Busy Bodies (1933)

Purely Joyful Movie!

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This is twenty minutes of utter choreographed chaos. These guys were the best. Here, they are working in a sawmill. Before the get to work, they have a whole scene involving their car. They actually have a Victoria under the hood, so they can listen to music. Anyway, we all know that a sawmill is plethora of deadly tools and situations. Once the two get going, they begin to do incredibly harmful things to one another, leading to a gigantic conclusion. The things they do are beautifully timed and hilarious. The comic timing is great two. This one is more physical than most, but it still has wonderful interaction between the two fellows. Like most of the Laurel and Hardy films, there is that moment where one could despair. They always seem resigned to being at odds with the world.

Remember all those complicated devices in your high school shop class? If so, like me, they were fascinating to look at, but puzzling as to what they did. Laurel and Hardy are as far removed from my shop teacher as they can be, but they certainly know how to make use of tools and various shop devices that are most likely obsolete today. Oliver is working on a window frame and somehow gets his fingers from both hands stuck in it, giving Laurel the opportunity to twist him around every way he can. Then, some sort of hard bristle brush gets embedded in Oliver's face, turning Laurel into Sweeney Todd. It's the first time I've ever seen a wood plane used as a razor! Oliver ends up on a not so fun ride that is an exercise in total hilarity. This is one of those shorts where you may need to wear depends to get through. An absolute riot!

I liked the finale where Ollie goes thru those pipes and gets stuck in the wall. Good stuff! They don't really do as much w/ the premise as you would think--monkey w/ the stuck window frame here, get the car sawed in half there, get into a scrape w/ a mean co-worker, break things, etc. You know the general mayhem but not much beyond that.What works of course is their chemistry, timing, unique mannerisms, etc the whole nine yards. You don't get better than L and H when it comes to that.And like another person said, the look at the 1930's era sawmill set-up...WOW now wonder OSHA and the like came into being later on. Dangerous machinery and then some! ***1/2 outta ****

This is probably the only movie that makes me cry of laughing each time I see it and I have seen it hundreds of times! Laurel & Hardy are really getting it on in this one.The way that Hardy gets "tortured" is unbelievable but never over the top.Just watch the scene when Laurel slams the door against Hardy after which Hardy slams the door back and gets a huge bucket on his head and then again the door,hilarious! Of course there is also the usual "in the camera looking" by Hardy(the scene with the sigar!).Busy Bodies is for me their best short feature and equals their long masterpiece Way Out West (10/10). Laurel & Hardy are truely the Kings of slapstick comedy,if you haven't seen this one you haven't lived! 10/10