Episodes Comprise:
- Our Relations (b/w)
- Our Relations (colourised)
- Brats (b/w)
- Brats (colourised)
- Twice Two (b/w)
- Twice Two (colourised) - Actors:
- Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, James Finlayson, Daphne Pollard, Bette Healy, Sidney Toler, Iris Adrian, Lona Andre
- Directors:
- Harry Lachman
- Studio:
- Universal Pictures
- Genres:
- Classics, Comedy, TV Comedies
- Collections:
- A Brief History of Ships in Film: From Sailing to , Cinema's Most Memorable Comedy Double Acts, Films & TV by topic, A Brief History of Film...
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Reviews (1) of Laurel and Hardy: Vol.5: Our Relations/Dual Roles Shorts
Our Relations. - Laurel and Hardy: Vol.5: Our Relations/Dual Roles Shorts review by Steve
Classic farce with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as employed men of reasonable means, with wives who are not as aggressive as usual. In fact, Ollie calls his wife Mama, and Stan's wife calls her husband lover! What next, kids? This is the least idiotic Stan and Ollie ever got, and are almost functional, even if a trial for their spouses. Things have never been better.
The pals discover they each have a twin who... are also eternally bound together. Bert and Alf are sailors who have docked in Stan and Ollie's hometown. And they are as clueless as our heroes usually are. Which leads to inevitable complications of mistaken identity related to Stan and Ollie's wives and a couple of good-time popsies with their hooks in Bert and Alf.
This is a wonderfully entertaining film, dense with gags. OK, some of them aren't all that original, like the three men trapped in a phone box, and the cake fight. But in the hands of the masters, they are funny all over again. All it takes is a long suffering sideways glance into the camera from Ollie.
Great to see James Finlayson, and there's quality in the support cast. Daphne Pollard and Betty Brown are fun as the wives. It's a slick comedy, which ends memorably with Stan and Ollie teetering on the side of the dock with their feet stuck in cement. Laurel and Hardy were lasting the '30s better their vaudeville contemporaries.
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