Further proof that the boys should never have progressed beyond the 30 minute/short format except when they had guaranteed gold on their hands ("Way Out West" and (above all!) "Sons of the Desert"). This offering just goes on and on and never really raises the kind of belly laughs you can get by the score just from watching a golden short like "The Music Box". The gags seem laboured (Stan's loose tooth ceases being funny after about the second occurrence) and even James Finlayson's double-takes seem out of place ("teacher"to a "class" of ultra hard-boiled convicts sitting sedately behind school desks and behaving like ten-year school children?! Some of the script writers had VERY strange notions of what prison life was/is like!) The pits, though, are reached when Stan and Ollie "hide out" among negroes on (where else?) a cotton plantation. You cannot really blame them/the script writers, the director etc etc for conforming SO utterly with the morality of most of the people of the time but you DO have to recall this was also the decade when Paul Robeson was appearing on screen and Orson Welles was casting all-black productions of 'Macbeth'! Some civil courage/backbone would have been welcome as opposed to stereotypical portrayals which would have delighted KKK members when the film was shown in cinemas they frequented and would not have been out of place in "Birth of a Nation"! Finally, the editing of the version I saw (claimed to be 'fully restored and remastered') was just a total mess, jumping from scene to scene without any transition/rational links and breaking the (in any case) minimal story line. No, overall, watching this was a sad and dispiriting experience (and one I shall certainly not repeat willingly.) WHAT a shame that the greatest comedy combination there has ever been wasted their time on such things.