Way Out West (1937)
Directed by James W. Horne

Film Review

Anyone who has any lingering doubts that Laurel and Hardy were not the greatest comedy duo of all time should watch them in action in this hilarious western spoof.   Way Out West is the high point of Stan and Ollie's career, a film that is so crammed with comedy delights that you can literally laugh your way through every one of its sixty-five minutes, risking near-asphyxiation in the process.  More than a decade into their legendary association, the duo have perfected both their grotesque yet loveable screen personas and their bizarre sadomasochistic relationship.  By this stage, Laurel and Hardy have become unassailable screen icons, and the comedy magic that they work in front of the camera is as effortless as it is unceasingly funny.

Way Out West has so many comic highlights that it would be a literary marathon to try to list them all.  Things start off gently, with Stan and Ollie parodying the hitchhiking scene from It Happened One Night (Stan even gets to show a nice bit of leg, à la Claudette Colbert).  The pace soon picks up, however, and the gags come thicker and faster than custard pies in a Mack Sennett film.   If you are in hysterics by the time the legendary duo are performing the film's big song and dance number, At the Ball, That's All, giving Fred and Ginger a good run for their money, then the chance is that you will need a respirator by the time the end credits roll.  If you think that's funny wait until you see Stan's attempts to hoist Ollie through an upstairs window with a block and tackle and a mule...

It's amazing that a film which is barely one hour long and so jam-packed with jokes (including the famous thumb-lighter gag and hat-eating scene) still has time to squeeze in four musical numbers.  The best remembered of these is Trail Of The Lonesome Pine, which is sung (if that's the right word) to destruction by Stan and Ollie in a wonderfully cheeky send-up of the musical western (a genre that had yet to be invented, incidentally).  Ollie is unimpressed by Stan's painful warblings and so hits him on the head with a mallet, miraculously transforming him into a gifted soprano.   The very same song (taken from the film soundtrack) was released as a single in the UK in 1975, even reaching Number 2 in the pop charts.  (Ah, those were the days... when Laurel and Hardy films were regularly aired on television, before the explosion of the mindless property- and celebrity-based pap that now fills up the TV schedules.) 

Quality never goes out of fashion, and there is certainly no shortage of quality here. Offering laughs that ought to be measured on the Richter scale, Way Out West is a pure cinematic delight, the crowning achievement from a comedy team that deserves to be far, far more widely appreciated today than they are (TV schedulers please take note).  This is comedy at its absolute best - a true timeless classic that should appeal to anyone and everyone.

Film Synopsis

Accompanied by their ever-faithful mule, Stan and Ollie undertake the long road journey to Brushwood Gulch so that they can deliver the deed of a gold mine to Mary Roberts, the daughter of recently deceased prospector.   Things look up when they manage to hitch a lift in a stagecoach, but Ollie's attempts to flirt with a female passenger prompts the town's sheriff to order him and Stan to leave town on the next coach.   The enterprising duo waste no time trying to locate Miss Roberts but make the mistake of revealing their mission to saloon owner Mickey Finn.  By passing his wife Lola off as Mary, Finn cons Stan and Ollie into giving him the priceless deed.   In fact, the real Mary Roberts is not far away, employed by the Finns as a humble scullery maid.  When Stan and Ollie see through the deception, they resolve to recover the deed and deliver it to its rightful owner.  But only after Stan has eaten his friend's hat...