User Reviews

I didn't much like this 27min.(3 reels) L&H comedy short, including the ending, which I thought was a cop out. I'll return to that later.........The boys own a barber shop. Their humdrum life is interrupted by a newspaper wanted ad: Rich widow looking for compatible husband. Stan sees it, but Ollie has hopes of beating him to her. They both write letters to her, Ollie supposedly mailing both, but discarding Stan's (as if he had a chance to trump Ollie's). Little does Ollie know that the widow(Mae Busch) is only interested in men named Oliver, for she has slit the throats of 7 already. This is her revenge for the first Oliver standing her up on their wedding day. Ollie won't learn this until the widow's butler tells him, after the widow has locked all means of exit from the house.......After being accepted by the widow, Ollie says that Stan can't go with him, since they will no long be in the same social class. But, later, Stan finds his letter that Ollie discarded, and is angry. He goes to the widow's house and demands that Ollie give him half of what he gets from the widow, or else he will tell the widow (what?) about him: blackmail! Ollie reluctantly agrees, and Stan demands that he stay in this house to keep a tab on Ollie.........When Ollie first meets the butler, the latter seems peculiar in several ways. First, he says "Nice weather we had tomorrow". Then, he pretends he's playing cards, shuffling an imaginary deck, and moving chips around. He will again do the card 'trick' when Stan arrives. Later, after the butler blows "First Call "on his bugle, signaling that dinner is ready, they will be subjected to another pantomime treatment, as they are served imaginary dishes and drinks. They feel they must play along and hide their hunger. The widow borrows Stan's scissors, cuts off Ollie's tie, and throws the 2 behind her chair........So far, we've barely experienced any of the boys usual modes of humor, just strangeness of their hosts. That will change once they go to their room(after the butler plays "Taps" on his bugle), where they are locked in. Ollie says one of them must be awake at all times to alert when the widow comes, in her sleepwalking. Stan is chosen to 'stand' guard at first. But , Ollie finds out he soon falls asleep. So, Ollie has an idea: Tie a string(from where?) onto a candle and the other end tied to a brick he finds(?), and sling the brick over something, so it is above Stan's head. If the string burns, because Stan hasn't moved it down, the brick will fall on his head and wake him up(or knock him out!). Stan finds a rifle in the closet, and wants to test if it's loaded. He blows a gaping hole in Ollie's pajama bottoms, laying on the chair. When Stan thinks he sees the hand of a man at the bottom of their bed, he takes the rifle and blasts it, except that it's Ollie's toes. Their bed also collapses from the explosion. Eventually, the widow sleepwalks to their room and unlocks it, then locks it again when she's in. Somehow, Stan gets locked in the closet with the rifle, and she makes her way to the unconscious Ollie, who received the brick on the head, instead of Stan. She's about to slit his throat, when Ollie awakens from his dream, which he did in his barber chair, with Stan shaving him........I would like to propose an alternative ending, where Ollie is not knocked out, but cowers in his bed(or is asleep). Stan is not in bed, but aims the rifle at her and pulls the trigger, but nothing happens. She leans over the bed where Stan was , ready to strike Ollie. Just then, the candle string burns through and the brick falls on her head, knocking her out. The boys take her knives, but dare not strike her. They find the room key, and take the knives as well as the rifle, looking for the butler, to make him open a door. This he eventually does, after giving them an imaginary bottle of milk..........See it at YouTube, in color or B&W. I found the colorized one a bit fuzzy.

A woman scorned is dangerous, but when Mae Busch is scorned by a man named Oliver, she becomes deadly! This melodramatic comedy has both Stan and Ollie sending answers to a personal advertisement. Oliver discards Laurel's, and boy does he pay for it. When first seen, Busch is already calculating her revenge, and with the aide of a sinister looking valet, sets up the demise of Oliver VIII.

A scene involving invisible soup was lovingly spoofed in "Murder By Death". This is almost reminiscent of one of those old melodramatic plays that toured around the countryside in barn theaters and ended up being filmed with British theater legend Tod Slaughter. The only difference is that those were often unintentionally funny, while this was deliberate. It's perhaps the best of the Laurel and Hardy shorts where the boys went up against a predatory female, other ones often uncomfortable in the way they were victimized by these domineering women. But this is a parody of a classic style which adds a ton of fun to its ridiculous.

This short Laurel and Hardy film deserves a look just because it dared to be different! It is so unlike all their other films because the plot is so very, very dark! Stan and Ollie answer a personals ad concerning a lonely RICH widow who wants to wed. Inexplicably, she chooses Ollie from among all the letters. It turns out that she has already married seven other Olivers and she wants to marry any man with this name. Despite the deal being way too good to be true, Ollie thinks he's got it made,...that is until he arrives at the lady's mansion. There, he finds that the woman and her servant are completely insane! Fortunately, Stanley soon arrives, but he doesn't seem to notice how crazy their host and butler are. When the butler begins shuffling imaginary cards and doing tricks with them, Stan starts to believe it's real. This is pretty cute, however the whole 'imaginary' portion of the film is way, way too long and way over-done. Instead of just relying on this quick routine, they then go to dinner--where all the food and drink is imaginary. Of course, the butler and his lady think it's real and the boys are a bit put off by the dinner and realize they're in for trouble unless they can escape. But, to have this whole invisible food and cards to occupy so much of the film is a mistake--it's like beating a dead horse after a while since it simply goes on too long.

Fortunately, this bit is the only negative aspect of the film. The rest of the story is exciting and lots of fun--with a lot of laughs every time Stanley starts talking. His mindless prattle is wonderful--among the best lines in any of their films. If you can speed past the poor section of the movie in the middle, you'll be rewarded by some of the team's better bits.

"Oliver the Eighth" is an American 25-minute short film from 1934, so this one has its 85th anniversary next year. Director was the pretty prolific Lloyd French while the two central actors are of course the stars here Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Mae Busch and Jack Barty join them and the female of the two worked on other occasions with L&H too. Oh yeah don't be fooled by color being added to this one later on as the b&w one is the original and the one you want to go for. The story once again involved crime, bossy wives and constant slapstick humor (frequently accidents) like so many other times with the perhaps still most appreciated comedy duo in film history. But while their acting isn't a problem really, other components are this time, especially the script. The plot part about who is really the crazy one: the butler, the widow or just the mildly crazy protagonists is simply not good enough in the long run and honestly the dream sequence ending is as uncreative and random as it gets and feels like the cheapest way to end the film in time really. It came out of nowhere and felt truly unsatisfying, perhaps to get the seriousness of the knife scene out of the film as quickly as possible and sell it as a film with comedy being the most dominant genre inclusion. I am not sold at all though. My suggestion is to skip the watch here and go for another better Stan&Ollie work out there. More than enough of these. To end the review on a positive note, let me say that the sound work here felt decent and not as weird as the duo's early works from the sound era. But that's also thanks to technical progress in general and not really a reason to rate this any higher. 2 out of 5 seems appropriate.

Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy (themselves), Mae Busch (rich widow), Jack Barty (Jitters, the butler).

Director: LLOYD FRENCH. Photography: Art Lloyd. Film editor: Bert Jordan. Music composed by LeRoy Shield and Ray Henderson. Production manager: Henry Ginsberg. Sound recording: Warren B. Delaplain. Producer: Hal Roach. A Hal Roach Studios Production.

Copyright 13 February 1934 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp. A Hal Roach/Laurel-Hardy Comedy. U.S. release: February 1934. 3 reels.

COMMENT: Also known as "Private Life of Oliver the Eighth", although the last of the team's three-reelers, this entry fails the acid test of a good conclusion.

Nevertheless, Oliver the Eighth (as the film was titled on its original U.S. release), has many likable qualities, not the least of which is the nicely honed comic performance contributed by Jack Barty as the eccentric butler to end all eccentric butlers.

Alas, Mae Busch tends to overdo the wicked widow who plans to murder Oliver (she has a thing against men named "Oliver"), but the boys themselves are in excellent form. Although the critics didn't like the movie, it still numbers among my favorites.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are the most famous comedy duo in history, and deservedly so, so I am happy to see any of their films. Stan and Ollie own a barbershop, and Stan reads the newspaper, a rich widow is wanting to meet and marry a man, and they decide to both answer with a letter, but Ollie only posts his own. The rich widow (Mae Busch) reads Ollie's letter, and Jitters the butler (Jack Barty) knows that she will want to murder him, like the seven other Oliver's before. So Ollie shows up at her house, and while Jitters plays with invisible cards, Stan soon shows demanding he gets a share of whatever Ollie gets (he found out that he didn't post his response). After Stan has briefly joined the "card game", Jitters plays the military salute on the trumpet (blowing Stan's hat off) to announce dinner is ready, which turns out to be invisible wine and soup, they are both crazy. Jitters tells Ollie he is to have his throat cut by the widow, so when they are given a bedroom, Stan has to help Ollie by staying awake, but don't worry, when she does eventually show up, it turns out to be a bad dream. Filled with good slapstick and all classic comedy you want from a black and white film, at just over an hour, it is an enjoyable film. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were number 7 on The Comedians' Comedian. Worth watching!