JohnHowardReid A Hal Roach Production. Copyright 17 August 1938 by Loew's Inc. A Hal Roach Feature Comedy released through Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. New York opening at the Rialto: 29 August 1938. U.S. release: 19 August 1938. Australian release: 1 June 1939. 6 reels. 57 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Mislaid for twenty years after the Great War, Stan is finally re-united with Ollie, but wreaks havoc on the Hardy home. NOTES: It's hard to believe, but Marvin Hatley's incessantly inappropriate music score was nominated for an Academy Award, losing out-and rightly so!-to Korngold's The Adventures of Robin Hood. Stan bitterly disapproved of the film's ending. He wanted a two-shot of himself and Babe, mounted as trophies over Billy's fireplace. Ollie turns to his partner and declaims with all his customary exasperation: "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!"COMMENT: Any film with Patricia Ellis is infinitely worth looking at, even when she's stooging for that delightful threesome, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy and Billy Gilbert. In fact, it's nice to find the boys with two leading ladies worthy of their talents. Misses Ellis and Gombell are both expert comediennes. Block-Heads provides all five principal players with many opportunities to shine and is one of the funniest of the L&H features. After a splendid introduction (using spectacular stock footage from The Big Parade), Laurel and Hardy each have a winning solo scene before destructively joining forces in some cleverly engineered, hilarious mayhem. We love Stan jumping into Babe's arms to be carried, Billy cleverly inverting Frank Buck's celebrated boast to the reporters ("I don't bring them back alive. I bring them back dead. I bring myself back alive!"), Babe huffing and puffing endlessly down the stairs (with Stan's magic window shade), and the king-pin domestic squabble that rages as Stan sits up and down in the "chair". Block-Heads rates as a very amusing entry indeed. Proficiently directed and produced, it thoroughly deserves its high popularity with L&H fans.

Tim Kidner Block-Heads remains one of my - and many other lovers of Laurel & Hardy's favourites, from the outset with the oh, so memorable Stanley firing at an aircraft and guarding a sentry post, twenty years after the war had ended. The huge pile of empty baked bean tins that has been amassed over that period is an unforgettable sight!After he is rescued and recuperating at an old soldier's Home, Ollie reads about his front-line pal, with whom he had fought alongside, in the newspaper. Off he goes to visit Stan in his almost brand new car. The intention is take him back home to enjoy a meal that Mrs Hardy has cooked.Of course, nothing goes to plan and here the stunts are just a bit better than usual, undertaken with even more gusto and for its 50 minute runtime, is one of their most consistently inventive, entertaining and funny features.

Jackson Booth-Millard Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are the most famous comedy duo in history, and deservedly so, so I am happy to see any of their films. It starts in the trenches of World War II, and Stan is the soldier left alone to guard, and two decades later (1938), he is still there pacing and eating beans, with no idea the war was over. Fellow soldier Ollie meanwhile is married to his wife (Minna Gombell), and remembers it is their first anniversary, so she plans a meal for the two of them. Ollie does see Stan in the paper, and goes to see him, and looking like his leg is missing, when he's actually sitting on it, he takes pity and takes him home, he does eventually see the leg before they leave. It does take a little while to get upstairs, as they miss the elevator (once out of order), as Ollie gets into a small fight with James Finlayson, and kicks a ball downstairs, but they get in eventually. His wife storms out seeing Stan, and they manage to explode the kitchen with a lit match and gas, with neighbour Mrs. 'Toots' Gilbert (Patricia Ellis) offering to help clean up. Mrs. Hardy returns to the mess, very angry, and Mrs. Gilbert is under a sheet shaped like a chair, before getting a trunk after Mrs. Hardy has left, and Mr. Gilbert (Billy Gilbert) comes in, and seeing his wife in the trunk, wearing pyjamas as well, it ends with them being chased by him and his hunting gun. Filled with wonderful slapstick and all classic comedy you could want from a black and white film, it is an enjoyable film. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Music for Marvin Hatley. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were number 7 on The Comedians' Comedian. Very good!

John T. Ryan In 1938, it was obvious that the World was changing rapidly and radically; and the perennially favourite comedy team of Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy was nearing its run at the top of Hollywood's comedy films. Only 3 more of their features would be made in their old Roach Studios' style of working and feeling their way through and hence improving on what's written on the scripted page. The independent film THE FLYING DEUCES (Boris Morros Prod./RKO RADIO Pictures, 1939), A CHUMP AT OXFORD (Hal Roach, United Artists, 1940) and SAPS AT SEA (Hal Roach/United Artists, 1940) rounded out what many would later consider the body of "True Laurel & Hardy Work." Abbott & Costello, Hope & Crosby's ROAD PICTURES Series and Martin & Lewis waited in the wings for their turn in the spotlight.So now we go on to our dissection of BLOCKHEADS, presented entirely without commercial interruption.OUR STORY……………….It is 1918 in France. The Great 'War to End All Wars' is grinding to the standstill of Armistice; which is sort of brutally analogous to the great Football Coach of Boston College & Notre Dame, Frank Leahy's defining statement that, "Playing for a Tie is like Kissing your Sister!" WE iris in on a platoon of the AEF (American Expeditionary Force or "Rainbow Division"). They are in combat, situated in the now famous trenches that were so common on the Western Front. The whole Company is ordered to go over top and charge out of the relative safety of the giant 'Foxhole' to engage the Germans. One Private is chosen to guard the encampment. "STAY HERE UNTIL WE GET BACK!", comes the order to Private Laurel, while Private Hardy and the rest of the troops strike out onto the open battlefield.MEANWHILE the Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month comes along and with it the End of Hostilities. Of course, no one bothers to tell Stan, who maintains his position in patrolling and protecting the American bivouac.Suddenly it's 1938, 20 years after the Big Push that left Stan alone. In the back of the encampment we see a veritable Everest of empty field ration bean cans indicating the rather lengthy passage of time. It is ultimately a misunderstanding by Private Stanley that leads to his discovery. He attempts to shoot down a civilian plane with a tripod machine gun and the Pilot lands nearby; informing him that THE WAR HAS BEEN OVER FOR TWENTY TEARS!; to which Laurel replies with a "Huh?" STAN is taken to the States and is resting comfortably in an Old Soldiers' Home; when the story is picked up in the newspapers. Mrs. Hardy asks Ollie, "Can you imagine anyone being so dumb?" Hardy replies, "Oh yes I can!" HARDY takes off for the Soldier's Home to bring his old friend back to his house and the rest of the story is taken up with Laurel's less than enthusiastic reception by Mrs. Hardy, domestic quarrelling between the Hardys, interplay between the Boys and the neighbors, The Big Game Hunter (Billy Gilbert) & Wife (Patricia Ellis) and hostile interaction with just about the whole, wide World; which Laurel was apparently no longer a member in good standing.In keeping with this movement toward "modernization" Hal Roach Studios had opted for a sort of middle path to its production output. Whereas Roach had been THE Mecca of the Comedy Short, that format had been discontinued by him in (ca.) 1935. Replacing the Shorts* and most of the long Feature Films (of approximately 90 minutes or so in running time) was a 'new', bastard size movie; which ran from between 40 to 50 minutes, but always under an hour. Being marketed as the "Streamliner", the short features were meant to play as the second film of the Double Feature, or the kind of movie for Teenagers not to watch while making out at the ever growing number of Drive-Ins proliferating in the Nation.** We read here that BLOCKHEADS is a remake of the Mack Sennett silent 2 Reeler SOLDIER MAN (Sennett/Pathe, 1926) starring Harry Langdon. Inasmuch as Harry was a writer and gagman for Roach during this period and worked on BLOCKHEADS, there is no doubt of there being a correlation between the two. But, we don't call it a 'remake' in the strict sense of the word; but rather a 're-working' of the central gag of the overly conscientious, duty-bound Soldier, who is none too bright and takes everything in a very literal sense. The rest of the story is strictly Laurel & Hardy and tends to take things easy in expanding its envelope beyond usual L & H proved winning interplay.AS for the seemingly ridiculous premise of presenting a Soldier, isolated and believing that the War was still on after 20 years of "Peace", we have to play Devil's Advocate and back those who would be pro to such an outlandish notion.WELL, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, we present in evidence an incident that occurred in 1973on a lonely Pacific cay, a lone Japanese Soldier had a cave shelter; living off the land. He was awaiting the return of his Imperial Japanese Army's Troops. This guy was really well trained and devoted to The Emperor Hirohito and the Prime Minister Tojo; for he had his dress uniform kept available for a Victory Flight over Washington, D.C.NOW, "Can you imagine anyone being so dumb?" (He must have been Private Rawrel! Get it, Schultz?) NOTE: * One reason for the decline of so much of the live action Comedy Shorts market was the popularity of the Theatrical Cartoon starring the likes of Mr. Mickey Mouse, Popeye and Bugs Bunny (Himself)NOTE: ** 'Streamliner', after the popular term for the Diesel Engined Locomotives, the 'new' and the greatest thing. POODLE SCHNITZ!!