A-Haunting We Will Go *** (1942, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Dante, Elisha Cook Jr) – Classic Movie Review 7361

Director Alfred Werker’s 1942 20th Century Fox black and white comedy A-Haunting We Will Go stars the essential Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as Stan and Ollie, who are conned by a group of swindling crooks (including Elisha Cook Jr) into delivering a wanted criminal in a coffin to Dayton, Ohio, to get an inheritance. But then the coffin gets comically muddled up with a similar prop item from Dante the Magician’s show.

Sadly, A-Haunting We Will Go is a below-par later vehicle for Laurel and Hardy with none of their best routines, but, there are some chuckles and some amusing slapstick gags to be found, and, unexpectedly, hammy magician Dante does the trick in the laughs department. One for Laurel and Hardy’s staunchest fans, it has its moments, even if they are rather few and far between. But then again, even lesser Laurel and Hardy is still quite something.

Lou Breslow writes the screenplay, based on his story with Stanley Rauh.

Also in the cast are Sheila Ryan, John Shelton, Don Costello, Edward Gargan, Addison Richards, George Lynn, James Bush, Lou Lubin, Robert Emmett Keane, Richard Lane, Mantan Moreland, Terry Moore and Willie Best.

One of the writers saw Dante performing on a Los Angeles street corner and hired him to star in the movie.

Among the best of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are Pardon Us (1931), The Devil’s Brother [Fra Diavolo] (1933), Sons of the Desert [Fraternally Yours] (1933), The Bohemian Girl (1936), Our Relations (1936), Way Out West (1937), Swiss Miss (1938), A Chump at Oxford (1939), and Saps at Sea (1940).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7361

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