JL: Long-heralded as one of their
true silent classics, Two Tars
is almost a primer on "How to Make a Silent Comedy." No
formal
construction to be found here -- it's obviously a case of piling one
ingenious sight gag on top of another, plot be damned. Though
it
has been reported that Stan and Leo McCarey envisioned the film as an
organic whole, the individual sequences are as loosely connected as can
be. This, plus the fact that several stills exist of
shot-but-deleted scenes, indicates that this may have been a case of
"Let's put the Boys in sailor outfits and see what happens."
The film opens with
a montage of
patriotic images honoring our fighting men of the sea, although there's
really no need for Laurel and Hardy to be cast as sailors -- save for
the fact that comely young ladies seem to find Stan and Ollie instantly
attractive once they're dressed in their "Crackerjacks." In
both
this film and Men O' War,
the sight of the
Boys coyly flirting with their girlfriends-for-a-day is one of the
highlights. In fact, it is in the first reel of Two Tars
that we find the most characteristic L&H moments (it is also
the
first film to reveal that Stan seems to have an obsession with
monkeying around with the gearshift for no particular reason whenever
he gets behind the wheel of a car). Holler me down like Mae
Busch
on a tyrade if you must, but it is for this reason that I prefer the
first half of the film more so than the more famous traffic-jam second
reel.
While the traffic-jam sequence
may contain an
endless series of brilliant sight gags, there's also something a bit
calculated about it that keeps it from being in the same league as
their other reciprocal-destruction silent classic Big
Business.
The gags seem to clutter, there's no real build to the
sequence,
and it lacks the looney, freewheeling quality of their best slapstick
bits. And it's yet another example of a scene that would have
been just as good with anyone other than Laurel and Hardy doing it.
Yes, I think Two Tars is
a very good film, but I place it a notch below its reputation.