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Very Cool!!!

Strong and Moving!

Simply Perfect

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

I'm sure I must have seen this short Laurel & Hardy comedy before but I don't really remember it. Perhaps that's because it falls far short of the standards of most of their other short films. Stan & Ollie are hapless assistants at a circus that literally collapses thanks to them being allowed too close to a cannon. The circus owner gives each employee an asset from the circus. Stan gets a flea circus (which soon escapes in his bed), while Ollie wins a gorilla in a tutu called Ethel. The trio then get into a number of misadventures, none of which are particularly funny. While the surreal image of a tutu-clad gorilla dancing ballet at the foot of Ollie's bed is certainly a striking one, the film as a whole will quickly fade from your memory. And is it me, or are the opening titles the wrong way around? Surely the line about Mr. Laurel never getting past the monkey cage should come last

Only true Laurel and Hardy addicts will appreciate this sub-standard short that has the boys doing their best to demolish a circus tent with explosive gun powder, after which STAN LAUREL is given a flea circus for a parting gift, and OLIVER HARDY, a chimp called Ethyl.Naturally, when they decide to look for lodgings they get a hard time from landlord BILLY GILBERT who refuses to have them under his roof when he spies the chimp. Gilbert is already in a dither because his wife hasn't come home yet--his dear Ethyl.The rest of the short has the boys getting into one sticky situation after another, but the laughs are meager and the obvious use of a man inside an ape costume takes a lot away from the gags. Funniest line has Stan sighting a loose lion on the prowl and Oliver asking him what's the matter. "I've seen MGM," is his straight answer.But the slapstick happenings are not on par with the duo's best comedy shorts. This is strictly an early Laurel and Hardy featurette from Hal Roach that needed a much better script. At least BILLY GILBERT gets to do his customary energetic job as the irate husband who overhears Hardy telling the chimp, "Come to bed, Ethyl."Good potential material, but it should have been a lot funnier.

I love Laurel and Hardy movies, so keep this in mind before you read this mediocre review. Don't just assume I can't stand their movies! Stan and Ollie are stuck with taking care of a guy in a cheap ape costume--though in the movie, the ape is SUPPOSED to be real. Okay. Well, to me it just looks like a guy in a cheap ape costume and I HATE when movies put people in crappy ape costumes. It never looks real and the plots, as in this film, are really corny and impossible to believe. In this case, it's a female ape (it really does NOT look like an orangutan, chimp OR gorilla) and it is in love with Stanley. Not only is this extremely contrived, but it's really nasty as well.The final verdict--stick with Laurel and Hardy, not "Laurel and Hardy and guy in crappy ape costume".

Sorry to see that Bob The Moo found this to be one of the weaker L&H shorts . By no means a classic compared to something like MURDER CASE it is very amusing . I guess if Bob saw this before watching THEIR FIRST MISTAKE we might have found this the superior short ? If THE CHIMP has a problem it's down to the internal logic and coincidence involved . For example if a circus went bust wouldn't the owner sell the animals to a zoo rather than give them away free to his now unemployed staff ? it's also strange that a lion can roam around an American city all day without someone calling the police , and what's the chances of a chimp arriving at a hotel where the landlord's wife has the same name as it ? Maybe you have to suspend disbelief a couple of times too often but I certainly found it very funny and well paced