Is a Horse a Horse?
Oliver Hardy's in love with a Parisian waitress, Georgette (Jean Parker), but doesn't know she's married to an officer in the French Foreign Legion (Reginald Gardner). Stan Laurel wants to return to the United States. It's 1939--that's a good idea. Flying Deuces has nothing to do with the upcoming war and the political spaghetti of interwoven clusterfuckery going on in Europe at the time. It's simply a feature film that puts Laurel and Hardy in a fucked up situation, having stupidly joined the Foreign Legion on the advice, ironically, of the officer married to Georgette.
"There's a way you can forget her," the officer tells Hardy after saving him from suicide in the Seine River, but also not knowing he's the man who's been flirting with his cute wife. "Join the Foreign Legion. In a few days, you will have forgotten her."
He never explains how this forgetting will come to pass, but the general grueling strain of being trained in the Legion, somewhere in the Moroccan desert, has a lot to do with it. The two bumblers quickly offend Reginald Gardiner and the outpost's commanding officer (Charles Middleton, Ming the Merciless in the Flash Gordon serials), earning them laundry duty of colossal proportions, like something in an Ionesco play, but magnified a thousand times. After Laurel accidentally sets fire to a forty foot high laundry pile, they decide they're through with the Legion.
It doesn't occur to them that they can't just leave.
Hardy writes a complaint to the commanding officer, takes some of his cigars. They try to exit the outpost, but are captured in a Keystone Cops-like chase that should leave the viewer wondering why hundreds of professional soldiers take so long to capture two fools in derby hats carrying suitcases, themselves naturally inclined towards fucking up.
They spend a night in the brig, run by the Laurel and Hardy film favorite character actor, James Finlayson, with his bushy mustache and pissed-off eyes. Laurel, bored, plays his bedsprings like a harp, foreshadowing the death of one of the pair. Hardy has already talked about wanting to reincarnate as a horse. Laurel wants to reincarnate as himself. They may get their wish at sunrise, when they're supposed to be shot for desertion.
They receive a tip from an anonymous benefactor (possibly Georgette, visiting her husband). There's a trap door in their cell with an attached tunnel leading to a spot outside the outpost's walls. Their escape leads to a further attempt in an airplane they're unable to fly, both of them not being pilots.
They crash. Somehow, Laurel walks away from the impact, a little dazed but otherwise unhurt, while Hardy's transparent spirit rises to the heavens from the wreckage. Later, Laurel walks on a dirt road, hears Hardy offscreen calling to him.
There's a white horse behind a fence wearing a derby hat and a black mustache--the kind worn by Charles Chaplin, Oliver Hardy, and Adolf Hitler. Hardy got his reincarnation wish, Stan is reunited happily with his friend. They can go on with getting in each other's way for many years to come.
As Laurel and Hardy movies go, it's average, but it's funnier than a lot of comedies made these days. If you're feeling lousy, as I was when I watched it, Flying Deuces can help add light to your woes.
Vic Neptune
Oliver Hardy's in love with a Parisian waitress, Georgette (Jean Parker), but doesn't know she's married to an officer in the French Foreign Legion (Reginald Gardner). Stan Laurel wants to return to the United States. It's 1939--that's a good idea. Flying Deuces has nothing to do with the upcoming war and the political spaghetti of interwoven clusterfuckery going on in Europe at the time. It's simply a feature film that puts Laurel and Hardy in a fucked up situation, having stupidly joined the Foreign Legion on the advice, ironically, of the officer married to Georgette.
"There's a way you can forget her," the officer tells Hardy after saving him from suicide in the Seine River, but also not knowing he's the man who's been flirting with his cute wife. "Join the Foreign Legion. In a few days, you will have forgotten her."
He never explains how this forgetting will come to pass, but the general grueling strain of being trained in the Legion, somewhere in the Moroccan desert, has a lot to do with it. The two bumblers quickly offend Reginald Gardiner and the outpost's commanding officer (Charles Middleton, Ming the Merciless in the Flash Gordon serials), earning them laundry duty of colossal proportions, like something in an Ionesco play, but magnified a thousand times. After Laurel accidentally sets fire to a forty foot high laundry pile, they decide they're through with the Legion.
It doesn't occur to them that they can't just leave.
Hardy writes a complaint to the commanding officer, takes some of his cigars. They try to exit the outpost, but are captured in a Keystone Cops-like chase that should leave the viewer wondering why hundreds of professional soldiers take so long to capture two fools in derby hats carrying suitcases, themselves naturally inclined towards fucking up.
They spend a night in the brig, run by the Laurel and Hardy film favorite character actor, James Finlayson, with his bushy mustache and pissed-off eyes. Laurel, bored, plays his bedsprings like a harp, foreshadowing the death of one of the pair. Hardy has already talked about wanting to reincarnate as a horse. Laurel wants to reincarnate as himself. They may get their wish at sunrise, when they're supposed to be shot for desertion.
They receive a tip from an anonymous benefactor (possibly Georgette, visiting her husband). There's a trap door in their cell with an attached tunnel leading to a spot outside the outpost's walls. Their escape leads to a further attempt in an airplane they're unable to fly, both of them not being pilots.
They crash. Somehow, Laurel walks away from the impact, a little dazed but otherwise unhurt, while Hardy's transparent spirit rises to the heavens from the wreckage. Later, Laurel walks on a dirt road, hears Hardy offscreen calling to him.
There's a white horse behind a fence wearing a derby hat and a black mustache--the kind worn by Charles Chaplin, Oliver Hardy, and Adolf Hitler. Hardy got his reincarnation wish, Stan is reunited happily with his friend. They can go on with getting in each other's way for many years to come.
As Laurel and Hardy movies go, it's average, but it's funnier than a lot of comedies made these days. If you're feeling lousy, as I was when I watched it, Flying Deuces can help add light to your woes.
Vic Neptune
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