Their Purple Moment (1928)

HAVING MADE SOME real progress after their almost accidental teaming as members of what was called THE HAL ROACH ALL-STARS, most of the now familiar L & H situational comedic routines had been established. THEIR PURPLE MOMENT does a lot in defining their eternal struggle with "the Wives." IN A DRAMATIC SORT of departure from what they had been doing, Stan is called "Mr. Pincher" (for 'penny pincher' we presume); but Ollie retains his own name. This is a kind of throwback to pictures such as PUTTING PANTS ON PHILLIP and DO DETECTIVES THINK?, in which their own names appeared only in the credits.THERE ARE DEGFINITE symptoms of a maturation of not the LAUREL & HARDY characters; but rather of the HAL ROACH style. The comedies became more and more slow-paced, methodically developed and much more "believable." The Title Cards, most ably written by Roach regular, H.M. Walker, were as witty and clever as ever. But there was none of the going for the laugh outside of the existing story on he scene; as was the practice over at Mack Sennett's KEYSTONE Studios.THE TYPICAL INTERPLAY that the boys are brought into are typically L & H type of double-edged gag and tit for tat back and forth "Bow & Fiddle", back and forth developing and milking of each gag to its greatest potential. Reliance on Stan's dim-wittedness and Ollie's slow burn were not only appreciated by this point, but rather they were now anticipated.THE ACTION IN the first three quarters of the picture builds and serves as exposition of both the storyline; as well as the boys themselves. Although they are always the same twosome, there is very little continuity of situations from one short to another.* IF THERE WOULD be any area of criticism that we could be the ending; which atypically leaves things just a little flat.BUT SCHULTZ THINKS that this is a minor shortcoming. And Schultz's compadre, this writer, whole heartedly agrees.NOTE: * In all of their shorts, only the sound comedy two-reelers TIT FOR TAT and THEM THAR HILLS makes mention of the earlier of the two movies and references having met both Charlie Hall and Mae Bush as previous protagonists.

This is another of Laurel & Hardy's early shorts that I watched on Hulu as linked from IMDb. This seems to be the first time they have wives that boss them around so they have to sneak around in order to have some fun like later on in films like Be Big or Sons of the Desert. In this one, Stan & Ollie go to a restaurant after a couple of men run out on their dates so the boys volunteer to help pay for the women (Kay Deslys, Anita Garvin) left behind. But both men find out their wives took their money without them knowing. And the gossiping woman, seeing them all there, goes back to tell the spouses what's what. I'll stop there and just say that not much funny happens until the food fight that ends the picture. It replaced an earlier sequence that involved Stan & Ollie dressing as women that was filmed but I'm guessing that's now lost. There's a still from that scene in Randy Skrevedt's book "Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies". On that point, Their Purple Moment is at least worth a look.

A silent short in with Stan and Ollie go to a fancy restaurant with two girls they've met, thinking they have outsmarted Stan's wife by Stan's having stashed a lot of cash from his paycheck in a secret hiding place. There is no hiding place that is a secret to one's wife, as many a husband with, say, a pornographic tape has discovered. Stan's wife has found the hidden wallet and substituted cigar-store coupons for the bills.In a gay old mood, Stan and Ollie invite strangers to their table for steaks and beer, and Stan passes out tips to the troop of midgets marching around the floor. Then the two evildoers find out that they have no money to pay for this big night on the town -- the cab fare (they invite the driver to dinner), the tips, the huge meals, the drinks, all coming to the throat-tightening, aqueous-humor-coagulating total of almost $29.Every time the lights go down, they try to crawl out, and every time a waiter trips over Stan's back and falls face first into the tray he's carrying.It all involves a good deal of slapstick, raising questions like "What is slapstick?" and "is slapstick funny?" Not to get into it but a slapstick was two slats of wood that produced a loud sound but little force when used to whack someone. The meaning has broadened to include pratfalls, tumbles down stairs, and other physical acts that take place in a comic context. It must be at least a little funny to some people because it's been around since the commedia dell'arte and before. Chaplin, an acknowledged genius, used it all the time. People slip in giant banana peels in Woody Allen's "Sleeper." The falling waiter gag is used, not once in this short, but three or four times. Once may not be funny, but EVERY TIME that Stan is on his hands and knees and the waiter's face plunges into the cake on the tray, it's a running gag and I find it kind of funny. Some might not.

This silent Laurel & Hardy short falls short of the boy's usually high standards, due largely to a dearth of fresh ideas. They play the usual henpecked husbands, this time married to a couple of shrewish, tight-fisted battleaxes who commandeer the boy's wages the moment they walk through the door. Canny Stan has been hiding the occasional rolled up note under the collar of his shirt and squirreling it away. When Ollie gets wind of Stan's stash he decides they'll go out on the town and blow it all. Unknown to the boys, however, Mrs Stan has discovered her husband's hiding place and replaced the real money with fake cigar store notes.It would be nice to write that much hilarity ensues, but unfortunately that just isn't the case with this one. There's barely a smile raised in the first five minutes – although this fallow period is brought to an end by a great sight gag involving the boys abandoning a rapid pursuit of a couple of pretty young girls when they realise their wives are watching. Having escaped the wives the boys end up wining and dining a couple of slight psychotic gold-diggers in a swanky restaurant, which is when Stan discovers to his horror that his money has been switched.It's almost as if everyone was working to a looming deadline with this one and just threw anything at the screen that they thought might raise even a small laugh. There are very few fresh ideas and not a lot of laughs, and the camera spends far too much time studying Laurel's expressions as they alternate between fear, confusion and not-quite-with-it attempts to make sense of what has happened. The boys try to make their escape but keep inadvertently drawing attention to themselves as they do so, and the film ends weakly in the restaurant's kitchen with each character receiving a pie in the face or over the head in turn. Definitely not one of the boy's best.