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The movie's only flaw is also a virtue: It's jammed with characters, stories, warmth and laughs.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Hollywood was always suspicious of madcap comedians, and often burdened their films with mindless plots, subplots, silly love stories, and mediocre songs. This is a perfect example of the Twentieth Century Fox B unit busily churning out wartime entertainment for a less than demanding audience. L & H are not wasted, but under used. Even in as improbable story as this one, studio cowardice and lack of imagination cannot totally subvert the genius of two great comedians who could make even second-rate comic ideas seem better than they really were. Vivian Blaine, forever remembered as Adelaide in Guys and Dolls, debuts here as that stock character, the pretty spunky damsel in distress, a carbon copy of another FOX contract player, Alice Faye. She gets to sing three ordinary, completely forgettable tunes in excellent voice. Many similarly attractive young women like her were wasted like this during the studio days. Vivian had to good sense to go back to Broadway and to the stardom she deserved.

Sometimes even an out of their prime Laurel and Hardy flick can fill the bill, like it did this morning on the Fox Movie Channel. I haven't seen one of their features in a while so this was a welcome treat. Yet even though they're both top billed in the credits, you somehow get the feeling that they have a support role in this story about con men out-conning each other with the boys as willing partners. As the story progresses, a host of characters slip in and out of the action, and one of the puzzlers is how a couple of the original grifters named Corcoran (Robert Emmett Keane) and his wife Dorcas (Lee Patrick) simply drop out of the picture, even though Corcoran was a partner of the main villain Bennett (Douglas Fowley). Oh well, not to worry too much about figuring that out.In some respects it appears that Twentieth Century Fox was attempting to follow the Universal formula of Abbott and Costello's successful early films by supplying a host of musical numbers performed by the pretty Vivian Blaine. Her character is Miss Susan Cowan, who's aunt had been swindled using the old bait and switch envelope trick. Rounding out the main quartet, Robert Bailey portrays another grifter named Chester Wright, and when he's stricken by Miss Cowan's looks and charm, he's a goner. If there were only enough pretty women in the world, maybe there wouldn't be any bad guys.You know, I've been thinking about that gas pill gimmick. Recall how Ollie was offering the bargain price of one dollar for the five gallon pills and two bucks for ten gallons - that would have worked out to twenty cents a gallon to manufacture gasoline out of water. Well I recall buying gas at twenty eight cents a gallon when I first started driving in 1967, so I just looked it up, and a gallon of gas in 1943 cost about ten cents. I wonder what they were thinking when they put the script together.Anyway, as con man Chester puts it - "Money lost through larceny can often be recovered the same way". And so it goes, as Stan impersonates the dowager Aunt Emily Cartwright, and pulls off the envelope switcheroo against the bad guys. If you're attentive, you'll catch a quick line from Stanley stating "I feel so gay" when he first puts on women's clothing. It kind of makes me wonder what he'd say if he were around today.

This is the Laurel and Hardy film they say will give you gas, whether you want the five gallon size or the ten gallon. The boys are the proud two members of a two man band; Together, they can do as much as Glenn Miller, the Dorseys or Gene Krupa. In the middle of the desert, they run out of gas, but inventor Douglas Fowley comes by with the invention they need, and asks for their assistance at a carnival in a nearby town. But when the townsfolk run them out of town, Laurel & Hardy are joined by sexy Vivian Blaine who accidentally left her purse in Fowley's possession. The boys assist Blaine in uncovering a scam which took her mother's property, and outwit the gangsters, albeit quite accidentally.This is a film that depends less on gags and more on the big hearts that the boys share for the lovely Blaine. One hysterical sequence has Hardy posing as a Southern colonel who flirts with spider-woman Lee Patrick in order to expose her part in the scam while Laurel hides under her day bed. The rest of the comedy bits focus on Laurel posing in drag as Blaine's aunt. He doesn't alter his voice as he did in previous drag sequences in films, although I prefer the high-pitched squeak dubbed for his role as Oliver's wife in the classic short "Twice Two". The lack of slapstick helps make the fact that the boys are looking their age less painful.As for Vivian Blaine, people expecting her "Miss Adelaide" characterization from "Guys and Dolls" will be surprised to find her quite different. She altered her voice for that role and the MGM musical "Skirts Ahoy!", so how she sounds here is as she did in life and the majority of her film and stage work. She gets to sing and dance a bit, so that is an added plus. Of the leading ladies in Laurel and Hardy's last film work, Blaine is probably the best known, although this marks her first major role. The supporting villains are appropriately slimy, although the lack of a real ending marks the lower rating than I would have given the film otherwise.

Stan & Ollie are travelling musicians who run out of gas in the middle of nowhere and are helped out by a travelling salesman, Chester (Bob Bailey). He gives them one of his gas pills to put in their car and they decide to go into business combining their music act with selling these pills. When they try their luck in the next town, Chester meets Susan (Vivian Blaine) and she joins the gang. The plot then changes direction as we learn that Susan's aunt has had $10,000 dollars stolen by crooks. Chester, Susan, Stan & Ollie are determined to get the money back and the film follows their efforts to do this as Stan & Ollie pose as different characters at a hotel, while Susan takes a job as a singer at a club.There are some funny scenes and Vivian Blaine sings 3 songs. Its all completely unbelievable nonsense but at the end of the film you feel that you have been entertained.