For Stan and Ollie, class conflict is primarily physical. The directorial debut of Lewis R. Foster – aided by a cinematographer by the name of George Stevens – is a comic montage constructed on the battleground of a hotel, the stronghold of social discontent. Doors – always the wrong ones – open onto the sight of workers shredding their uniforms while fighting over a quarter; lifts never stop at the right floor; and there are accidental stripteases by the likes of Stan and Jean Harlow (who puts in a very brief but unforgettable appearance). After having repeatedly dirtied and humiliated a Prussian prince – a brazen parody of Erich von Stroheim – and stuck their fingers in their superiors’ eyes (in short, after having upset the social order), Stan and Ollie are free to retreat and abandon their miserable jobs, leaving it to the rich to pick up the pieces of this sublime mess.

Alessandro Criscitiello