When Mrs. Hardy (Vivien Oakland) presents Ollie with an “aut-aut”, that is to say, a choice between her and his friend Stan, Ollie hesitates just long enough to lose his wife. By now, the union between Laurel and Hardy has become stronger than a traditional marriage. And that would be fine if it weren’t for the fact that their uncle Bernal (William Courtright, an unforgettable face from films by D.W. Griffith, Tod Browning and Jack Conway) is waiting for his nephew Oliver to be happily married before leaving him his fortune. It is up to Stan to rescue his friend’s financial prospects… by disguising himself as a woman, as in the days of vaudeville. The result is a slapstick festival: pies in the face, altercations with a drunk (Jimmy Aubrey, previously Laurel’s colleague in Fred Karno’s company), stripteases in inappropriate places, dances that transform into wrestling matches. The film was reworked several times during the writing phase and apparently a happy ending was original envisaged for Ollie; but, as in Early to Bed, there cannot be a class imbalance between Stan and Ollie. Both will remain poor, unfortunate and masters of self-sabotage, but custodians of something incorruptible: their symbiotic friendship.

Alessandro Criscitiello