Another Fine Mess

Stan Laurel had not quite put the finishing touches on his child-like personality in this two-reeler. The boys, fleeing the police, enter the mansion of one Colonel Wilberforce Buckshot (James Finlayson, master of the “double-take and fade away”) who is off to South Africa to shoot big game. Oliver impersonates him, and Stan acts as both the butler and the maid. He is not as resourceless as he would be later on; he stands up for himself more. The editing is very choppy, I don’t know whether because this is cobbled together from bad prints or simply from the haste with which these Hal Roach comedies were assembled. Not one of their very best. Incidentally, despite the title, it is “another nice mess” that Ollie always accused Stan of getting him into.