First let me say that I bow to no one on earth in my love for Laurel and Hardy. They were the greatest comics in cinema history, in my view. Yes, better than Chaplin, yes even better than Keaton (though I consider Keaton more of a film artist than a comic — in that realm, he's untouchable).
So I feel fully qualified, knowing The Boys' oeuvre backwards and forwards, to state that this film, while good, is overrated.
I used to believe that its status as the absolute apotheosis of their film career (and perhaps in all of film comedy) was simply a matter of a statement being repeated again and again until it becomes the truth without regard to its actual substance.
This still may be so, though I would think at least some of the reviewers here may not have read every book on Laurel and Hardy that exists, as I have...so maybe this really is their unaided view.
In any case — this is a one-joke film. There are some amusing bits, but there is very little of the character exploration and development that goes hand in hand with the slapstick and marks the best Laurel and Hardy comedies. Once the game is on with Fin, it's simply a series of ever-escalating spasms of childish destruction.
They did this sort of tit-for-tat mutual destruction bit much more deftly in other films — and most of those films have additional L&H delights going for them that this one-trick pony does not.
To me, the ultimate test is the laugh quotient. There are a great many Laurel and Hardy films that can literally put me on the floor, collapsed in helpless laughter. This is not one of them.
I know that I may be virtually alone in my view of "Big Business," but that's OK. To those who are new to Laurel and Hardy, I just want to say that there are many other films in their canon that are superior to this one.
So I feel fully qualified, knowing The Boys' oeuvre backwards and forwards, to state that this film, while good, is overrated.
I used to believe that its status as the absolute apotheosis of their film career (and perhaps in all of film comedy) was simply a matter of a statement being repeated again and again until it becomes the truth without regard to its actual substance.
This still may be so, though I would think at least some of the reviewers here may not have read every book on Laurel and Hardy that exists, as I have...so maybe this really is their unaided view.
In any case — this is a one-joke film. There are some amusing bits, but there is very little of the character exploration and development that goes hand in hand with the slapstick and marks the best Laurel and Hardy comedies. Once the game is on with Fin, it's simply a series of ever-escalating spasms of childish destruction.
They did this sort of tit-for-tat mutual destruction bit much more deftly in other films — and most of those films have additional L&H delights going for them that this one-trick pony does not.
To me, the ultimate test is the laugh quotient. There are a great many Laurel and Hardy films that can literally put me on the floor, collapsed in helpless laughter. This is not one of them.
I know that I may be virtually alone in my view of "Big Business," but that's OK. To those who are new to Laurel and Hardy, I just want to say that there are many other films in their canon that are superior to this one.