The only Laurel and Hardy four-reeler. It was intended as a two-reeler, but kept getting longer as more gags were added during filming. Even though the Roach Studios lost money on the film (it had been pre-sold to distributors at two-reel prices), it was felt that the quality of the film would suffer with editing, and was sent out as is. Randy Skretvedt: "There aren't many producers today who would willingly lose money on a film just because it was too good to cut. There weren't many producers then who would do that." |
JL: Unlike PARDON US, the episodic structure gets in the way here. It's a good film up to and including the scene where they request their discharge. From there, it drags along with an occasional good gag to redeem it. Everson was right on target about this one when he said "Four reels was a clumsy length for a Laurel and Hardy film; they never repeated it." But the "Jeanie-Weenie" device is inspired, and Ollie crashing into the piano is one of their greatest-ever sight gags.
JB: The
first two reels of Beau Hunks are so good, they could have put up a
"The End" sign after Stan dumps the sand (and one absurdly large rock)
out of his shoe after a long hike, and the film would have joined the
ranks of One Good Turn, Laughing Gravy or Come Clean as a thoroughly
enjoyable above-average Laurel and Hardy film. It would have been a
"what the hell" ending, but it would have made for a much better short.
Unlike most of their films, Beau Hunks is
heavily dependent of dialogue, but that is not a drawback since the
running conversation that opens the film, just after Ollie's
beautiful rendition of "You Are The Ideal of My Dreams", ranks among
the best dialogue sequences they ever had. Ollie barely gets the words
"I'm going to be married" out of his mouth before Stan takes the
conversation onto several sidetracks, beginning with his initial
exclamation of "You don't believe me!" (mangling the phrases "I don't
believe you" and "You don't say!"). Ollie makes the mistake of using
the word "levity" somewhere along the way, which takes the dialogue in
a different direction as Ollie is forced to define the word for Stan's
benefit before he can get back to talking about his beloved
"Jeannie-Weannie". In fact, with "You don't believe me!", "Hello, Mr.
Levity?" and "B.S." ("Big Sucker, I guess") this one scene added more
to the lexicon of Laurel and Hardy fans than any other extended
dialogue sequence I can think of.
The film continues through several funny
sequences in the Foreign Legion, where Ollie discovers that at least
half the platoon has joined for the same reason as he - to forget
Jeannie Weannie. When they enter the Commandant's office and are
soundly rebuffed in their request to leave the legion, they make at
least five attempts at exiting without success - Stan forgets his hat,
Ollie forgets his, they walk into the bathroom. Just leaving a room is
sometimes a task far beyond these two men.
Unfortunately, after the amusing scene where
Ollie, weary from an eight-hour march, mistakenly massages Stan's foot
thinking it is his own, the film runs out of inspiration. There is no
clear indication why Beau Hunks had to be a four-reeler, except the
possibilty that by adding an impending attack on the fort late in the
film, they could pad things out to quasi-feature length. But there is
little of real interest in the final two reels, and Beau Hunks suddenly
goes from being a wonderful little Laurel and Hardy film to one of
their most lopsidedly disappointing efforts to date. Some Laurel and
Hardy films start out slow and build to amazing climaxes. Beau
Hunks starts out with a bang but runs out of steam two reels before it
is over.
Two final points of interest: Jeannie
Weannie is "played" by former Double Whoopee co-star Jean Harlow (seen
only in a photograph in this film), and Beau Hunks was later remade as
their 1939 feature THE FLYING DEUCES.
Copyright © 2013 John Larrabee, John V. Brennan