Not So Fine Messes: The 1940s Films of Laurel and Hardy (Part 5)

This piece is serialized into several parts. In case you found this page by chance, the article begins here.

Their second feature for MGM, Nothing But Trouble, is aptly named, for it seems to give just that to Laurel and Hardy fans. Even those who defend The Big Noise have little kindness for this picture. The plot alone can be a turn-off to many, since it involves the poisoning of a child. The whimsical tone of this picture makes that storyline even creepier. 

While this film isn’t as funny as the previous MGM effort, it is more fascinating viewing, for it is an unusual experiment (which admittedly, doesn’t quite come off). In the opening, set in depression-era 1932, when, as the title card says, “jobs were as hard to find as a girdle on a welder”, Stan and Ollie can’t find a job at the employment office which is filled to the brink with like-minded people desperate for work, so they decide to go abroad to offer their services as chef and butler- a tradition handed down from their ancestors. In a cute decoupage (with exotic backdrops the obvious work of rear-screen projection), they are fired several times over in their globetrotting adventure, with each foreign tongue however mentioning the recognizable phrase, “Steak a la Oliver”.

In 1944, when, as the title card says, “jobs were as easy to find as a girdle on a welder” (a Rosie the Riveter reference?), Stan and Ollie return stateside, to the same employment office of twelve years ago. This time however, the office is full of people desperate to hire someone! Once it is clear that the men are looking for a job, they are nearly mobbed, but the matron Mrs. Flannigan (Connie Gilchrist) gives them safe passage to her car, and offers them a job as butler and chef at the Hawkley residence. So desperate are they for hired help, that the matron wines and dines them… the Hawkleys even peek in on them through the kitchen door, but are careful not to disturb them, lest they run away! Not even the (offscreen) sound of Stan smashing dishes gets them fired!

This evening, the Hawkleys are expecting Prince Saul (Philip Merivale) and the boy King Christopher (David Leland) from the land of Orlandia (maybe it’s next to Freedonia) for dinner. Christopher, however, doesn’t care too much about royalty—he prefers to play football (Knute Rockne is his hero), and would rather associate himself with everyday people. (“God must’ve loved the common people, for He made so many of them.”) Saul, in the meantime, has devious ambitions to overthrow the king, so he employs his crony Ronetz (John Warburton) to stage an accident.

Christopher is oblivious to this anarchy; he manages to shake Ronetz’s goons just so he can play football with the neighbourhood kids! Stan and Ollie, on the way back from the grocers, are persuaded to coach the game by Christopher, as he’s never played before, otherwise the game cannot proceed without referees. This sequence is only mildly amusing for the moments that we see Stanley trying to step out of the kids’ way, but serves the narrative function of beginning their relationship with Christopher. 

Once it is seen that the boys forgot to get the meat so Ollie can prepare his esteemed “Steak a la Oliver” for the guests, they decide to steal a steak right from the mouth of a lion being fed at the nearby zoo! This scene is another rare instance in which we see one of our heroes in closeup: Stan’s age shows in this moment where he attempts to give the lion the evil eye. This slapstick sequence is nearly devoid of humour (Ollie pretends he’s a female lion to distract the lion? Really?), however there is a funny whip pan when Stan attempts to grab the steak, and jumps onto a nearby wall when the lion lunges at him. Christopher however manages to grab the meat when the lion is distracted by these clowns, and thusly wins his friendship with Stan and Ollie. (In an of-its-time reference, Stan leaves a page of ration stamps in the cage as payment for the steak.)

Christopher attempts to stay in the kitchen with Stan and Ollie by saying he doesn’t want to go home because his uncle beats them. (Stan tastelessly replies, “Maybe if you hurry home, your uncle won’t beat you very hard.”) However, he wins their sympathy and hides under the sink, trying salami for the first time.

Saul arrives for dinner, stating that the king is ill (not knowing that he is hiding in the same house), and mild comic madness ensues when the boys put on dinner. Stan bellows the arrival of every dish at the top of his lungs, serves his guests from the right, takes it away, serves from the left, and back again; Ollie’s revered “Steak a la Oliver” is so tough, that knives bend while cutting it. Chef Hardy is about to use a saw when the doorbell rings. Ronetz arrives to inform Saul that Christopher has disappeared. Saul leaves the dinner party hurriedly.

Throughout this mild comedy of manners, Mrs. Hawkley (Mary Boland) attempts to laugh off the staff’s bumbling as just part of their strange sense of humour. None of this seems to make her fire Stan and Ollie. However, seeing that they have snuck in some young ruffian (little realizing that he is her missing guest) is reason enough to kick them all out.

Here is the juncture where the boys hit rock bottom in this MGM effort . They spend the night at a flophouse, but since this is an MGM movie, even poverty looks sumptuous, with plush lighting and elaborate tracking shots. There is even an odd Damon Runyon-esque moment where a hobo sings along to the familiar tune on Christopher’s football-shaped music box. A neighbouring bum recognizes the young man as the missing royalty in the newspaper headline, and in short order, Christopher is back in the custody of Saul, and the boys are arrested: completely stripped of whatever integrity they had.

The young king tries to persuade Saul to hire the men for their upcoming afternoon ceremony, but only once the prince remembers that Ollie’s inept cooking could poison someone does he relent. The boys are released from jail (all this time they thought they were being incarcerated for taking the steak from the lion), and given an address to report for work. At the afternoon formal, Christopher reveals that he is a king. This curious moment is perhaps even more degrading than the jail time, as the boys feel ashamed that their lower class selves were consorting with royalty, and rather humbly return to their work as butler and chef. (In a more amusing moment, Mrs. Hawkley is mortified to learn that the kid she kicked out of the kitchen was King Christopher.)

Saul’s flunky puts a pill in the salad intended for the young king, and moments of genuine suspense occur when Stan predictably mixes everything up when serving to the guests. Saul storms into the dining room too late to stop the serving of the salad. Once he sees everyone else consuming the salad, he realizes he himself would’ve had the tainted dish. Christopher then realizes what Saul is up to, and goes to talk to the boys in the kitchen. 

Saul emerges, and forces Stan, Ollie and Christopher at gunpoint to jump out of the ledge. It is for this moment that one assumes why Sam Taylor was hired to direct this. In the 1920s, he had co-directed (with Fred Newmeyer) many of Harold Lloyd’s features, including the comic daredevil’s most thrilling efforts: For Heaven’s Sake, Girl Shy, and especially Safety Last, whose famous skyscraper-climbing scene is recalled in this sequence where the men fear for their lives on the ledge. Although this scene is likely done with rear-screen projection, the process is so well camouflaged that even the most jaded of movie buffs can easily surrender to the illusion and get caught up in the suspense.

Nothing But Trouble is surely a mixed bag: its lush production (even for a second feature) and whimsical comedy clash with the unremittingly dark moments of murder and mayhem. Indirectly, this film succeeds in being more “grown up” than their other features. Its allusions to death and child abuse turn their usual cinematic world into a surely more realistic setting, but still they seem at odds with everything else in this movie.

The conclusion of this article is here.