Of course, the first part of my review title is facetious. If not the worst day of his film persona, it must have been close. The evening before, he had taken advantage of the absence of his wife in town, to host a wild party, resulting in furniture being overturned, and empty bottles every where, etc. .After giving himself a lecture in the mirror, he calls Stan(who wasn't at the party) to help clean up the mess(Yea, right!). After mistaking the phone call for his alarm clock, he finally answers it, and agrees to come over. They only have a few hours to straighten things up before his wife arrives on the train. But, we never see them making an effort to clean up the living room, where most of the mess is. That probably would have been comparatively dull. Instead , they concentrate on the kitchen, which, surprisingly, looks intact, until Stan knocks over a big stack of dishes that break on the floor. Stan's last significant act is to pour gasoline on the wood in the fireplace, and light a match. Somehow, he survived the conflagration, but nearly all the house burned down(Where are the fire engines?)
Ollie arrives from the train station, in his masquerade outfit(everything else being soaked), with a big black eye, and without his wife(perhaps the best news of the day). He walks through the still intact front door, and listens to Stan's explanation. Ollie requests that Stan close the door when he leaves, as he wants to be alone! He sits in a chair, and pretty soon, a rainstorm begins, to finish his 'lucky day'. In between these disasters, there is a continuous barrage of slapstick disasters. Ollie gets in the act of causing some of them. For example, he turns on the oven gas to dry his clothes out, then goes elsewhere for a minute. Apparently, there is no pilot light for the stove. so when he returns, he lights a match, and is blown into the living room, together with a few other items. Sometimes, he's just plain unlucky. As he walks by to the kitchen door, something catches on the stovepipe, which falls apart on him, covering him with soot, like a blackface minstrel. Then, a big can of flour on the top shelve falls on him when Stan opens the cabinet, converting his blackface into the white face of a circus clown.........If a continuous run of stupid and unlucky disasters is what you hanker for, this is the right film. See it on YouTube.
Review of Helpmates
