Sweet fun entertainment | Laurel & Hardy: Chump at Oxford + Helpmates [VHS]

An all-time classic. | Laurel & Hardy: Chump at Oxford + Helpmates [VHS] | Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy

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	• Laurel & Hardy: Chump at Oxford + Helpmates [VHS] Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy Cabin Fever, 1997 average customer review:based on 13 reviews
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highly recommended

The Boys Go To Collage and get an unexpected education!

In their next to last:Hal Roach Comedy.Laurel And Hardy spoof the Brittish educational system in a very funny way,

Once again,they're out of work and in need of gainful employment.So they head for an employment agentcy.

While wating to be interviewed by the agentcy's rep(played with some haughty aplomb by Vivian Oakland).Ollie overhears Ms.Oakland's phone conversation with a wealthy dowager:"Mrs.Vanderveer"(Anita Garvin).Who needs a butler and a
maid for an important dinner party that both she and her husband:"Mr.Baldy Vanderveer"(Played by perrenial L&H Villian:Jimmy Finlayson)are giving.

Before you know It?

Stan is once again dressed in drag and Ollie is sporting a beautiful tuxedo.Both of the boys try to do their duties at the dinner party.But they both louse up the proceedings and they're chased out of "Mr.Vanderveer's"home at the point of a
gun.

Reduced to working as lowley sidewalk cleaners.They reflect
on their sad situtaion during their lunchbreak.

Stan believes that their lack of success stems from the
fact that the two of them have no real education.

Impressed by his friend's observation.

Ollie decides that they'll both enroll in Night School that evening.

But fate comes into play and the boys inadvertedly foil a
bank robbery.

As a reward..the grateful bank president:"Jimmy Finlayson"
(played by character actor:Forbes Murrary)gets them"The best Education that money can buy".He gets them a scholarship at Oxford,University.

Where L&H soon become the unwitting pawns for a group of obnoxious prankters(The leader of the troup is Gerald Rogers..Movie director Charley Rogers' brother and Charlie Hall and A pre-Hammer Horror Films Peter Cushing make the rest of this group of
loveable troublemakers).The boys are manipulated into wandering
aimlessly thru the grass maze,they're frightened by another prankish student(Eddie Borden..best remembered as the foppish nobleman that the boys fleece in"Boheimian Girl"and as one of the "Bogeymen".Who chases L&H into The "Toyland"Toy Factory warehouse in "Babes In Toyland!"/"The March Of The Wooden Soldiers")dressed as a grinning ghost and they're tricked into
taking the Dean's quarters.Which they reduce the room into a shambles and
start a pillow fight with their superior(Played by Wilfred Lucas in his last movie role).

When "Dean Williams"finds out That Student:"Johnson"(Mr.Jerry Rogers)is behind these stupid stunts.

He angrily has "Johnson"and his pals expelled from Oxford and L&H are sent to their proper quarters.

Where L&H's Valet"Meredeth"(Forrester Harvey)mistakes Stan for a missing Honor Student"Lord Paddington".Stan and Ollie
refuses to believe their butler's story about "Lord Paddington".

Until "Johnson"and his pals break into L&H's quarters to beat them up and kick them out of Oxford for Ratting on their
crude pranks to the dean.When Stan tries escape via the window.

The slippery window paine falls on Poor Stan's head and
gets amnesia.Believeing that he is "Lord Paddington"and he routs the bullies and Poor Ollie And the dean too.

While the first segment at "The Vanderveer's"dinner party maybe overdone.It's still a perfect lead into the boy's
heroics in foiling the bank robbery and their trek to Oxford.

The scenes at The Hal Roach Studio's idea of the vernible English Collage is funny and Stan's Transformation
(Via his memory loss)into Oxford most brilliant athlete and
scholar is Laurel's best acting performance.

This film depends more on comic acting and a certain
ammount of farce.But it's still vintage L&H Nevertheless.

Kevin S.Butler.

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Sweet fun entertainment

This movie begins with Stan and Ollie in the employment office, waiting for any available job they can do. Ollie happens to overhear that a butler and maid, preferrably a married couple, are wanted to host a swank party in town, immediately, and decides the two of them will take the job. Stan is forced to put on female attire and a curly blonde wig, far from the first time he's dressed in drag in one of their movies. This entire scene at the dinner party is a remake of their 1928 silent short 'From Soup to Nuts,' only Stan wasn't in drag in that one. Mr. Vanderveer, the host of this party, is played by the great character actor Jimmy Finlayson, at his usual best. However, things at this party don't quite go as planned, and the boys quickly find themselves out of a job. They are reduced to working as street sweepers, and are sitting there on the curb, feeling sorry for themselves, lamenting how they're just as good as other people yet don't have the education to prove it, when they inadvertently foil a bank robbery. The manager of the bank is eternally grateful, and when told the boys would like to get a higher education, rewards them by sending them off to Oxford.

Needless to say, the boys don't fit in very well at Oxford, and immediately fall prey to a bunch of student pranksters (among them the great character actor Charley Hall). These two greenhorns are told to go through a shrubbery maze, which results in a classic scene. Some people might feel that the bit towards the end, these two grown men being scared by one of the students dressing up as a ghost, is a little silly and unbelievable, but it really doesn't seem too farfetched or ridiculous. After all, we know Stan and Ollie are like two overgrown little boys who don't inhabit the same type of world that more cynical and jaded adults do. After they finally make it through the immense endless maze, these students deceive them some more, this time directing them to the dean's office, telling them these are their living and sleeping quarters. One of these students even dresses up like the dean himself. In the middle of their revelries and nightcap in the dean's room, the real dean comes in and is none too pleased, particularly after he finds out how this came to happen. However, Stan and Ollie are not punished for their antics in the dean's quarters; they're taken to their own quarters while the guilty student is dealt with harshly. This enfuriates the band of pranksters, who begin chanting their fight song as they march over to get revenge.

In their proper quarters, the boys meet the valet Meredith, who says he knows Stan, that his real name is Lord Paddington, and that he has quite a reputation at Oxford. They deny this could be possible, but Meredith remains convinced. The students are on their way to get revenge, the ominous chant getting louder and louder and closer and closer, when Stan leans out the window and promptly gets knocked on the head. This causes an instantaneously personality change, and he takes on all of the characteristics Meredith was saying Lord Paddington had, complete with repelling the lot of unruly students. This final section of the film is just classic, showing that Stan really was capable of being a serious actor (as well as showcasing his real British accent), and proving what committed fans have long known, that he's actually the smarter one and that Ollie is the slower and more childlike one. The tables are turned and now Ollie is the one getting ordered around by his best friend, who is acting very intellectually superior and even quite mean and petty, such as telling him he's got two chins and calling him Fatty. The ending of this film is one of my favorites of theirs, particularly since it shows just how genuinely they cared for one another, knowing that it wasn't acting and that they really were closer than brothers in real life as well.

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An all-time classic.

Stan and Ollie are jobless and down on their luck. Before long, their jobs as a maid and butler (Stan forced to dress up in drag) go wrong, and they end up as street-sweepers. After, unwittingly, foiling a bank robbery, they are rewarded by the bank manager with an education. This leads to them going to an Oxford college, where they soon fall foul of student pranks. After Stan is hit on the head by a sliding window, both he and Ollie get an education they weren't expecting.
When I first saw this film, around twenty years ago, it was one of my favourite Laurel and Hardy films, and I'd still say that now. This is L&H at their purest - hilarious situations, great characters and a warmth so lacking in most of today's comedy. In fact I'd say there's never a dull moment in this film, would put it up there with 'Way Out West' as L&H's finest.

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Educational Wizardry

Awesome performance by the dynamic duo in this one. Although the movie is quite short...just 42 minutes. It still stands as a very funny Laurel & Hardy classic. A definite must for any Laurel & Hardy buff.

The Chump's a Champ.

Stan and Ollie are on top form in this hilarious caper. After a brief prologue as butler and maid ( Stan in drag! ) our heroes foil a bank robbery and set off to get an education. Hollywood's Oxford offers a perfect contest for misunderstandings and slapstick. Stan's impression of a plum-in-the-mouth Brit is priceless. A breath of comic fresh air that will have the whole family laughing.

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This wild Laurel and Hardy film casts the pair as street cleaners who stop a bank robbery. As their reward, they are both given full-ride scholarships to Oxford (which seems a bit odd, since it was the middle of the Depression). When they arrive at the British institution of higher learning, however, they become the objects of extensive pranks by the other students, who are upperclassmen in more ways than one and look down their noses at the working-class buffoons. Except for one thing: Stan, as it turns out, was one of Oxford's most distinguished and accomplished scholars before a blow on the head turned him into the easygoing dimwit we know and love. Another knock on the noggin turns him back into the veddy British lord, who promptly sets the other students straight. Some very funny business with the boys and a stuffy dean, whose quarters they invade. --Marshall Fine

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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