Well, you're all wrong.
The only real trouble with this film is in the editing. Cut down to 45 minutes, it is really a very amusing movie.
There are many, many shots that are repetitive or simply unnecessary; for example, the repeated shots of the women scolding the telephone make the characters ghastly and unbearable, but remove a few of these shots and the characters become less hideous and more laughable. What would really make it work funny would be if each shot of the women were a little faster, if you catch my drift...
A lot of shots are too long and can have a few seconds removed at the beginning or end with no damage to continuity, and a number of intertitles can be deleted with no loss of understanding. The wife crying can be faded out before the jump-cut and the thing with the mascara. The entire sequence of the morning newspaper headlines about Man Commits Suicide, and the ensuing shots of the judge can be removed. Generally, I would NOT shorten shots of Harry doing his schtick (the whole purpose of watching this film is to see Harry do his schtick).
And of course you can just take out the whole bathing-beauty section: when Harry and Bud think they've awakened the dead, they run off in a panic... with the help of a dissolve, they could end up in the car with Harry putting his dress back on (an important visual), and then a wipe could take us from there to Harry hiding in the rumble seat. Every vestige of the stupid and meaningless bathing beauties scene could thus be excised to streamline the film, and the two characters still have plenty of motivation to dash off the golf course.
Once the film is cut down this way, it becomes a very respectable 7 stars out of 10: not bad at all. At this point the only real criticism I would have is that I just wish the story were something a little less domestic and that lent itself more to physical comedy.
The only real trouble with this film is in the editing. Cut down to 45 minutes, it is really a very amusing movie.
There are many, many shots that are repetitive or simply unnecessary; for example, the repeated shots of the women scolding the telephone make the characters ghastly and unbearable, but remove a few of these shots and the characters become less hideous and more laughable. What would really make it work funny would be if each shot of the women were a little faster, if you catch my drift...
A lot of shots are too long and can have a few seconds removed at the beginning or end with no damage to continuity, and a number of intertitles can be deleted with no loss of understanding. The wife crying can be faded out before the jump-cut and the thing with the mascara. The entire sequence of the morning newspaper headlines about Man Commits Suicide, and the ensuing shots of the judge can be removed. Generally, I would NOT shorten shots of Harry doing his schtick (the whole purpose of watching this film is to see Harry do his schtick).
And of course you can just take out the whole bathing-beauty section: when Harry and Bud think they've awakened the dead, they run off in a panic... with the help of a dissolve, they could end up in the car with Harry putting his dress back on (an important visual), and then a wipe could take us from there to Harry hiding in the rumble seat. Every vestige of the stupid and meaningless bathing beauties scene could thus be excised to streamline the film, and the two characters still have plenty of motivation to dash off the golf course.
Once the film is cut down this way, it becomes a very respectable 7 stars out of 10: not bad at all. At this point the only real criticism I would have is that I just wish the story were something a little less domestic and that lent itself more to physical comedy.