Review of We Faw Down

I am not in the least a fan of Laurel and Hardy. This is not the kind of comedy that makes me laugh. But it is impossible not to appreciate the very "intimate" nature of their comedy that, while it owes something to Linder and to Chaplin, sets them apart from other comics of their time and to some extent explains why, virtually alone of those comics they would continue so successfully into the television era. Their comedy is of a childish simplicity and their plots are unoriginal but the sheer physicality of their performances based ona peculair chemistry between the two allows for an interplay not only between themselves but with the other players too that brings them close to the audience - sometimes rather uncomfortably close - in a way no comics had previously even atempted. It relies to some extent on the greater closeness of the camera that becomes possible from the mid-twenties but is very ittle dependent on sound, while other comics who achieved a similar intimacy in a more adult register - the Marx Brothers or W. C. Fields - were very reliant on sound to be effective in the cinema.