Double Whoopee (1929)

You won't be disappointed!

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Whoever typed up the job recommendation for Laurel and Hardy (see above) probably didn't know them very well. The Boys rewrite the rule book on the doorman position of an upscale hotel, throwing the entire assemblage of guests and staff into an uproar. Recurring bits involve a visiting Prussian dignitary (Hans Joby) falling down an elevator shaft, and a frustrated cab driver (Charlie Hall) rounding the block every time Ollie inadvertently 'blews' his whistle. The treat for this viewer was catching Harlean Carpenter in a quick appearance, in a rather daring scene exposing her bare back when the gown she's wearing gets caught in a taxi door. In the credits she's listed as the 'swanky blonde', and that she is once you realize she's Jean Harlow. Among the myriad of eye pokes, foot stomps and requisite pratfalls, Laurel and Hardy once again wreak havoc where more refined hotel guests would fear to tread.

Apparently Jean Harlow is in this, but she didn't' stand out to me. After reading about it, I watched the potion back and yes a small piece of her dress appears to come off as part of a gag, but her legs are entirely covered by stockings and without a 4K resolution remaster, there's nothing about her that looks remotely disrobed. Anyone who thinks this is raunchy for 1929 is just plain wrong. There's actual nudity in silent movies. Anything prior to 1934 has a huge chance of being absolutely filthy, the Hays Code put a stop to that from 34-54. My favourite is probably in Buster Keaton's One Week, where the girl is having a bath and you see the line of the top of her breast, but she drops something, and has to reach it outside the bath, so a hand comes over the camera while she does and she smiles this amazing smile that acknowledges the audience. Great stuff.Back to this though. What did stand out was an Erich von Stroheim pastiche. The Prince is absolutely a Stroheim reference. He's got the monocle, the hair, the outfit from say Foolish Wives. Sadly I didn't find any of Double Whoopee particularly funny or fun compared to the other shorts I've seen, or say Buster Keaton. So my review is "meh," and a meh comedy is not worth your time.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are the most famous comedy duo in history, and deservedly so, so I am happy to see any of their films. At a Broadway hotel they are expecting a prince and his prime minister, they mistake Stan and Ollie for them. So after signing in and the manager greeting them, Ollie gives him the letter that reveals them as a short notice doorman and footman. As they go to change the real Prince (Hans Joby, or Captain John Peters) and Prime Minister (Charley Rogers) show up, and keep ending up at the bottom of the elevator shaft, covered with mud, with Stan and Ollie dressed and walking out of it. Ollie makes the mistake of blowing a whistle for the Cabbie (Charlie Hall), and Stan causes a man's shirt to come apart pulling a loose fibre. Ollie keeps missing the door to let people out, and when Stan manages it he gets a coin from the customer. Ollie of course wants this coin, and Stan's whimpers when he has it taken, till a Policeman (Tiny Sandford) comes along, and Ollie is forced to give him another one when his is tossed down the drain. When Stan blows Ollie's cab whistle, the Cabbie and they end up in a little squabble ripping each other's hats and buttons off, with the Cabbie accidentally doing it to the Policeman. Then a cab pulls up with Swanky blonde (Jean Harlow) coming out, and her dress is ripped off when Stan catches it in the cab door, with Ollie escorting her inside the hotel. After Ollie gets Stan's coat there is another little squabble poking each other with a few others joining in,and some cake getting thrown on the Prince and Prime Minister. The film ends with the Prince and Prime Minister ending up at the bottom of the elevator shaft, with Stan and Ollie changed and walking out. Filled with good slapstick and all classic comedy you want from a black and white film, the music added to the film sounds off tune at times, but I suppose it doesn't matter, it is an enjoyable silent film. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were number 7 on The Comedians' Comedian. Worth watching!

"Double Whoopie" is recalled because it was one of two films where Jean Harlow and Laurel & Hardy crossed paths (the other was "Bacon Grabbers"). It was only one sequence but it is done so perfectly that it remains memorable to this day. We are at a great city hotel, and they are expecting a leading European prince and his party. They are also expecting a new doorman and groom. Enter Ollie, grandly dressed in his doorman's uniform (which is, of course, identical to a royal prince's uniform). He is treated like the great man he has always seen himself as - although he does not deserve to be a great man. Ollie only reveals his real identity when he signs the guest book (his hand exercise in the air is similar to what Art Carney would do years later on "The Honeymooners" when limbering up). Quickly disabused of their error, Ollie and Stan are told to go to their posts.Most people looking at "Double Whoopie" today see the spoofing (by Hans Joby) of Von Stroheim's persona in "Foolish Wives", complete with mile long cigarette holder and monocle. They fail to see that Hardy's doorman is also based on another character: Emil Jannings doorman in "The Last Laugh", who is treated with respect because of his uniform, and is stripped of his self-dignity when he is demoted and loses his uniform. Ollie is not stripped, but he certainly is put in his subservient place quickly.Joby arrives, and has a series of increasingly aggravating mishaps concerning his use of the elevator, which Stan or Ollie take over causing Joby to fall again and again into the shaft (dirtying all of his fine apparel. This gradually leads him to threaten war! But he is not the only one who crosses the boys. There is Charlie Hall, one of their best perennial foes. Charlie is a cab driver, and several times Stan blows Ollie's cab signaling whistle, causing Charlie to pull into the hotel's driveway, and putting on his cab meter. Of course, when Ollie tries to explain it wasn't him, Charlie does not believe it, and increasing threatens to break his neck. A limo pulls up, and out steps the beautiful Harlean Carpenter (a.k.a. Jean Harlow). As this is a silent short film, her plebeian, nasal voice is not evident. We can fully believe her a socialite. Snobby, she fully accepts Ollie's grand manner of welcoming her and accompanying her to the front desk. Neither is aware (nor are the people in the lobby) that Stan, in shutting the car door, causes it to close on her gown, so she is walking in her slip. Eventually she is aware of what has happened, and runs out. By the way, that is the total sequence of Harlow in the film - about a minute and a half.Others get pulled into the increasing crescendo of errors and blunders, including one unfortunate gentleman whose shirt is ripped off by Stan, and who subsequently also has a mustard plaster ripped off painfully by Stan. By the time the film is over there are people chasing people (including policeman Tiny Sandford after a frightened Charlie Hall) throughout the lobby - just as the boys leave, looking thoroughly disappointed at the behavior of everyone around them.It is a wonderful little comedy or ever increasing disaster on disaster. If Harlow does not get as much time as one wants, while unfortunate, it is just as well that her footage is so good.Ironically, although MGM did have distribution rights to Laurel & Hardy's work with Hal Roach (and they did appear in some MGM performances in the 1930s), they never made a sound film with Harlow. But they almost did. In 1934 Laurel & Hardy appeared in the film "Hollywood Party", where they had a memorable sequence with Lupe Velez regarding breaking eggs. The film had originally been planned to have a musical score by Rodgers and Hart, and was to have many first rank stars in it, including Harlow as a telephone operator in a movie studio who dreams of becoming a star. But the plans were dropped, and the final movie was not what at all like the original idea. Still Harlow never fully left the boys' film world. In "Beau Hunks", Hardy joins the French Foreign Legion to forget the woman he loves (Jean Harlow). He looks sadly at her photograph several times. Imagine his chagrin when he finds that most of the other legionnaires also joined to forget her...and that the leader of the Riffs also has a sad crush on Harlow!