LAUREL AND HARDY: THEM THAR HILLS

 

"Pom-Pom!" 

It is a remarkable thing how a film from 1934 has not aged a day. It is doubly so, considering this is a comedy. Comedy ages so much faster than other genres, because it is so often tied into the specifics of the time when it was produced. Them Thar Hills was released in July of 1934, just over seven months after the Prohibition of Alcohol was repealed, following a decade plus of thirsty people suffering through with bathtub gin and moonshine. Them Thar Hills is topical in the sense that extra comedy is derived from the illicit nature of this short, but it retains every laugh because the meat of the comedy isn't dependent on having lived through Prohibition. Not for the first time, Laurel and Hardy get another man's wife drunk, and it is the innocence of it all that raise the biggest chuckles for me. "It's the iron in it!"  

Ollie has gout and the doctor recommends that he takes to the country for a break to relax and recover. From the opening bit of elite tier physical comedy that ends with Ollie falling into a bath, to the ridiculously hilarious misunderstanding of quickly dumped moonshine into a well leading to our heroes getting very, very drunk, this is arguably the best short that Laurel and Hardy ever produced. So much so in fact that it led to a sequel - Tit For Tat - some months later. To me, what makes Them Thar Hills so special is the way in which it exemplifies the secret magic of Stan and Ollie; that at heart they love each other and are the best of friends. When they fight it is very funny, but when they join forces in their confusion and misunderstanding of basic human behaviour, it is even funnier. As Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein -  showrunners of The Simpsons in seasons seven and eight - have said: when you are emotionally invested in the characters, you will like the jokes better. 

Them Thar Hills is equal parts an hilarious and a joyous kind of comedy that does not have an ounce of cynicism to it. It is this, I think, that is the secret to their enduring success. We root for Stan and Ollie, because at heart they are good people. Confused? Yes. At odds with basic human social functioning? Absolutely. But we want them to succeed because at one time or another, we have felt that kind of disconnect with the world around us. There is another interesting thread to many of their best shorts, as it concerns their social status. They are hard done by and down on their luck with no safety net. This too, I think, gives their comedy a resonance through the nearly century long period since they began working together. They deserve a better place in life, and that makes the chaos that comes from their being together, all the more impactful and hilarious. They mean well, they really do.  

Laurel and Hardy would play with alcohol again in another wonderful short - Blotto - which is a kind of inverted concept, where they think they are getting drunk but are really stone cold sober. Laurel and Hardy's genius was in crafting comedies that weren't reliant on specific references that would date their humour. Yes, this short takes place during the Prohibition era of the United States, but it is not at all reliant on one having more than a very cursory understanding of what that entailed. This too was a strategy employed by The Simpsons, that mostly kept their core humour outside of time. They probably won't remember in 50 years who Pauly Shore was, but a man pouring molasses over a jerk's face and sticking his own hair on his chin as a makeshift beard will always be funny.