Sons of the Desert

I'm pretty certain this is the first full-length Laurel & Hardy film I've ever seen. I've tried some of their shorts before, but none of them managed to leave an impression, on the contrary. Turns out their feature length films are just more of the same, only longer. Though the film is just over an hour long, it was still quite an ordeal to get to the end.

Laurel and Hardy are part of a fraternity. They're invited to their national convention, but the both of them are having trouble convincing their wives they should go. Hardy pretends to be ill while Laurel calls in the help of a fake doctor to prescribe them a little vacation. It's not hard to imagine how the rest of the film goes.

I'm certainly no fan of straight-up slapstick comedy and Laurel and Hardy are pretty much the primary representatives of the genre. The comedy is repetitive, predictable and simply not funny to me. The story is negligible, performances are overall poor and the plot is merely an excuse for the gags. Terrible stuff.