Want to see a comedy without any crude, lewd jokes and just pure innocent but laugh-out-loud humor? Just pop in any Laurel and Hardy film into your VCR or DVD player. This comic duo will make sure that you get your daily requirement of laughs and smiles.

 

‘Way out west’ is considered to be one of the best films of the Boys- (the fond sobriquet for the L-H team!). Like most other L-H movies, the plotline is thin but the situational gags are plenty and they form the backbone of the comedy. Stan and Ollie play their famed characters- the thin dumb silly man and the fat pompous silly man, both thanks to their stupidity getting into yet ‘another fine mess’ but still you take them to heart thanks to their innate goodness and child-like innocence.

 

Here the duo is making a visit to a western town Brushwood Gulch. Their job is simple- they are there to deliver a deed of a lucrative gold-mine to Mary. Her father- a prospector had left this deed with them at the time of his death as his final gift for his daughter. Hitch-hiking a horse-coach ride and unknowingly managing to annoy the town-sheriff’s wife, Stan and Ollie reach the town, only to be warned by the sheriff to leave it by the coach!

 

Trying to find the rightful owner of the deed- they manage to get conned by Mary’s evil inn-keeper guardian (played brilliantly by James Finlayson- the perpetual villain in L-H comedies!), who presents his scheming dancer wife Lola as Mary and grabs the deed. Just as the smug and satisfied Stan and Ollie are making their way out of the inn, they encounter the real Mary and realize their folly. Now they have to get back the deed from the villainous couple and hand it over to Mary. How they achieve that is the series of funny misadventures!

 

Any L-H movie is all about remembering their fun-filled gags and in this film those are plenty. Stan showing off his bare leg to stop the coach (a take on the famous scene in It Happened One Night); Lola grappling with Stan to grab the deed and in the process tickling and making him laugh hysterically; Stan and Ollie trying to use their mule to pull themselves to the first floor balcony and ending up in hurtling up the mule there instead; Ollie making Stan eat his hat – all these are hilarious moments.

 

But some of the most adorable scenes in the film are not comic. Laurel and Hardy hypnotically swaying to the tune of Avalon Boys' At the ball that's all and later joining them to sing The trail of lonesome pine are all-time classic cinematic moments!