As mentioned earlier except for BLOCK-HEADS most aficionados might consider A CHUMP AT OXFORD to be the final great Laurel & Hardy feature length comedy. It's main weakness is it's structure - BLOCK-HEADS is a series of disasters rising to a crescendo from Stan to Ollie to everyone around them. A CHUMP is really two or three shorts (all very funny) that are united by the thinnest of plot threads. In fact it can be split into three shorts without difficulty.
First there is the repeat of the story from FROM SOUP TO NUTS (then a long forgotten silent short they made in 1928), where they are hired to serve a dinner at Jimmy Finleyson's home one evening and destroy the dinner. The high point is when Stan is told to serve the salad undressed and does so - of course too literally for Finleyson's taste. He chases the two of them out with a rifle (shades of Billy Gilbert in PACK UP YOUR TROUBLES and BLOCK-HEADS). Finn fires his rifle, and then an angry policeman shows up warning him to be careful or he will go to jail - "You could have blown somebody's brains out!" Unfortunately, the policemen turns around and we see that Finn shot a big hole into the cop's pants.
Next we see the boys at a new job as street cleaners, and Hardy launches into one of those semi-sensible speeches he gives, "Well we've reached bottom now!...What's wrong with us?" Ollie figures it's a lack of education (partly it is - though it's hard to see how Stan could comprehend any book). They foil a bank robbery (the bank is called the FINLEYSON NATIONAL, which sounds reasonable as Finn was a canny Scotsman usually). As a reward they get their wish - they get the finest education possible at Oxford.
The final segment is when they reach Oxford and fall victims to a series of pranks played by the students (led by Peter Cushing - far from his future as Dr. Frankenstein - and Charlie Hall). The best part of this is the business of the boys getting lost (even from each other) in the maze at Oxford, where Ollie is carrying their trunk on his back, and yelling for Stan, who is yelling back, just around the corner! There is also the student dressed as the bogeyman and sitting between Stan and Ollie on the trunk. There is also the boys settling into their rooms (actually the rooms of the Dean of Oxford, Wilfred Lucas), ending with them shooting soda water into what they think is the face of an old goat in a portrait, and end up hitting the original face (Lucas, of course).
A battle of the expelled students (the Dean catches them trying to leave his rooms) and the boys ("dirty rotten snitches" Cushing and Hall call them) completes this segment - but introduces us to the biggest change in the history of Laurel & Hardy: Stan's revelation of his "real" personality.
A tremendously creative and brilliant comic genius, Stan Laurel (when busy constructing his films) was all serious business - like Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Fields, the Marxes, and Lou Costello, his peers. In this mode he was not the nincompoop he played opposite Hardy. He was very serious and intelligent sounding. This is his persona, with a degree of haughtiness, when playing his alter ego, Lord Paddington. Paddington was Oxford's greatest scholar and athlete. He proves the latter by throwing Cushing and the others (unfortunately including Hardy and Lucas) out his window one after another. He also demonstrates his brilliance quickly (all these awards and trophies are on display shortly after his restoration - and worse when his new butler, Ollie, is overwhelmed hearing that Einstein is coming to discuss a problem about the relativity theory that Paddington can settle!).
Stan never tried this revelation again - and probably wisely. Stan and Ollie (to work) needs Ollie to be a bit more with it in terms of what the world expects - Stan follows, and upsets the easily toppled Ollie. It is similar to their silent film short, EARLY TO BED, where Ollie becomes a wealthy man about town, tormenting his butler Stan - we don't like this Ollie that much, and approve when Stan starts smashing Ollie's brick-a-bra-ck. The "Paddington" bit was better than the man-about-town Ollie in the earlier film. Wisely, Paddington leaves before the film ends, and Stan returns. We are glad to have him back.
First there is the repeat of the story from FROM SOUP TO NUTS (then a long forgotten silent short they made in 1928), where they are hired to serve a dinner at Jimmy Finleyson's home one evening and destroy the dinner. The high point is when Stan is told to serve the salad undressed and does so - of course too literally for Finleyson's taste. He chases the two of them out with a rifle (shades of Billy Gilbert in PACK UP YOUR TROUBLES and BLOCK-HEADS). Finn fires his rifle, and then an angry policeman shows up warning him to be careful or he will go to jail - "You could have blown somebody's brains out!" Unfortunately, the policemen turns around and we see that Finn shot a big hole into the cop's pants.
Next we see the boys at a new job as street cleaners, and Hardy launches into one of those semi-sensible speeches he gives, "Well we've reached bottom now!...What's wrong with us?" Ollie figures it's a lack of education (partly it is - though it's hard to see how Stan could comprehend any book). They foil a bank robbery (the bank is called the FINLEYSON NATIONAL, which sounds reasonable as Finn was a canny Scotsman usually). As a reward they get their wish - they get the finest education possible at Oxford.
The final segment is when they reach Oxford and fall victims to a series of pranks played by the students (led by Peter Cushing - far from his future as Dr. Frankenstein - and Charlie Hall). The best part of this is the business of the boys getting lost (even from each other) in the maze at Oxford, where Ollie is carrying their trunk on his back, and yelling for Stan, who is yelling back, just around the corner! There is also the student dressed as the bogeyman and sitting between Stan and Ollie on the trunk. There is also the boys settling into their rooms (actually the rooms of the Dean of Oxford, Wilfred Lucas), ending with them shooting soda water into what they think is the face of an old goat in a portrait, and end up hitting the original face (Lucas, of course).
A battle of the expelled students (the Dean catches them trying to leave his rooms) and the boys ("dirty rotten snitches" Cushing and Hall call them) completes this segment - but introduces us to the biggest change in the history of Laurel & Hardy: Stan's revelation of his "real" personality.
A tremendously creative and brilliant comic genius, Stan Laurel (when busy constructing his films) was all serious business - like Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Fields, the Marxes, and Lou Costello, his peers. In this mode he was not the nincompoop he played opposite Hardy. He was very serious and intelligent sounding. This is his persona, with a degree of haughtiness, when playing his alter ego, Lord Paddington. Paddington was Oxford's greatest scholar and athlete. He proves the latter by throwing Cushing and the others (unfortunately including Hardy and Lucas) out his window one after another. He also demonstrates his brilliance quickly (all these awards and trophies are on display shortly after his restoration - and worse when his new butler, Ollie, is overwhelmed hearing that Einstein is coming to discuss a problem about the relativity theory that Paddington can settle!).
Stan never tried this revelation again - and probably wisely. Stan and Ollie (to work) needs Ollie to be a bit more with it in terms of what the world expects - Stan follows, and upsets the easily toppled Ollie. It is similar to their silent film short, EARLY TO BED, where Ollie becomes a wealthy man about town, tormenting his butler Stan - we don't like this Ollie that much, and approve when Stan starts smashing Ollie's brick-a-bra-ck. The "Paddington" bit was better than the man-about-town Ollie in the earlier film. Wisely, Paddington leaves before the film ends, and Stan returns. We are glad to have him back.