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Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The story opens in the Winter of 1929, right at the beginning of The Great Depression, which helps explain why our boys are performing on musical instruments for charitable donations. I didn't see the gag coming about the Deaf and Dumb Institute, thereby making their performance a moot exercise. With snow falling hard all around them it's not long before the inevitable snowball fight gets started, and the surprise for me was seeing that the 'formidable woman' (Blanche Payson) was actually bigger than Ollie! With a repertoire that consists of repeats of 'The Good Old Summertime', it's not likely the Boys will have much success in their musical endeavors, but a chance finding of a wallet introduces the second half of the picture which can only end in one way. After completing an exquisite steak dinner, Stan notices the picture of the local beat cop (Frank Holliday) who they invited to join them. A second round of hysterics issues from there.What kills me about Stan and Ollie is the way they take the most mundane and ordinary of circumstances and turn them into a veritable laugh riot. This one is no different, and fans of the comedy duo should be well pleased.

Below Zero (1930)*** (out of 4) Street musicians Laurel and Hardy find a wallet full of money in the street so they offer to take a policeman to dinner. After eating they discover that the wallet belongs to the cop. Here's an entertaining short, which doesn't rank as one of the duos best or funniest but it remains fun throughout.Tiembla Y Titubea (1930)** 1/2 (out of 4) Spanish version of Below Zero has the same storyline of the American version but this one here features a few additional scenes as well as an extended ending, which was cut from the American version. Like other Spanish L&H films, this here doesn't quite work because you can tell the two aren't really comfortable speaking Spanish. The added joke at the end however is the best gag and it's a shame it was cut from the American version.

By the time of the release of BELOW ZERO (1930), the public was well aware of just what Laurel & Hardy's voices sounded like. Unlike other Comedians, Tragedians and Comedy Teams, the Boys took the New Era of Sound Films all in stride. Unlike others whose voices were deemed to be inconsistent with their screen image, and hence unfit to be used in the Talkies. There would be no going back from this point.So we now had the Laurel & Hardy'modus operandi, which had been developing for about 4 years by this time. But now we can hear them; laughing, crying and delivering some very fine humor. Verbal humor would be added to the battery of Big Humor Guns. And, thank your Lucky Stars; the voices fit their visual images.As for our film, we first have to comment on the chosen setting. BELOW ZERO, though it was undoubtedly filmed at Hal Roach Studios in Culver City (?), in Suburban Los Angeles, sunny Southern California. But it really felt Cold!! The falling 'snow', the 'snow' on the ground, the ice topped rain barrels all appears to be the McCoy! And, Brother, here in Chicago, we do know our ice, snow, sleet and slush.The boys are cast as street musicians who are out on this particular Winter day, bravely and persistently hanging in there. They continually seem to be starting the same tune over and over again, Stanley on the Keyboard and Ollie plunking the Bass Fiddle to the tune of "In the Good, Old Summertime!" And all the while that they played, the snow kept falling, the Winter wind kept a blowin' and their teeth kept a chatterin'.' The one actually opening gag about their playing so long and compiling no gratuities; only to find that they were camped right in front of this one building. Though there was plenty of pedestrian traffic, they all seemed to just ignore the Boys. It was only when they decided to move on; Ollie discovered the placard on the one building which read: "Deaf and Dumb Institute!" This may seem a trifle in bad taste to us; and has been criticized by many. Especially today in our world of Political Correctness, where everyone seems so up tight about everything! In BELLOW ZERO the gang at Hal Roach Studios did a fine job of putting in the right ingredients into the mix. We see the boys engaged in some sort of work and no doing so well. We have the usual interplay, give and take between them. We have their getting in trouble with some tough hood, only to have the Cop come to their aid. But it seems that Laurel & Hardy usually go afoul of the Law and in this they do not disappoint. Finally they get into trouble with the tough restaurateur, ultimately winding it all up with favourite ploy, the Sight Gag, and then it's fade out, music, ending credits.With the release of BELOW ZERO, the team now had a sound short to use as a barometer for all subsequent Sound Shorts.

This is a cute little Laurel and Hardy short. It begins with the boys working as street musicians to earn money but they are pretty unsuccessful--and their choice of tunes probably isn't helping any during the snow storm. The deaf joke at the beginning wasn't politically correct, but it was pretty funny. In a rather dark bit later in the short, Laurel and Hardy invite a cop to lunch after the boys find a wallet. Well, it wasn't very surprising WHO the wallet turned out to belong to, but what set this apart was the awful restaurant and how they dealt with deadbeats. I'm sure this sort of joke was a product of the times, given that the Depression had been on for about a year. While the film takes a very leisurely pace and not a lot of bold action occurs, there is a lot of charm and the gags are timed very well--and this is definitely classic Laurel and Hardy.