beauzee always good to see the Boys, in all their "eras". by the 1940s, it was good to see them but not good to watch them and wait to laugh...and wait. there are very, very few laughs available in their 1941 to 1945 series. the pictures have been dissected by fans and critics alike...yes, it all comes down to: generally, these features are their worst. some happiness found in THE DANCING MASTERS and THE BULLFIGHTERS, two straight ahead comedies, no helping the fiancés, etc.here we have the very infamous film which probably deserves that bad rep'. it's mostly revisitations of gags from the '20s and '30s, one is excellent (the "upper berth" routine). one would hope that with a bigger budget this time they could make it even better..but no. no use going down the list of material which doesn't work either as reminder of the old days or as updates, if they can be called that.I say that this picture, on the other hand, should have been their best post-Roach because there are so many chances to get it right. 2 mention just 2, if ya don't mind my 2-cents: early in the film, L & H are shown as t5hird shift office cleaners. a phone call comers thru. Ollie picks up the phone. he tries to speak over Stan's messing with an unusually loud vacuum cleaner. OK. not bad. gotta be a joke coming up. (?) Ollie agrees to a job for he and his partner. the job is to work as security guards (for a very eccentric inventor). sounds good, yes! but...here's how it's totally ruined: the vacuum noise means nothing > Ollie CAN understand the caller. PLUS, he and Stan are coincidentally striving to be Detectives. what Roach would have done? Stan's racket makes the call impossible and so Ollie believes he and Stan are being hired as Cleaners, not Security Guards - of a new experimental bomb to be carried carefully by hand all the way to Washington. the humour is killed because Security guards carrying a bomb is not nearly as funny as Maintenance men carrying a bomb. add this: Bobby Blake, yes Baretta in an early incarnation, is a mischievous little son of weird inventor > does the script call for him to switch the real bomb with the fake one? WELL, NO SPOILER HERE...you get my drift.

BJJManchester THE BIG NOISE has had an horrendous reputation with critics,film-goers and L & H fans in the past,dismissed by various film scholars,writers and journalists as "a groan","sublimely indifferent","sinking to a new low",and even receiving an entry in Michael and Harry Medved's notorious book,'THE FIFTY WORST FILMS OF ALL TIME'.The film is certainly no classic,and is pretty poor when even compared to their average efforts at the Hal Roach Studios,but for the standards of the L & H wartime comedies,this is actually one of the better,more tolerable films that were made,which isn't saying very much,though increasing numbers are recognising that some of the contemptuous comments made previously are somewhat unfair and out of proportion.The story itself is rather thin,but one plus factor is that there is a decent concentration on Stan and Ollie here,unlike their previous efforts for 20th Century Fox,and scenes which are thankfully more in keeping with their characters;it is pleasing to see the Hardy camera look in many scenes,for example.This essential trait of Ollie's behaviour was non-existent in their previous Fox features(the otherwise banal MGM vehicle AIR RAID WARDENS at least had several authentic stares to the camera),but after several unsuitable drafts,writer Scott Darling apparently watched a few vintage L & H shorts,and began in earnest to mildly understand their established characterisations,reworking routines from such films as HABEUS CORPUS(this very utterance is actually spoken in the film),WRONG AGAIN,BERTH MARKS,OLIVER THE EIGHTH and TWICE TWO. Some of the insertions of these routines work surprisingly well,best of all the train upper berth sequence borrowed from BERTH MARKS.The original routine was over stretched and strained,mainly because this was only the team's second talkie,and restrictions on technology at the time(particularly sound editing)led to tedium and repetition.This routine works rather better in THE BIG NOISE,with not as much footage, improved pacing and the amusing addition of a genial drunk,played by Hollywood favourite inebriate Jack Norton;Tinseltown's other regular drunkard,Arthur Housman,had worked with L & H notably several times before,and would probably have been cast for this sequence had it not been for his premature death two years earlier.That said,there is still too much straight,non-humorous exposition involving gangsters and would-be Nazi spies,an all too common problem in these post-Roach L & H features,and Bobby(later Robert)Blake is something of an irritation as the inventor's misbehaving son.But some of the support cast aren't bad at all,especially the elderly Robert Dudley and an amusing bit from Francis Ford.Several supporting players from their Hal Roach days also turn up;the brief appearance of motorcycle cop Edgar Dearing(memorable in their silent classic TWO TARS)is a welcome diversion;a previous occasional foil,Del Henderson,can also be briefly glimpsed at the end of the upper berth sequence. The eminent L & H expert and writer Randy Skretvedt has admitted on a commentary accompanying this film's recent DVD release that his previous highly negative opinions on THE BIG NOISE were somewhat wrong,and that it's nowhere near as bad as he originally thought,rating this only under THE BULLFIGHTERS as the best of their Fox-MGM wartime features.I more or less agree with him.RATING:5 and a half out of 10.

NYCOPYGUY Here it is - the film that had the worst reputation for many years, due to several books about films in general and Laurel & Hardy films in particular that labeled it the team's "worst ever." Many fans who never had an opportunity to view the film took those books at their word... until they actually saw the film. Now they realize that not only is "The Big Noise" one of the best of the later films the team did for the big studios like MGM and in this case, 20th Century Fox (several of which admittedly were not among the best due to studio interference and such), but it also compares favorably to many of the classic films done during the team's golden years at the Hal Roach Studios (even besting a few of those gems, if you ask me).Find out for yourself. This film is now available on DVD as part of a 3-disc set that also includes two other Fox L&H features, "Great Guns" (their first for Fox, and one I dislike - it tries to take square Laurel & Hardy pegs and force them through round Abbott & Costello holes, in my opinion) and "Jitterbugs" (a slightly-above average film that shows how the team could have continued their careers as character actors)."The Big Noise" has a loopy charm that will just carry you away if you let it. It is filled with reprises of some classic L&H routines from yesterday (some think that's desperation, but I see it as an homage) and an absurd, farcical plot. This is a film that I had not seen in about 25-30 years, but had vivid memories of. When my Sons of the Desert tent (the Laurel & Hardy aficionado club) ran the film at one of our meetings, I was shocked: my memories were absolutely right on target! "The Big Noise" had stuck with me for many years. And rightfully so. One area in which it improves on a lot of the other '40s L&H films that it featured some supporting characters who were supposed to be comical, just like in the Roach films.I will forever be baffled over this film's bad reputation. If you stack it up against some of the other '40s L&H films, at least the boys are IN the action-- they're not taking a back seat. They're also not portrayed so much as doddering old fools ("Air Raid Wardens," "A-Haunting We Will Go") or servants ("Nothing But Trouble"). They are quite close to their Roach persona's, in my opinion. The only compromise seems to be less slapstick, but that is in obvious deference to their advance ages, it seems-- I think it's okay to have a "pill as a meal" gag instead of Ollie falling in the mud since they're older here. Also, it's just absolutely crazy (in a fun, entertaining way, in my opinion) that they happen to wind up parachuting over the water and somehow there's an enemy sub in it, but that's part of the loopy charm of this movie, and I feel it has one of the best closing shots of any of the "bizarre endings" Stan favored for a lot of the films. This is a really fun film that was perfect for the times in which it was made and still can produce laughs today.So don't believe the (negative) hype - this is NOT the team's worst. Save those darts for "A-Haunting We Will Go" and "Nothing But Trouble!"

theowinthrop In the Medved Brothers' usually on target book, THE 50 WORST FILMS OF ALL TIME, THE BIG NOISE is given a degree of prominence as the worst of Laurel & Hardy's films. John McCabe dismissed it in his MR. LAUREL AND MR. HARDY by saying the plot of the film can be described in one sentence - the boys are assigned to deliver a bomb and do so. Yet a number of people have also supported it as one of their cutest, if not funniest movies.When L & H left Roach in 1941, they had planned to do a production of the Victor Herbert's THE RED MILL as their next movie after SAPS AT SEA. They probably were picking up on their success in operetta films (BABES IN TOYLAND, THE BOHEMIAN GIRL, THE DEVIL'S BROTHER, even SWISS MISS) as a sure fire way of showcasing their humor. I have often thought about this project. No doubt the roles of Kid Connor and Con Kidder that David Montgomery and Fred Stone had originated would have been redone by the screenplay writer (with advise from Stan) to fit the person-as of Stan and Ollie. But by 1941 the cycle of films in Hollywood which were based on operettas had slowly collapsed (the last major ones were Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald's BITTERSWEET, as well as Eddy and Rise Stevens' THE CHOCOLATE SOLDIER). Shows based on current stage hits were more likely to be made into films (the next and last Eddy and MacDonald film would I MARRIED AN ANGEL, based on the Rodgers and Hart stage musical). It seems doubtful that any of the studios would have been willing to finance a production of a 1905 operetta hit, whose major big-time number was "In Old New York".Yet that was what Stan was proposing (and Ollie would have supported him on that). William Everson has suggested that actually, by 1941, the boys were tired, and needed more time to rejuvenate their material. I end up feeling that this is true. The best of the later films, JITTERBUGS, has some nice moments (Hardy romancing Lee Patrick, and shepherding around Stan in drag as an old lady), and includes some rejuvenated material at the conclusion of the film from Alice Faye's movie, SALLY, IRENE AND MARY, but (as John McCabe suggested) it's plot does not make any sense (particularly as Bob Bailey's character, a major one in the plot, seems good natured one moment and opportunistic and crooked the next).THE BIG NOISE does have a straightforward plot, tied in with the current war effort. Arthur Space is one of those screwy scientist/inventors who crop up in many comedies of the 1920s to 1930s. He has invented food pills that replaced full course meals, and has an impossible push button modern house (after the 1939 - 40 New York Worlds Fair "push button" future space saving homes become a perennial joke in comedies - and a weak one at that - see the Marx Brothers contemporary film THE BIG STORE and the ethnic children in the disappearing beds scene).Space has, however, designed a new secret weapon - a highly powerful bomb. This is the "Big Noise" of the title. The government is testing it with the intention of using it against the Axis, but their agents are planning to steal it to use against us (shades of Lionel Atwill as Moriarty in SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE SECRET WEAPON). In need of guards for his weapons, Space hires L & H thinking they are detectives (they are janitors in a detective school).In reality the interplay of L & H with Space, Robert Blake (then Bobbie Blake), Esther Howard (who shows a sexual interest in Hardy - quite unusual for him, and very unsettling to him), and the cast is actually quite good. The result is that the material, even if reused from earlier films (the bit from BERTH MARKS about changing in the upper berth of a train) is quite well done. And since the film is actually keeping a coherent story for a change (as opposed to JITTERBUGS) the film is more than just tolerable.It is also nice to see that it did introduce one popular tune to movies: the tongue-twister tune, "Mares Eat Oats and Does Eat Oats and Little Lambs Eat Ivory", which is called "Maisey Doats" or "Maizy Doats" for short. Stan supposedly plays it on his accordion in the film.A nice movie, possibly the boys' last good comedy.