SAPS AT SEA(1940)Written September-October, 1939. Filmed November-December, 1939. Released by United Artists, May, 1940. Produced by Hal Roach. Directed by Gordon Douglas. 57 minutes. Cast: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Rychard Cramer, James Finlayson, Eddie Conrad, Robert McKenzie, Harry Bernard, Charlie Hall, Ben Turpin. STORY: Stan and Ollie are employees at a horn factory, where the constant honking eventually drives Ollie to a nervous breakdown (or a case of "hornophobia," according to his doctor). An ocean voyage is the prescription for Ollie's condition, but he seems to be just as afraid of the sea as he is of horns. They decide to rent a boat and keep it tied to the dock. At night, escaped convict Nick Grainger sneaks aboard the boat, while The Boys' pet goat dines on the mooring ropes, setting them adrift. In the morning, Grainger forces L&H to prepare a meal. Having no food aboard, they concoct a synthetic meal (string for spagetti, sponges for meatballs, lamp wicks for bacon, etc.). When Grainger threatens their lives, Stan starts blowing his trombone which causes Ollie to go berserk and subdue Grainger. |
JL:
No one would ever mistake SAPS AT SEA for one of Laurel & Hardy's
masterpieces. "A fun little film" is typical of the praise it's
usually afforded, and on that level it succeeds. A return to the
loopy, near-surreal atmosphere of BLOCK-HEADS, SAPS AT SEA is a far
lesser film than their 1938 gem, but it is consistently enjoyable and
boasts a few scenes and gags that are among the team's most
memorable. We may wish that their association with Hal Roach
finished on a higher note, but it's a respectable end to their vintage
years and an infinitely better film than a handful of other Roach
features.
Before Stan and Ollie make their first
appearance, we are made aware that SAPS AT SEA will take place in a
world far removed from reality. A man in the midst of a nervous
breakdown may not seem like the proper opening scene to establish a
mood of high silliness, but we soon learn that this man is but the
latest in a long line of horn-factory employees who have suffered a
similar fate, the result of constant exposure to the honking and
tooting. The manager of the factory, who endures his days by
wearing ear plugs, takes an almost perverse delight as the factory
workers succumb one at a time to the nerve-wracking environment: "That
G-flat horn gets 'em every time!", he states proudly, his delivery
threatening to break into an evil chuckle. It isn't long before
the factory's next victim, one Oliver Norvell Hardy, falls prey and
unleashes his pent-up frustrations in a wonderfully over-the-top
tirade. "Horns! Horns!" (or, to be phonetically precise, "Hawns!
Hawns!") Ollie screams as he goes on a rampage of destruction.
This and the scene that follows (in which Ollie is subjected to the
blaring of a broken car horn) are examples of L&H's occasional use
of "annoyance humor" in which a single source of frustration -- from
honking horns to moving a piano up a flight of stairs -- is
relentlessly repeated until the audience has no choice but to laugh.
The next series of scenes in the Boys'
apartment illustrate both the strengths and weaknesses of SAPS AT
SEA. On the plus side, their domestic life is charmingly twisted,
with the cross-eyed building janitor (Ben Turpin) providing tenants
with refrigerators that play music and radios that require
defrosting. There's also an exploding stove gag reminiscent of
the one in BLOCK-HEADS, and a slapstick closing with Ollie dangling
from a window that hearkens back to a similar moment in County
Hospital. This scene, however, is a rare instance in which
L&H's humor crosses that fine line from the childlike into the
childish. James Finlayson, in his final appearance with the Boys,
is afforded some good gags (rarely has a door-slam-in-the-face been so
hysterical), but much of his material operates on the level of a sketch
from "The Bozo Show." Dr. Fin has Ollie blow up his "lung tester"
(I'm surprised he didn't call it a "Lung-O-Meter"), which is nothing
more than a 10-foot balloon whose size and well-anticipated explosion
are supposed to provide laughs. If there is a general flaw in
SAPS AT SEA, it's kidstuff gags such as this.
Fortunately, it's such a happy and fast-paced
film, we're usually laughing before we've had time to finish groaning
over a stinker. The second half of the film, which takes place
aboard the rugged craft "Prickly Heat," is what most people remember
from this film. Rychard Cramer, portrays the most genuinely nasty
thug the Boys have ever encountered, but there's a sense of fun
underlying Cramer's performance such that he doesn't come off as too
menacing for comedy to transpire. A loathsome guy with good
timing, in other words. He forces Stan and Ollie at gunpoint to
cook him a meal, thereby setting up a memorable, if prolonged, routine
in which the Boys cook him a synthetic meal (string for spaghetti, lamp
wicks for bacon, sponges for meatballs, etc.) in order to "fix his
wagon." The problem with this scene is that the premise is
funnier than the execution thereof. Once the audience is privy to
the Boys' plan, the joke is pretty much over, but several additional
minutes are spent with Stan and Ollie cooking the phony meal, as if
this action somehow punches things up a bit. After Cramer then
forces the Boys to eat their own concoctions, too much time is spent on
Stan and Ollie gagging and getting nauseated, and there's nothing
particularly funny about their discomfort. It also seems a bit
out of character for Stan -- one would expect him to like the meal (as
he enjoys Ollie's hat in WAY OUT WEST) and begin dressing things up a
bit with salt and ketchup.
The final extended scene has Ollie subduing
Cramer as Stan blows his trombone, thereby giving Ollie another chance
to holler "Hawns! Hawns!". The Boys' momentary heroism at having
captured an escaped criminal is dashed when Stan blows his horn once
too often, launching Ollie into another tirade wherein he punches a
cop. The last shot shows the Boys being led to jail and
exchanging their last words in a Hal Roach film: "Well, here's another
nice mess you've gotten me into!" / "Well, I couldn't help it!
(cries)." A fitting ending to the Golden Era of the team's
career.
The flaws of SAPS AT SEA are mostly
understandable. Two years previously, it seemed as if BLOCK-HEADS
might be the last Laurel & Hardy film and the effort was made to do
a personal work, packed with inspired gags. In 1940, Stan and
Babe had what seemed to be a promising future in front of them (little
did they know), so there was no sense of urgency to turn out anything
more than just another film. SAPS AT SEA was undoubtedly
approached with dedication, but the team's personal relationship with
Roach also suggests that there was a bit of "contractual obligation"
haste in its making. Certain gags and situations could have been
improved with a bit of additional thought, but, under the
circumstances, I suppose that we should be grateful that the final
Roach film rises to the level of "not bad."
JB:
It is hard to dislike SAPS AT SEA but equally difficult to hold it up
as a shining example of Laurel and Hardy's art. In 1940, The Boys
were getting a little too old for the standard knockabout slapstick,
and so they used impersonal gags - the lung-tester, the mixed-up
appliances, the banana with three layers of skin and no bananas.
There are a few laughs in these gags, as well as in Stan and Ollie's
reactions to them, but more successful are the in-character moments,
such as when Stan tries to talk to Dr. Finlayson by putting the phone
receiver to his mouth and a banana in his ear.
Still, out of nowhere come moments of pure
vintage Laurel and Hardy comedy. Doorbells have flown off the
wall and struck Ollie in the head before, but never with the same
disdainful malice that seems to possess the doorbell in SAPS AT
SEA. And there is a marvelous sequence where Stan walks out of
the closet, knocking Ollie straight out the window, with Ollie's grip
on the phone line is the only thing keeping him from plummeting to the
sidewalk below. Stan's rescue attempt with a mattress and the car
is noble but, needless to say, unsuccessful as well as destructive to
the building's lobby. This is good, old-fashioned, well-timed
stuff, and it's nice to see that even at this late stage, The Boys
still have it in them.
The heavy makeup Laurel and Hardy employed in
this film is sometimes a distraction. Used to cover up wrinkle lines,
the makeup only highlights the sad fact that our heroes were not the
smooth-faced spirited youths they once were. This occasionally gives SAPS AT
SEA a slightly pathetic aura. When The Boys were younger, it
would have been fall-down-hilarious for Stan to be confused by a nusery
rhyme he is reading to Ollie. But now that they were beginning to
look like older men, there is a touch of sadness behind the comedy that
is hard to ignore at times. There is even a moment that hints at
the fact that The Boys are getting up in years, and that Ollie, for
one, is resigned to things never changing. When Stan manages once
again to blow up yet another kitchen, Ollie simply comes out of the
bathroom to say "Can't you make a cup of coffee quietly?"
The film's first half harkens back to
BLOCK-HEADS, both in its setting and its gags. But unlike
BLOCK-HEADS, SAPS AT SEA looks like it was filmed on the cheap.
The apartment set is so tiny and cramped, that the kitchen doesn't so
much explode as collapse in on itself. Even the music is cobbled
together from OUR RELATIONS, BLOCK-HEADS and A CHUMP AT OXFORD.
All this is not to say that SAPS AT SEA is a
bad film. The Boys have done better, but they have done far worse
also. SAPS AT SEA is a run of the mill Laurel and Hardy comedy,
like THE FLYING DEUCES, which means some good laughs, some groans and a
handful of unforgettable moments. The first half of the film, in the
apartment, is funnier than the second half, on the boat. Yet the
second half is more memorable, due to Rychard Cramer's performance as
Nick the Killer. Always a minor member of their stock company, as
soon as Cramer walks in on Stan and Ollie in their cabin and unleashes
a sneering "Scuuuuse me, Jitterbugs!", he has already topped any other
contributions he may have made to Laurel and Hardy's films in the
past. His characterization has just the right mix of menace and
humor, and he is the best villain Laurel and Hardy have run across
since Mickey Finn in WAY OUT WEST.
The synthetic meal scene is one of those
things that, like the jigsaw puzzle sequence in Me and My Pal, plays
better in your mind after you've seen it. Stan eating something
he shouldn't is funnier when he is unaware of it, like the wax apples
in SONS OF THE DESERT, or, as stated in John L.'s comments above, when
he realizes he enjoys it. Here, Stan's reactions are just
uncomfortable, and Ollie gagging and coughing is much too realistic to
be amusing. And yet, it is a sequence that can produces chuckles
later on, when you reminisce with other people who have seen the
film. And I sometimes think that those synthetic biscuits The
Boys whipped up from talcum powder live on today in every fast food
restaurant across America.
Although he changed the ending to BLOCK-HEADS and
ordered a new beginning for A CHUMP AT OXFORD, Hal Roach seems to have
quickly lost interest in his two major stars after SWISS MISS.
Left to their own devices, Laurel and the writers ditched all the
subplots, love interests and production numbers. From BLOCK-HEADS
through SAPS AT SEA, it is wall to wall Laurel and Hardy from first
frame to last. If there are disappointing moments in these films,
they are along the lines of "Gee, they could paced that scene better"
rather than "Who is this sappy juvenile lead and why should I care
about him?". SAPS AT SEA's greatest strength is that every moment
features Laurel and Hardy, but its greatest weakness is that many of
those moments are not up to their usual standards. Still, in
1940, with the Thirties' style of comedy going the way of the dinosaur,
we can almost be thankful that The Boys turned out such a nice little
throwaway comedy. The same year, the Marx Brothers made GO WEST,
a candidate for their worst feature, while W.C. Fields made THE BANK
DICK, a comedy classic in every way. SAPS AT SEA falls somewhere
in between these films, but is much closer to THE BANK DICK in spirit.
A final note: We now say goodbye to several
key Laurel and Hardy players, but most of all to Mssrs. James Finlayson
and Charlie Hall, who would never again appear in a Laurel and Hardy
film. What they contributed to The Boys' world was priceless, and
their value becomes all the more clear by their absence in the films
following SAPS AT SEA.