Air Raid Wardens ** (1943, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Edgar Kennedy) – Classic Movie Review 8516

Director Edward Sedgwick’s 1943 Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy comedy Air Raid Wardens stars Stan and Ollie as bankrupt fertiliser dealers, pet-shop owners and cycle store owners, who are turned down for armed service in World War Two, but are taken on as bumbling air raid wardens by organiser Dan Madison (Stephen McNally, aka Horace McNally) and his girlfriend Peggy Parker (Jacqueline White), both from the local paper.

After a while, Stan and Ollie are responsible for the arrest of a ring of German spies led by Rittenhause (Henry O’Neill), who is planning to sabotage the local magnesium plant.

It is the kind of vehicle George Formby had in Britain at around this time and just as rickety. The incomparable but here uncomfortable stars bumble, stumble and crumble, and the equally delightful Edgar Kennedy falters too, even when he has got a good scene to play.

Also in the commendable cast are Nella Walker, Russell Hicks, Howard Freeman, Donald Meek, Henry O’Neill, Paul Stanton, Robert Emmett O’Connor, Lee Phelps, Bert Moorhouse, Don Costello, William Tannen, Forrest Taylor, Edward Hearn, Milton Kibbee, Philip Van Zandt, Frederic Warlock, Betty Jaynes, Howard Mitchell, Jack Gardner, Charles Coleman, Jules Cowles, Rose Hobart, Nolan Leary, Walter Coughlin, Bobby Burns, Joe Yule Sr and Constance Purdy.

Air Raid Wardens is directed by Edward Sedgwick, runs 67 minutes, is made and released by MGM, written by Jack Jevne, Martin Rackin, Charles Rogers and Harry Crane, shot in black and white by Walter Lundin, produced by B F Zeidman and scored by Nathaniel Shilkret.

It is first of two Laurel and Hardy films under their MGM contract, followed by Nothing But Trouble (1944).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8516

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