Great Guns (1941) User Reviews

Quite good for Laurel & Hardy '40's standards.

[Boba_Fett1138 · 7/10 · 7 September 2006]

It's a fact that Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy did their best works for the MGM studios. Their later works for the Twentieth Century-Fox studios aren't exactly the most classic ones around. This is one of those typical Twentieth Century-Fox Laurel & Hardy pictures, that in style and humor quite differs from their early work but still has its certain charm and entertainment value, although the movie is far from an hilarious or great one.

Once again Laurel & Hardy are in the army. This time the movie focuses on their mishaps in boot-camp. Laurel & Hardy don't really get to show the best of their qualities in this movie but the provide the movie with a couple of entertaining moments nevertheless. There are a couple of sequences that are still are of comical greatness, such as the scene in which the boys ride in a jeep during a combat exercise but like often was the case in their later movies, there are more misses than hits with its humor. The movie isn't consistently funny but yet it always remains perfectly entertaining to watch, although I would definitely had prefer some more slapstick from the two boys.

Reason why this movie still works out quite well, is due to its well written story. It makes the movie flow well and also is the reason why this movie is such a perfectly entertaining one. It makes the movie consistent and provides it with some good comical moments and dialog.

The love-story of the movie, between the Sheila Ryan and Dick Nelson characters, is quite enjoyable and not as distracting as often had been the case in other Laurel & Hardy pictures

The movie is a great looking one with good costumes and sets. It's obvious that they spend quite some money on this movie. The movie ends with quite a big battle sequences that is well fitted into the movie and makes sure that the movie ends with a blast.

Might not be so hilarious be very entertaining nevertheless.

7/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

"You don't think they declared war without us, do you?"

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 27 June 2009]

As a kid growing up in the Fifties, I managed to see a whole bunch of Laurel and Hardy shorts, and a few of their feature films as well. I don't recall "Great Guns" among them, and I wonder now if it's because I didn't actually see it, or because it's just not that funny. I usually learn more about a picture than I knew before by reading the reviews here on the IMDb site, and in this case, the posters for this film have done a much better job than I can possibly do to sum up the inadequacies of this flick. Made in some degree to capitalize on the success of the era's other comedy kingpin duo, Abbott and Costello, this film falls somewhat short of the same year's "Buck Privates". That picture showcased patriotism as a cherished ideal, and utilized a barrage of elements to keep movie goers clamoring for more, not the least of which included the Andrews Sisters performing the classic 'Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy'. By comparison, this picture falls measurably flat, most likely as suggested by others on this forum, that the stars lost considerable creative control by signing on with Fox.

Not that the film is a total dud, but the charisma that Laurel and Hardy developed earlier in their careers just isn't on display here. As I mentioned in another review ("Tit For Tat"), I delight now in seeing how L&H did things funny, as opposed to doing funny things. The one bit that comes close to passing muster here is the 'raven in the pants' scene, but even that one seems a bit overdone and forced, without the nuance of the cookie routine in "Tit For Tat". As well, I kept waiting for one of Stan's brilliant but nonsensical affirmations ('He who filters your good name steals trash'), but there just weren't any.

Still, for fans of the boys, there's enough here to recommend at least a single viewing, even if they're not at the top of their game. In that respect, every great actor and comedy team is entitled to an eventual mis-step. The good thing about Laurel and Hardy is that their sub-par work often beats the competition anyway.

Great Guns (1941) ***

[JoeKarlosi · 7/10 · 19 May 2006]

It's time to re-evaluate the scathing history of Laurel and Hardy's post-1940 films made for 20th Century-Fox and at least give some of them a break. It's always been written that the classy Fox studio just didn't understand the comedy of Stan and Ollie, and that every film the duo did with them in the '40s is plain unfunny and a disgrace to their talents. Well, not so in my book.

GREAT GUNS was the first Fox feature for Laurel and Hardy and it was inspired by Abbott & Costello's huge army hit, BUCK PRIVATES, which had been released early the same year and made millions at the box office. Here, Stan and Ollie play two concerned mentors who decide to enlist in the U.S. army to keep an eye on their wealthy but sickly young employer, who's just been drafted and insists on serving duty against his doctor's orders. Once in uniform, L&H must contend with their classically nasty sergeant, a firing practice that goes amusingly wrong, and all sorts of other zany mishaps, the topper of which involves a black crow that winds up nesting inside Ollie's pants during a drill!

Yes, things certainly were modified a bit for Laurel and Hardy's characters in these later Fox feature films. But only we most dedicated of followers would even notice this, and even then some of us don't mind as long as we can laugh a bit (which we still do). The boys are not boys at this point, and time has marched on. We'll always have the best of their classic '30s Hal Roach talkies to fall back on when we want the cream of the crop, but there are moments to be enjoyed in the Fox films too, if we can let go and stop comparing them to something else. *** out of ****

The beginning of the end...

[Jim Griffin · 30 July 2004]

Under the watchful eye of producer Hal Roach, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy moved from silent shorts in the 1920s to feature length talkies in the 1930s to become one of the world's best loved comedy double acts. At Roach's studios Laurel in particular was given the freedom he needed to refine the duo's act, working as writer and producer on a number of films. By the end of the decade, with scores of classic shorts and features behind them, relations between the double act and Roach were strained beyond breaking point, and Laurel and Hardy left the studio - and their glory days - behind them.

Great Guns was the first proper film of the post-Roach era, The Flying Deuces with RKO something of a one-off. The move to Twentieth Century Fox in 1941 brought down these giants of comedy in four short years, assigning them to the B unit where little care was taken and little interest shown in what was being made. Their talent wasted by the talentless men who surrounded them, the Laurel and Hardy we loved were dismantled, simplified and bastardised.

In Great Guns we find them as gardener and chauffeur to a sickly rich kid drafted in spite of being allergic to everything. When the army medical proves there's nothing wrong with him he eagerly jumps into uniform, with Stan and Ollie joining him to make sure their master is well looked after.

The change in the duo is jarring, Fox's fumble immediately noticeable. Here we see not the gentle troublemakers we remember, nor the ambitious under-achievers content in their delusion that they can better themselves. As gardener and chauffeur they are servile, loyal, self-sacrificing. They know their place, and that there they belong; none of Ollie's arrogance here, no petty one-upmanship with exasperated authority figures. Gone are the childlike, naïve little strugglers, our charming anarchists replaced by simple idiots. This wasn't just a botched attempt to move them on; it was a fundamental misunderstanding of their appeal.

This isn't Laurel and Hardy. Look at how Ollie's size is now handled; with joke after joke about his waistline, we see him compared to a blimp and a weather balloon as people queue up to tell him how fat he is. In their glory days the joke was Ollie's agility in spite of his girth, his delicate finger taps and tie waving. Now the joke is his girth. He's fat. We get it. The same subtle treatment is extended to Stan's simple-mindedness. He was always in a world of his own but before all we needed was one of Ollie's withering looks to tell us so. Here people just call him an idiot, name-calling a poor substitute for punchlines. It makes their act too blatant, as if Fox wanted to assure us they understood what the boys were all about.

The Flying Deuces showed that the duo could work well enough without Hal Roach, but to do so they had to have solid writing and directing, with input from Stan Laurel. At Fox they were just actors, and actors saddled with poor scripts and no creative control. Simon Louvish's biography tells how Oliver Hardy would sit at home going over the Fox scripts, shaking his head in disbelief as his character was betrayed; a terribly sad picture to imagine. Beyond its poorly handled characterisation, Great Guns just isn't funny, with Penelope the crow an obvious example. Consider, too, the drippy romantic subplot that keeps the boys on the sidelines for scene after scene.

We don't care about it. There's no reason to.

One of the biggest problems with the boys' wartime output was the war itself. Stan and Ollie don't belong in a world with Nazism. They'd been in the army countless times before, but those were more innocent times. Here our heroes were confronted by such a unique evil that they were horribly out of place. They should be struggling with a piano and a flight of stairs, or fighting with James Finlayson because he won't buy a Christmas tree. Seeing them in the same world as Pearl Harbor and the holocaust is uncomfortable.

Given their reputation it's surprising to learn that the first few Fox pictures were modest successes, but it's easy enough to understand. In an age before television repeats, re-issues and re-mastering, the only chance to see the much-loved duo was in their new films, and even a below-par Laurel and Hardy were better than none at all. Today, when a short from the '20s is as available to us as the feature-length dross from the '40s, there's less reason to be so charitable. In Great Guns we can see the beginning of the end and that, however sad the end was, it was inevitable with material of this quality.

Stan And Ollie Go To War Again

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 2 December 2008]

Great Guns was Laurel and Hardy's first film after leaving Hal Roach Studios for which their best work was done by far. 20th Century Fox might have had a much better film had they not decided to imitate the enormously successful Buck Privates which had come out earlier in the year for Universal starring that new team Abbott&Costello. Stan and Ollie did service comedies before and good ones.

Darryl Zanuck just bent the plot a little. Dick Nelson plays the pampered rich kid like Lee Bowman in the other film. He's got two maiden aunts, Mae Marsh and Ethel Griffies, who treat him like he was in a plastic bubble and a quack doctor in Ludwig Stossel who's getting rich off their hypochondria about Nelson.

Stan and Ollie are the butler and chauffeur of the estate and they join the army to look after Nelson. Truth be told he wants to join just to get away from those aunts.

After that it's a series of a lot of gags per normal for a service comedy. I'm sure that Stan and Ollie had they been given a little more creative freedom might have come up with more original stuff. One thing that I liked was Stan's pet raven who won't leave him even though he's enlisted. It turns out Penelope the raven gives the bird to the enemy in the war games finale which also was imitating Buck Privates.

And Nelson is involved in a romantic triangle with his sergeant Edmund MacDonald over the girl with photography concession at the PX, Sheila Ryan. If you're on your toes, you'll notice that the soldier who is buying his developed films from Ryan while Nelson is waiting is Alan Ladd

Best gag in the film involves Stanley trying to ditch Penelope in Ollie's pants during inspection and the havoc it causes. Second best is Ollie spilling water all over himself when Stan asks the time and then Stan doing it to him when Ollie asks for the time. Third best is the two of them hitching a ride on a target during rifle practice.

Great Guns has its moments, but it doesn't have the sustained humor of their stuff with Hal Roach.

It's Okay But Feels Like Stan And Ollie Have Been Shoe-Horned Into Another Movie

[Theo Robertson · 6/10 · 17 December 2012]

One of the problems - if not the fundamental problem of a feature length Laurel And Hardy movie is that there is by necessity a cast of supporting characters . By this I mean unlike their shorts from the 1930s Stan and Ollie don't feature in every scene and that means there's the feeling that you're watching something that's diluted . Be honest - would you have put time aside to watch this if GREAT GUNS wasn't a Laurel and Hardy comedy ?

This is similar to some other shorts where the duo find themselves in uniform and my opinion is prejudiced by the fact that I saw BEAU CHUMPS less than an hour before I started watching this one . Big mistake because the premise of both films aren't poles apart where Stan and Ollie find themselves giving up civilian life for the military

You have to suspend a lot of disbelief as their young boss Dan Forrester find's himself drafted in to the army and so the boys decide to volunteer to keep an eye on him . It's difficult to believe any military would want a couple of middle aged men one of which is to put it kindly overweight , but I guess if reality interceded we wouldn't have a movie

The story itself is rather threadbare and is along the lines of a gentle romantic comedy where Dan is taken to the female film developer at the barracks Ginger who is also the apple of the eye of the drill instructor Hippo . This plays out as you'd expect - light fluffy romance while you find yourself waiting for the next appearance of the comedy stars . The jokes aren't great but one very politically incorrect scene involving Hippo with his face blackened leading Stan to say " Oh how kind they've given us a porter " did make me burst out laughing

As it stands GREAT GUNS isn't a great comedy and reading the trivia section it's revealed that the studio wouldn't allow Stan Laurel to develop the screenplay as he did in the Hal Roach shorts and this undoubtedly explains why the feature length films of Laurel and Hardy in the early 1940s are missing a certain something

Timing is everything

[dexter-10 · 7/10 · 12 February 2001]

In one respect, this is Laurel and Hardy's best movie, particularly in terms of comic timing. No longer are there silent era delays in the action and no longer are there long set-ups before the comic act. In this film, the comic timing is quick and precise. A 1941 release before the attack on Pearl Harbor (by only two months), this is another of the pro-Army non-specific enemy movies. War had not yet been declared by the United States. However, the draft had been operational in expectation of war in both Europe and the South Pacific. What this film does is to try to illustrate that the draft was fair and equitable, and that the rich were also being called to serve. The movie suggests that the Army was a relatively nice place to be, as Dan Forester (the rich boy) says: "I like the Army more and more each day." Stan and Ollie had joined to protect Dan from the pitfalls of Army life, but who is to protect them from themselves? All in all, it's a funny movie, especially the "first breakfast in the mess hall" scene and the "wrong side of the target range" scene. In war and comedy, timing is indeed everything.

"Help. There's a crow in my pants!"

[weezeralfalfa · 7/10 · 6 December 2018]

If you are used to Hal Roach -directed Laurel and Hardy comedies, you will probably sense that this Fox-sponsored offering has a different 'feel' to it. To me, the duo often feel like they are actors trying to mimic their Roach characters. They're often lacking the same intense love-hate relationship seen in their Roach films. We miss hearing Stan's occasional mispronouncements, for example.......... Occasionally, they do feel like the Laurel and Hardy of old. For example, when Stan asks Ollie for the time, Ollie rotates his wrist to see his watch, forgetting that he has a drink in the same hand. Result: he spills the drink down his front. Later, Ollie decides he will get even with Stan. When he sees Stan with a drink in his hand, he asks for the time(What happened to his watch?). Sure enough, Stan spills his drink, but not on himself, rather on Ollie's face, as he is lying down. Then, there's the caper where Stan wants to get his pet crow: Penelope, out of sight, for the company inspection. So, he stuffs the crow down the back of Ollie's fatigues. Of course, Ollie squirms and jumps around as the general passes by. Hilarious! .......While in basic training, they somehow acquire business suits to hopefully increase their credibility when they go visiting Ginger: the base token female. They know she went out on a date with their friend Dan. They also know that his civilian doctor warned him that getting into romantic relationships could damage his heart So, they have come to try to cool any relationship between the 2, for Dan's sake. Thus, they tell her that he is dirt poor, and as various health issues. She happens to see a picture of Dan and Stan and Ollie in fatigues. She plays along with them for a while, then turns on them as meddling interlopers..........By the way, Dan's civilian doctor claims he has at least 108 allergies. So, why don't we ever see symptoms during his basic training? Must be either that his doctor is wrong, or that something about army life has suppressed his symptoms, as the army doctor suggested.........The occasional presence of Sheila Ryan, as Ginger, brightens things up, as she is cute and vivacious, at 20. I do miss the presence of at least one of the 3 most charismatic male supporting actors frequently present in Roach's talkies. They were all nemeses of the boys, hence could have filled the role of Stg. Hippo. I'm speaking of Jim Finlayson, Billy Gilbert, and Walter Long. There is no comparable supporting actor in this film.........In the Roach films, the pair occasionally had an animal costar. Here, they have Penelope, the crow. Mostly, she's a pain, But, in the war games, she becomes a hero, because, in looking for Stan, she leads the White army to where the Blue army is building their bridge across the river, to invade the territory of the White army. (Stan was captured by the Blue army, and assigned to work on the bridge). In the beginning, she steals Dan's draft notice letter out of Stan's hand and flies off with it. Later, she returns with it, and gives it to Dan, who exclaims "Delivered by air mail".......See it at YouTube.

Surprisingly watchable

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 1 January 2008]

The 1940s were not kind to Laurel and Hardy. First, they looked very old--time had not been very kind to them, especially Stan Laurel. Second, Ollie now weighed in at about 350 pounds and simply was too rotund to do all the physical humor the duo had done in the 1930s. And finally, after SAPS AT SEA (1940), the team unwisely left Hal Roach Studio--making films for RKO, Fox and other studios that seemed to have no idea what to do with them. Overall, these movies are dreadful--terribly unfunny and sad for most Laurel and Hardy fans to watch.

Perhaps among the best of these poor films was GREAT GUNS. While the film wasn't particularly funny, it also was reasonably diverting and at least the team didn't embarrass themselves. However, at the onset, the film has one major strike against it. Like almost all of these 40s films, Stan and Ollie are NOT the whole show, so to speak. Instead, they are most supporting characters--something they almost never did in their earlier films. In DANCE MASTERS (1943), Stan and Ollie help out a guy and girl who are in love but whose parents don't approve, in NOTHING BUT TROUBLE (1944), they help out young prince and here in GREAT GUNS, they follow a guy into the cavalry who supposedly is too sickly to serve. It seems that in the 40s, Stan and Ollie now are no longer comedians, but social workers of sorts!

At the onset, you must completely suspend disbelief to watch this film. After all, the boys are both about 50 and Ollie must weigh as much as a tank. No army is THAT desperate for men! However, despite the improbability of the plot and that the team are more supporting players, GREAT GUNS has a few pluses. Stan and Ollie's war film isn't great but compares reasonably well to other contemporary films such as BUCK PRIVATES, CAUGHT IN THE DRAFT and MR. WINKLE GOES TO WAR. Also, while not super-funny, there are a few good moments and I did laugh a few times--something I NEVER did with many of the other 1940s films they made.

Overall, if you are not a fan of the team or know little about them, don't watch this film. It will not particularly impress you or you might assume it's like their earlier work--which it isn't. However, if like me you are a rabid fan, then at least this one won't make you cringe and it's a harmless diversion.

A Very Funny Movie with Laurel & Hardy

[frankebe · 7/10 · 5 April 2009]

As often as I dismay that our high-schools and colleges are churning out people who cannot read and write, I am regularly heartened by the pro level of writing in so many online reviews. In this set, I found "The beginning of the end" by Jim Griffin, a particularly thoughtful and well-written mini-essay, and I agree with all of his specific observations. On the other hand, as accurate as I find all objections to the way this movie was made, the negatives still do not outweigh the positives. "Great Guns" is very entertaining, mostly briskly edited and funny enough to make me laugh out loud.

Granted, I felt a sort of cognitive dissonance while watching. It was embarrassing to watch L&H play-acting through the dopey one-liners, saying things they would never say in their own world, and the forced emotional responses dictated by the script; then right after a poor moment I would be charmed their perfect timing and naturalness with a bit of physical comedy or some of their own dialogue. So all the way through I was about to cover my eyes, and then I'd have to laugh. For me, the most irritating characteristic of the script is it demands that L&H continue to (maddeningly) coddle the Nelson character, whereas I wanted to see them become sympathetic allies early on, and use their special brand of clown-resourcefulness help him have a little healthy adventure and romance. Dang; could've been a good script...

Folks, Great Guns is not a Hal Roach L&H movie. Forget about it. This is a 1941 Military Service movie with Laurel & Hardy. Accept it that way and you'll enjoy it. "Swiss Miss" and "Chump at Oxford" weren't much better.

Imagine that someone asked two inveterate clowns to take leading roles in an army film, and they agreed to do it. Stanley still gets a few magical moments, like clipping the grass with tiny wire cutters and a bird on his shoulder, and trying to shave with a (lit) light bulb in his mouth. Oliver shows off his physical deftness dancing with a crow, and he can still begin to run without getting anywhere. And he's not so fat! See how incredibly dapper he looks in a tailored suit, about 49 minutes into the film.

Both comedians look in excellent health; a little older now, for sure, but age happens. If Stan played the same otherworldly empty-headed character of the Hal Roach years, he would seem retarded; here he seems a little more like a normal guy who's been a little too- -well, sheltered in life, and has a number of interesting eccentric mannerisms. A bit like a prototype Ed Norton. If L&H are more paternal than usual, I think it's a logical attempt at developing their personas to fit their age. It is regretful they did not get the chance to really work out the appropriate alterations to their characters as time altered their appearance.

The last 20 minutes or so are a little slow, but L&H make it worthwhile with all their engaging little gesticulations and their excellent partner-timing. Only the last 7 minutes becomes boring with too much stock footage of war games. Cute ending though.

To misquote another viewer's comment, it's not a bad movie, just not real L&H movie. It's a little like L&H agreed to impersonate themselves, and if you don't mind that for 75 minutes, the movie is a good 7 out of 10: that is, a pleasant and better-than-average diversion for a Sunday afternoon. For comparison, I suppose I would rate the Hal Roach "Swiss Miss" 6-ish out of 10...although it is more "pure" L&H, it has the same romantic sub-plot problem as Great Guns, plus dull unnecessary musical numbers.

Not ideal Laurel and Hardy, but somewhat fun all the same

[kpetnews · 5/10 · 2 June 2006]

As most Laurel and Hardy enthusiasts know, this was the first film that the two comedians made for 20th Century Fox after leaving Hal Roach. Suddenly pressed into an oppressive studio system, the stars were put through their paces in a movie that was intentionally meant as a ripoff of Abbott & Costello's "Buck Privates." Not having seen that movie, I can't comment on the similarities. However, I can comment that Stan and Ollie are clearly not in the same type of picture that they had been appearing in previously. Whether that's good or bad depends on your point of view.

Stan and Babe had spent twelve years developing a slower, more laconic style of comedy dependent upon milking reactions to familiar gags, and being more about characters than situations. All that is gone with "Great Guns," which is more about silly gags and patter. The pace is faster, so no one has any time to milk a reaction. And it's clear that Stan and Babe aren't terribly comfortable with that.

One problem is that the one-liners aren't particularly funny. After a couple of viewings, it still took me a while to realize that some of the lines were meant to be jokes. Laurel and Hardy try to punch up some of the gags with their usual physical shtick, which is partially successful. (The beginning of the film involves Stan manicuring a lawn with tiny scissors.) The best gag is towards the end of the film, involving a long plank of wood. Unfortunately it's not enough to make up for a stupid scene where the duo masquerades as businessmen, or a later bit where Stan actually goes "Woooooooo!" like a drunken football fan, completely unconvincingly.

If you ignore the more embarrassing sub-Stooges material, you can get a few laughs out of this film. Stan and Babe have enough professionalism to not make any film a total loss. But there are better films to watch, and this definitely is not the first film to introduce someone unfamiliar with Laurel and Hardy.

Good later Laurel and Hardy!

[cellorey · 8/10 · 11 January 2001]

This wartime comedy is one of Laurel and Hardy's first movies for Twentieth Century-Fox, so it isn't nearly as consistently funny as the ones they made at MGM. However, I found this to be very amusing and enjoyable, with many good laughs. The first half is very slow, but once they get involved with their Sergeant Hippo, it picks up a lot. Try not to laugh when Stan shoves a crow down Ollie's pants during an inspection, or when Stan and Ollie are forced to build a pontoon bridge (I liked Stan's choice of wood). All in all, this movie is ten times better than any of the comedies they come out with today and is definitely worth any L&H fans time. 8 out of 10.

Stan and Ollie in the Army...Again - Great Guns

[arthur_tafero · 6/10 · 4 April 2022]

This was not the first film that Stan and Ollie were in the army. The first one was Blockheads (1938) which saw Stanley guard the Western Front for 20 years after the war ended. This Laurel and Hardy film was the inspiration for Abbott and Costello's Buck Privates, which did very well at the box office. After that film, Fox decided to put Stan and Ollie in the army again. Unfortunately, although funny in spots, the film does not have the nice easy flow that the Stan Laurel direction pieces had. This was a major error by the Fox studio to use some hack director in place of Stan Laurel. The plot is rather lame, but Stan and Ollie keep the film from being a flop.

Anything-But-Great Guns

[ccthemovieman-1 · 3/10 · 3 October 2007]

By 1941, the boys - Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy - were getting "long in the tooth" and their films showed it. Sadly, they kept going for awhile after this movie.

This film simply wasn't funny, and these guys were supposed to provide laughs. That is what I learned to expect from them, having watched a few of their 1930s efforts. That's why I purchased this on tape. However, I never found one thing to laugh in the first half of this film, got discouraged and brought the tape back to the video store.

The physical slapstick is okay, not too bad but all the one-line jokes are horrible, just not funny, nor are a number of the skits. Neither are the "fat" jokes, which are overplayed. Those are at Ollie's expense and one might have been good once or twice, but you hear it throughout the movie. I did laugh early on as Stan was trying the mow the lawn with a pair of scissors, but there weren't enough crazy-funny scenes from that point to make this be a recommended film.

Lower L&H

[Michael_Elliott · 29 February 2008]

Great Guns (1941)

** (out of 4)

Laurel and Hardy join the Army and very few laughs follow. With every comedy group doing a comedy about going to the Army I was curious as to why I hadn't seen one with L&H but here it is. While the film wasn't as bad as I was expecting there's no doubt this thing is far off from their classic days. A few laughs are to be found including one where a crow gets in Hardy's pants and another gag dealing with some gun powder. The film only runs 73-minutes but even that seems like forever.

Worth watching once but it doesn't come close to their shorts.

Laurel & Hardy go Great Guns in their first Fox feature

[tavm · 7/10 · 24 April 2023]

I first knew about this, Stan & Ollie's first film after leaving the Hal Roach Studios, when reading Randy Skretvedt's book "Laurel & Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies". He himself didn't have many complimentary things to say about it, noting that for the first time in his career, Stan Laurel had no creative control over the material, having been hired by 20th Century-Fox as actor only. Be that as it may, I enjoyed this the first time on VHS some 30 years ago and I still enjoy it now just watching it on YouTube. It's true that some of the characterizations of the Stan & Ollie characters is somewhat violated-they speak a little faster this time around and the two actually do wisecracks, a rarity in their work, but they still provide some good laughs despite that like when Stan has to hide a pet crow and Ollie feels discomfort when Laurel finds one! And lone screenwriter Lou Breslow at least consulted Stan on the script which avoided even more violations of the team's characterizations, such as having them fight over a woman when the Laurel characterization was established as asexual! Breslow later denied that Great Guns was inspired by the success of Abbott & Costello's Buck Privates but his initial script was revealed to have a dialogue scene that directly referenced that. (You can read what that sequence was like in my review of that A & C flick). And cameraman Glen MacWilliams, an old friend of Ollie's, does the team no favors by discarding their usual white makeup. Still, I found much to enjoy in Great Guns. So that's a recommendation. P. S. Leading lady Sheila Ryan would return in L & H's A-Haunting We Will Go as would Breslow and MacWilliams. And having now reviewed Breslow's L & H movie, I will next review his contributions of that other comedy team's film, Bud Abbott & Lou Costello in Hollywood.

"Something went wrong."

[The_Movie_Cat · 4/10 · 4 May 2004]

Great Guns takes us back to war days, a period when people were having to tighten their belts because times were hard. The great comedy drought of '41 saw jokes in movies placed on a ration of just one per 75 minutes. Unfortunately Great Guns lasts for 74.

Notwithstanding the brief step away to RKO in 1939 with The Flying Deuces, this was the first of the duo's nine post-Roach movies. To be fair, while most of them are wretched, this one isn't so awful, despite the almost total absence of anything approaching a gag. While Laurel and Hardy had begun to decline since hitting an-all time peak in 1937 (Way Out West), this was still only four years on, and just a year after the reasonably amusing A Chump At Oxford. So it is that, despite having no back-up on the writing front and being acted off the screen by a crow, they still manage to find some last residual laughs in the tank.

Highlight has to be the parade line-up where they order the General to take their photo. Ollie's cry to Stan of "Give it a little dignity" briefly recalls some of the glory days, as does Stan's earlier self-parodying [We haven't eaten for three days] "Yesterday, today and tomorrow." In the main, though, Stan and Ollie were living on reputation alone. The guest cast (the leads of which are picked because they're photogenic, and virtually none of them display comic timing) react against L & H as if they're a couple of bozos, but not because the duo are acting in any way strange. Even just being glanced standing perfectly normally in a line-up will produce outrage and some cranked-up incidental music to cement the gag.

Yes, Stan and Ollie are rarely seen doing anything genuinely funny in a film past 1940, but we're led to believe they are by goodwill and past knowledge alone. Yet what if someone had never seen a Laurel and Hardy film before this? Surely it would fall down as two averagely amusing men lark about in third-rate vignettes joined together in an approximation of narrative? If this was the first Laurel and Hardy film you'd seen you'd never know what the fuss was about, something lost on Fox who promote their Stan & Ollie output on home video with a trailer announcing "four of their best-loved movies". Isn't that against the Trades Descriptions Act?

The humour is sometimes a little unsettling, too. When a Sergeant has his face blackened in an explosion, Stan and Ollie pretend not to recognise him, Stan suggesting "Look, they've assigned us a porter." Much 'hilarity' ensues, after which the General demands, "what are you trying to do, put on a Minstrel show?" For their 20s and 30s output it was a naïve gesture, a world away. But this is far too close to home not to be uncomfortable nowadays, particularly as the 'joke' comes not from Stan's ignorance but from cognisant racial mockery. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, just as 99% of the jokes about the boys seem to be solely related to how thick they are. ("Maybe they'll put me in the Intelligence Corps." "Brother, you're with him, right now.")

Thankfully, as poor as this is (and there's a reason that a crow down your underpants never became a comedy staple) Stan and Ollie are the more-or-less the focus all the way through, rather than playing support in their own movie. Jokes like Ollie checking the time and spilling his drink down his shirt seem old now, but were possibly reasonably new then (and still considered good enough to be homaged 43 years later in The Young Ones). Having said that, the film drags on lifelessly for the whole second half, so the best that can possibly be said is that it's bearable.

Now we ain't sayin' this is a Bad Movie, It's just that It's a Bad LAUREL & HARDY Movie. Get it, Schultz?

[redryan64 · 5/10 · 28 December 2008]

ANYONE (and this would include about everyone) who has ever watched the Films of Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy, generally loves the team and can watch and re-watch their works again and again; only to put them away for a time and repeat the process over and over again many times. The films are just that good and one can see that there was real care and affection for their production that was a driving force in their inception and realization to screen.

STARTING with their accidental teaming on the lot of Hal Roach Studios in (Circa) 1926 to the sound movies they made in 1940, the tally board shows one great and memorable comedy short or feature after another. To be sure, some of their films were a cut above the others and others are not quite up to their standards; but overall, they were among the best comedies in the world.

THEN something happened. The team left the hallowed sanctuary of Hal Roach for some seemingly greener pastures on just the other side of the fence. The result was they didn't make the films the way that the two comedians were used to. Instead of feeling their way through a basic premise, with a highly flexible and briefly written script, they were given their assignments to do Picture "A" and then they'd do it. There was very little wiggle room at the two studios in which they worked; being 20th Century-Fox and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. No longer could Stan Laurel work out a gag and shoot it from a variety of angles in to get the gag just right visually. The new order of the day called for getting the movie done in as little "takes" as is possible.

NOW we are talking about today's 'victim', GREAT GUNS (20th Century-Fox, 1941). Other than THE FLYING DEUCES (Boris Moros/RKO Radio Pictures, 1939), this is the first movie made by the Laurel & Hardy team outside of Hal Roach Studios. Not that the movie is all that bad as a wartime comedy (even tough it was released two months before the Pearl Harbor Attack of December 7, 1941) which it is not. It's just that it is a terrible Laurel & Hardy Film. (Get it, Schultz?) BASICALLY it is much like the Abbott & Costello vehicle, BUCK PRIVATES (Universal Pictures, 1941), which was released January 31, 1941. These and other films were Hollywood's way of getting the country in the cooperative mood to accept the National Conscription Act which had brought about the first Peacetime Draft in the History of the United States.

ONCE again, GREAT GUNS isn't really a bad movie. It's just that it's not a good Laurel & Hardy outing. While it is probably not the worst, it was mainly all down hill from that point on. The best of the Post Roach L & H's is said to be JITTERBUGS (20th CEntury-Fox, 1944) with Vivian Blaine; but that's another story, Schultz!

POODLE SCHNITZ!!

Irrepressible Stan and Ollie!

[opsbooks · 8/10 · 8 February 2008]

Despite a trite script, Stan and Ollie, like two jewels, rise above all and provide some great laughs.

I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who wasn't a fan of the great duo, but seeing it for the first time was a revelation after all the negative things I'd read and heard about the Fox movies.

The direction and photography was of a high standard while the supporting cast was adequate if not in the same league as our pals.

Of all the sequences, I have to vote the 'bird down the trousers' sequence as the most memorable. No other comic team could have pulled off that gag so well!

Laurel & Hardy Join The Army And Look What Happens

[StrictlyConfidential · 5/10 · 9 June 2020]

Released back in 1941 - "Great Guns" certainly did have its entertaining and hilarious moments - But, it was definitely Laurel and Hardy past their peak.

In "Great Guns" Laurel and Hardy join the U.S. Army and, in doing so, this offers these 2 funny-guys the golden opportunity to get themselves mixed up in all sorts of wacky, slapstick shenanigans.

I would say that one of this film's best moments was when Laurel and Hardy gleefully participated in the all-important "war game" maneuvers.

Marginally decent, though out-of-character L & H effort

[beauzee · 5/10 · 1 November 2014]

maybe not quite as awful as critics and fans say...but very disappointing, at least in one regard: it's not very funny. plus, the "humour" is too often coming from the wrong place: Ollie w Stan's lines and Stan doing lines 100% out of character.

Stan in the mess hall, asking for "sanka", as I recall. the food server says, "you're welcome". a good chance for a typical L & H bit...but no. the miscellaneous actor gets the laff.

Ollie gets a glass of water in the face when Stan holds a glass and turns his wrist to look at the time. Ollie tries to set up Stan and it goes...askew. Ollie says, "something went wrong". What Roach coukld have done with that > Ollie simply looks in the camera! Finally...one of the worst racial bits ever > Sgt. Hippo gets coal or gun powder, whatever, all over himself and Laurel laughs hysterically > "Old Black Joe!". The team hated that kind of thing but mystifyingly...they go along with it.

on the plus side, the film has a professional look about it and has several genuine laffs, including an actual "LOL" scene > at Ollie's expense. The Drill Sergeant can only wonder.

What a waste of talent

[vinnienh · 15 March 2002]

I think this L&H-movie was definitely one of their weakest. The background of nearly-war makes this almost a stereotype American propaganda flick, nothing more. There are some funny moments but in all, I guess Stan and Ollie weren't proud of this one.

Stinks!

[rooster_davis · 2/10 · 17 July 2009]

I've been a fan of Laurel and Hardy all my life, but there came a point in their movie career where their distinct style of humor simply ceased to be. In their earlier films, you had Stan with his endless Malaprops, prompting Ollie's looks of disgust into the camera; the physical comedy was brilliant, and often led off by the duo selecting the most illogical and idiotic course of action possible for the bizarre circumstances in which they found themselves.

Example: You are delivering a piano. The door of the house is locked but you can get in through an upstairs balcony door. Do you put one person in through that door, then have him come downstairs and open the main door for you to bring in the piano? No, you try to bring the piano in through the upstairs door, using a flimsy canopy as a mounting point for a block and tackle hoist! That is just an example of the kind of humor which made Stan and Ollie famous.

Well, all that seems to be gone in this movie. I got halfway through watching "Great Guns" and realized I had wasted as much time as I had spent watching it to that point - and I turned it off. (If I have to watch more than half-way through a movie to get past the part that is an utter waste, it's too far gone to redeem itself for me.) While Stan and Ollie still looked much like their old selves in this film, it's like they were almost afraid to be those two zany characters from their GOOD movies, like they didn't feel like they could pull it off... like maybe they didn't believe in themselves anymore? Laurel and Hardy had a period in which they made brilliant comedies, where you couldn't help laughing out loud at the sheer lunacy of their antics and the disasters which resulted. Like Stan trying to move a dump truck so Ollie could get his wife's new convertible out of its parking space, and Stan works the lever that makes the dump truck unload tons of dirt onto the car. Or Stan visiting Ollie in the hospital and sitting on a hypodermic needle full of tranquilizer, and Ollie ending up hanging out the window by his cast-wrapped leg. Those were Laurel and Hardy films which made them popular and famous, deservedly so. This movie, Great Guns, is all talk talk talk, most of that not very funny, and little else. Yawn. I'm a big L&H fan but I know I will never bother watching this film ever again. Phew! It's a sad movie, not a comedy. It's simply not very funny, and very little like the earlier films they'd made.

Very Fun Movie! Some Other Reviewers Were Too Hard On It!

[boland7214 · 10/10 · 24 July 2014]

Most of the reviewers up here are too hard on this movie!!! It's as though you had a lovely strawberry tart and you complained that there weren't enough strawberries on it! There are many laughs....there is action....gags.....some physical humor (bumping into doors)....a lot of "personality" by Laurel and Hardy....a beautiful lady in Sheila Ryan (I almost fell for her myself!)....interesting story line....a lot of "atmospheric shots" of the army camp and other areas....just a great film. OK....so it's not "Gone With The Wind"....or one of "the boys" classic films.... So what? Just take it for what it is...a "fun" film...and you'll be very happy with it. And, by the way, at the time of this film I don't think either Stan or Laurel had been ill yet.... so they look good! Have fun!!! :o) [e-mail]

They Don't Make Them Like They Used To.

[ExplorerDS6789 · 2/10 · 31 July 2018]

Being a life-long Laurel and Hardy fan, having seen all their features and shorts from 1929-1940, I had never really seen the films they did with Fox. However, I've heard nothing but bad things about them, so I decided to let curiosity get the better of me and watch their first Fox feature, Great Guns. I was expecting a departure from their usual quality brand of comedy, but nothing could've prepared me for what I saw here. I had no idea it would THIS bad, that Stan and Ollie would be THAT out of character, and that this so-called movie would be THIS devoid of humor. I expected a pale imitator, but this has to be seen to be believed. They have to TRY to make something this bad. So what is our story about? It begins with Stan and Ollie working as servants for a sickly young man named Dan Forrester. Despite apparently being allergic to everything under the sun, Dan is an upbeat, high-spirited man, and when his draft notice arrived, he was only too happy to go. Despite Stan and Ollie trying to interfere in his examination, Dan is given a clean bill of health and is going to war. But, surprise, surprise, Stan and Ollie are conscripted to go with him and keep an eye on him. You know, I'm starting to wonder if that boy was ever sick. Probably not. Anyway, ordinarily someone with Ollie's girth would be disqualified from the army, but at the 10th Cavalry, they'll take anybody...except Stan's pet crow, Penelope. Nothing interesting really happens at first, the boys find a way to beat the line in the mess hall, only to eventually have their food stolen. They inadvertently insult a colonel. When told they're going to be given an IQ test, Ollie remarks, "maybe they'll put me in the Intelligence 'Corpse,'" which would've been more in character for Stan to say, and then Ollie would say, "not corpse. He means Corps. 'Corpse.' Mmh!" I mean, 16 minutes into a Laurel and Hardy feature and you haven't laughed once is not a good sign. Well, from taking horse riding lessons to even simply eating breakfast, Stan and Ollie are always acting as Dan's overprotective mothers. It's something that gets old very quickly. After that, the boys go out into the woods, so finally alone, you'd think here is where some classic L&H can begin. Unfortunately not, since the boys find themselves in the middle of an artillery exercise. They find an unexploded shell and hitch a ride on a traveling target, at first not fully realizing they're being shot at. Come on, writers, Stan and Ollie are not THIS stupid! Anyway, they manage to get back to camp and their snarky sergeant, nicknamed Hippo, inadvertently uses gun powder from the unexploded shell to light his pipe and it explodes, giving him blackface. Now, you remember the "Amos and Andy" and "Sambo" jokes from Pardon Us (1931)? Acceptable, kinda funny, not mean-spirited, but this one goes to a whole new level. Stan and Ollie see Hippo in blackface and say, "look, they've assigned us a porter" and "You may start over here, my good man, and you may have Thursdays off." Wow, that's horrifically racist even by 1940s standards. By the way, the 10th Cavalry was predominantly black, so the joke's on them. Not that they'd notice.

While all this madness is going on, Dan has developed a crush on the PX girl, Ginger. Unfortunately, Sgt. Hippo has a crush on the same woman, and he intends to make Dan's life a living hell as a result. Hippo's not the only one, when Stan and Ollie find out, they try to stop him, for fear of his health. Oh, come on! So they decide to pay Ginger a visit at her residence... by the way, has anybody noticed that these new army recruits have an incredible amount of free time? On the verge of WWII, you'd think they'd be training non-stop. But anyway, they try to dig up some dirt on Ginger and dissuade Dan from seeing her, but he doesn't listen. He's in love with her. So... get this: Stan and Ollie deliberately get Dan in trouble with Hippo and get him sent to the brig. What the hell? That was so uncalled for. Also, that's the end of the Dan/Ginger/Hippo love triangle. The script didn't pay enough attention for us to care. So let's jump to the scene most people remember: the Jeep ride. The boys drive a Jeep down a wild path in order to oversee construction on a bridge. However, "enemy" troops are ready for them, and when they predictably drive the Jeep into the river, they're surrounded. What happens next? Well, in a real L&H comedy, Ollie would say to Stan, "well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into," and Stan does his usual crying bit. But here, Ollie simply tells Stan to lock up the Jeep so it won't get stolen. Oh God. Anyway, Dan commandeers a horse to go save his overprotective nannies, the armies start fighting, the enemy bridge is destroyed and the war games are over, and Stan and Ollie get bumped to sanitation detail. The end.

So, in closing, Great Guns is a mess. It's a very bad movie, it's boring, it's not funny, and if this were just some silly '40s B-movie, that would be acceptable, but this is Laurel and Hardy! The greatest comedy duo of all time. The men comedians for generations were inspired by and aspired to be like. Their work is genius, it is respected, it's genuine, and most of all, it's funny. You know, this felt like I was watching a bad Laurel and Hardy parody... only starring Laurel and Hardy. I can't believe this, it's like the writer and director were not familiar with their work at all, save for the two jokes stolen from previous shorts-true fans can spot them. Stan reportedly hated these Fox movies, and I don't blame him one bit. He was allowed NO creative control or input. This is what the studio system was like back then: a dictatorship. You had to do exactly as you were told and if you tried to back out, your reputation was ruined. I actually feel embarrassed watching this movie. Embarrassed for Stan and Oliver. They had no choice, they had to do this and couldn't speak up. So, yeah, in closing, Great Guns is a bad movie. Go watch some REAL Laurel & Hardy like The Music Box, Sons of the Desert, Helpmates, Towed in a Hole, Men O'War, Laughing Gravy, Way Out West, ANYTHING but this! Hardcore L&H fans will hate this movie. It's an insult. This is not a fine mess, this is a huge mess!