Towed in a Hole **** (1932, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Billy Gilbert) – Classic Movie Review 7405

Director George Marshall’s and producer Hal Roach’s hilarious 1932 comedy Towed in a Hole (released 31 December 1932) is a top-notch Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy short film from around their peak, in which they they are successful fishmongers but buy a leaky old boat from Joe (Billy Gilbert)’s junkyard to fix up so that they can become fishermen too and catch their own fish to sell.

‘For the first time in our lives we’re a success,’ says Ollie. ‘A nice little fish business, and making money.’ But, as always, comedic failure and disaster must be just around the corner for Stan and Ollie.

Towed in a Hole is all slapstick visual humour, mostly silent, confined to jokes built around a single-situation gag and with virtually just the two comics alone on screen throughout.

Another one of their gems, it is written by Stan Laurel. Obviously, the title is a pun on the food dish toad in the hole.

The Three Stooges remade it in 1945 as Booby Dupes.

In 1932, Laurel and Hardy also made their Oscar-winning The Music Box (released 16 April 1932) and made their first public tour outside Hollywood, visiting London and Paris.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7405

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