Cinema Revisited: Our Relations (1936)

Directed by Harry Lachman. Cast: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, Daphne Pollard, Betty Healy, James Finlayson, Sidney Toler, Alan Hale, Iris Adrian, Lola Andre, Arthur Housman. Released October 30, 1936. Running time: 71 minutes.

Perhaps the most well-produced Laurel and Hardy feature, "Our Relations" looks somehow fuller and more prestigious than their other films of this period. Perhaps this was due to the fact that the year before, the duo ceased doing short films and switched to doing feature length movies exclusively. Their features during the 1935-1937 season were opened up with greater production. This is not to say the films were less funny due to being less intimate. They made a couple of their very best during this period, including this one and "Way Out West" the following year.

The plot for "Our Relations" has Stan and Ollie as married men who hide from their wives that they had wayward twin brothers whom they believe were lost at sea. However the brothers, Bert and Alf, are indeed alive, and their ship has docked in the same city. Naturally they are continually mistaken for each other.

Laurel and Hardy did the dual role thing a couple of times before, playing their own children in "Brats" (1930) and each other's wives (who are their own siblings) in "Twice Two" (1933). In "Our Relations," the trick photography isn't necessary until the end, when they all finally meet up. Up till then, the two sets of Laurel and Hardy, who act just like each other, are presented separately.

What is so brilliant about "Our Relations" is that it balances what could become a rather convoluted construction with the sort of comic grace that defined Laurel and Hardy's work since the silent era. This was produced by Stan Laurel, for Laurel's own production company, so director Harry Lachman was a veritable traffic cop on the set while it was Laurel's ideas and vision that was most responsible for this film's aesthetic success. Having the brilliant Rudolph Maté as cinematographer gave this film a polish that extends beyond the duo's other features.

Laurel and Hardy do not eschew the intimate slapstick comedy for which they are best known. A classic back-and-forth bit between them and frequent nemesis James Finlayson is a highlight, as is a crowded phone booth situation with movie drunk Arthur Housman (screenwriter Felix Adler later used the same phone booth bit for The Three Stooges in their 1951 short "Scrambled Brains").

Of course the basis of the comedy was all about the mistaken identity factor. The navy boys pick up a couple girls, go to get more money, then the married boys come into the same restaurant with their wives and are confronted by the girls, who believe they have been jilted. This resulting confusion is topped by the waiter insisting they owe money for a tab created by their twins.

The music, always delightfully present in the duo's Roach films, is especially good here. LeRoy Shield makes use of stock themes to enhance everything from pleasant situations to wild slapstick excursions. This is especially borne out at the end, when Stan and Ollie somehow end up with a valuable pearl ring that is being guarded by their twins for their captain. It ends up with them being taken to a dock by crooks, their feet placed in cement, and their bodies tipping back and forth over the scary waters below. It is a wild, hilarious scene, and the music enhances the excitement greatly.

"Our Relations" is probably Laurel and Hardy's biggest movie -- it has a layered narrative, greater production values, a more polished look, and a tighter structure. The intimate comedy alternates with the bigger scenes, and the bombast is tempered by the duo's wonderful comic nuance. "Our Relations" isn't one of the best known Laurel and Hardy features outside of the duo's many fans. It doesn't have the same mainstream noteworthiness as, say, "Big Business," "The Music Box," "Sons of the Desert," or "Way Out West." But it is Laurel and Hardy at their best -- which makes it as good as, or better than, anything else by anyone else.