Selling Christmas trees door to door in the middle of the Californian summer is a tricky business, but not for Mr Personality (Ollie), who flaunts superiority with a theatrical flourish. The chaos of Big Business is based on a delicate balance of improvisation, facial expressions, and rapid pacing, which result in a marvellous interplay of action and reaction. Stan and Ollie’s feud with James Finlayson results in escalating acts of vandalism, but it is above all a dance. A tango of destruction based on the classic principle of tit for tat, in which comic delirium throbs with violence before culminating in a cathartic act after which there can be no reconciliation, just one final prank. To make the film, Hal Roach purchased an empty house with the sole purpose of demolishing it, creating the legend – which Laurel repeatedly denied – that they accidentally destroyed a house belonging to a family on holiday. Truly legendary, however, is Finlayson’s double-take-and-fadeaway, the surprised reaction he usually conveyed by fully rotating his head while keeping his right eye closed and his left eyebrow raised. In Big Business he performs this pantomime with such violence that he bumps his head against the door jamb, knocking himself unconscious. In this tragicomic frenzy the film reveals itself as a true masterpiece, a metaphor for humanity dancing on its own ruins.

Alessandro Criscitiello