Be Big! (1931)

"Be Big!" is an American 24-minute black-and-white film from 1931, so this one is already over 85 years old and it stars Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, still considered the perhaps best comedy duo in film history today. This is one of their sound short films in fact and from the audio you can see that the medium sound film really hadn't progressed far at that point. It does sound a bit amateurish. But this is not the biggest problem here. I think it is the script that just feels pretty uninspired even if the two in the lead come close to making it work at least partially and probably nobody could have done it better then them. However, it all feels really uninteresting and that surprises me a bit as the two writers and the director were very successful and prolific back in the day and had also worked wih Stan and Ollie on several occasions. The one thing I found particularly weak was the wives reference, one that is common in the duo's films that they are bossed around by their wives and at least kinda deserve it. But the actresses did not impress me and honestly, they are their wives! There needs to be at least a bit of caring, sympathy and compassion there, but they were 100% antagonists. So all in all, this film is far from being as funny as I wanted it to be and for me it is npowhere near the best I've seen from Laurel and Hardy and I've seen a lot. Gotta give this one a thumbs-down. The material is maybe good enough for 10-12 minutes max if we take the better sequences only. Watch something else instead.

Up until a few years ago I had disliked Laurel and Hardy, until my wife, who is a fan forced me to watch some of their better movies, for example Way out West and Sons of the Desert.Watching this particular effort, however, reminded me of why I had disliked them so much in the first place.It starts out brightly enough with the boys trying to pull the wool over their wives' eyes in order to go to a stag party in their honour but then it loses it's way. The centrepiece is an over-extended sequence where Ollie is trying to remove a boot. After ten minutes of this I was heartily wishing it hadn't got stuck as well For dedicated fans only

Laurel and Hardy are both married in this comedy short. They are about to take their wives to Atlantic City when Hardy gets a call. The men at the club will honor Hardy tonight so he must be there. Hardy fakes he is suddenly ill and he wants Laurel to take care of him while the ladies must have their fun in Atlantic City. Laurel and Hardy change for the evening but there is some trouble with Laurel's boot on Hardy's foot. Hilarious sequences is what we get to see.Although almost the entire short deals with the boots, Laurel and Hardy find enough ways to make us laugh. Hardy takes some nasty falls and Laurel has some nice moments with his stupidity. A very entertaining short.

Not the finest moment for the duo, particularly on a technical level. The direction and editing are all over the place (often using long shots for reactions) and even in the newly restored version the sound quality is muddy.Basic plot seems to read as a try-out for Sons of the Desert, with Stan and Ollie duping their wives so they can go to a stag party. Though in the case of this short they never quite make it there. Most of the slapstick sequences feel oddly laboured and contrived (Ollie at one point taking over twelve minutes trying to get a boot off), not least because they're all backed up by an overstated musical score.I've got a new theory: the funniness of Laurel and Hardy is directly proportional to the length of Stan's hair. In the amusing Chickens Come Home-, made the same year, he sports a large quiff, yet here it's just medium length and not as extreme.Not awful, but Be Big! feels more like a formula filler rather than any great step forward in their career.