Watch The Flying Deuces For Free

Best movie of this year hands down!

Good concept, poorly executed.

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

A rather bizarre but nonetheless amusing and vastly entertaining addition to the Laurel and Hardy canon, this film re-united the team after a year of enforced separation (during which Hardy teamed with Harry Langdon for Zenobia) owing to Babe's contract over-run with Hal Roach. The movie was made on the RKO lot for independent producer Boris "Man on a String" Morros. Before achieving his later notoriety as a counterspy, Morros was a musician who conducted the Paramount Studio Orchestra in the 1930s. Perhaps it was his influence that led to the inclusion of two remarkably choice highlights in The Flying Deuces: In the first, the camp orchestra which is playing an innocuously atmospheric "desert sands" theme, suddenly as the comedians draw near bursts into "Shine On, Harvest Moon". Delightedly, Oliver himself sings the refrain while Stan gives one of his splendidly loose-limbed jigs. Oliver then joins in the dance, lifting his coat-tails in an exaggerated curtsy. Both dancers step off in a marvelous exit, raising their derbies in true vaudevillian style. In the second musical highlight, Laurel "performs" (with the assistance of an expert off-camera harpist) an inspired Harpo Marx take-off by strumming an hilariously inappropriate "The World Is Waiting For the Sunrise" (the duo are due to be shot at dawn) on an improvised bed-spring. Both these sequences are superbly timed and executed whereas a few of the other comedy acts seem a little forced (the prisoners fending off their pursuers by popping champagne corks), or a trifle overlong (the airplane acrobatics), or even mechanical (Laurel repeatedly bumping his head on a low ceiling). Nonetheless, Flying Deuces is vintage L&H. One of their funniest wheezes ever is an eye-boggling scene in which Stan attempts to find a vacancy on a hillside crowded with drying shirts - a chucklesome conceit climaxed by classic routines (Oliver agitatedly scrubbing a wash-board in a vain bid to look busy) and exchanges ("Now concentrate on trying to forget . . ."). All the same, Flying Deuces is thoroughly a-typical in its astonishingly bizarre plot and premises. And it was doubt¬less to embellish some of these sequences and effects that Rudolph Maté was hired. At this time, Maté was a leading cameraman. He had actually photographed L&H's Our Relations in 1936 but neither of the comedians liked his work. They preferred flat lighting and insisted that their regular cameraman, Art Lloyd, be borrowed from Hal Roach to photograph their scenes. Lloyd's work, with its dated use of highlights and pancake make-up gives the film a museum look that makes it appear far more ancient than 1939. Jumpy film editing and echo-chamber sound add to this impression. Yet The Flying Deuces has been rather handsomely produced, with lots of extras, elaborate sets, aerial photo¬graphy by Elmer Dyer, and an agreeable support cast led by Reginald Gardiner, Charles Middleton, James Finlayson (in a small cameo) and Jean Parker. Above all, it's a very funny, very entertaining film which doesn't deserve its mixed or mediocre reputation. The basic story is certainly odd - but should it be con¬demned on that point? In any event it serves as a peg for some wonderfully inventive Laurel & Hardy buffoonery.

Oliver is heartbroken when he finds that Georgette, the innkeeper's daughter he has fallen in love with, is already married to dashing Foreign Legion officer Francois. To forget her, he joins the Legion, taking Stanley with him.Laurel and hardy are a strange sort of comedy. While not as witty as the Marx Brothers, and not as physically active as Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd, they have the dynamic of the abusive fat man and sensitive thin man that has made them legendary.Here we have them basically trying to survive in Army and not doing very well, primarily because they are completely unable to work hard. This has some good comedy moments, highlighted by a dancing scene where Oliver is surprisingly light on his feet.

This was part of a 3-DVD box-set, and it came with the Laurel and Hardy shorts Just Ramblin' Along, Oranges and Lemons, The Tree in a Test Tube and the Three Stooges ones Malice in the Palace and Sing a Song of Six Pants; it also came with another feature, Atoll K(or Utopia). This disc came with Brideless Groom, Mud & Sand and The Tree in a Test Tube. Taking place in France, this has Ollie falling in love, only to discover that she is already married to another man. Being a bit of a romantic, his reaction is to try suicide, but before he can go through with it, he is told that the best way to forget is to join the Foreign Legion. The remainder of this very accurately spoofs said corps, and the military in general. I was impressed by the fact that this actually lets us feel his pain, and sympathize with him. Most of the gags are natural(yes, some of the gags are obvious if you stop to think about them, that's part of slapstick, right?), funny and light(a few are a tad dark), and many are clever. The violence tends to be cartoon-y, with no one being hurt. At its best, this is hilarious, including the great conclusion. This gets big near the end. The version I watched was 68 minutes long, including credits. I recommend this to fans of the duo. 7/10

Of all the comedy teams in film to date, none have ever surpassed the popular duo of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Further, no one has ever explained how these two simple comedians from different parts of the world, can go unheralded for years amid all the disastrous maniacal mayhem of the Hal Roach studios, but then once paired, became the most famous team to span generation after generation of audiences. This feature "Flying Deuces" is but one of their many features which has a reoccurring message. Take a life's' event like Oliver being rejected by a woman and what follows is sure to be "another find Mess, you've gotten me into" movie. Halarity is sure to follow when the boys join the Foreign Legion, 'just for a couple of days' so Olie can forget his troubles. Seeing this film as a child, caused me to nearly split a gut. As an adult, I recall that youth and realize, I never got over their wondrous power to make me laugh. Look very carefully and you'll see James Finlayson as the Jailer. His facial expressions and the antics of the boys is what made this film, (like all the rest) an unforgettable Classic. ****