Flying Deuces/Stolen Jools
Flying Deuces is a typical Laurel and Hardy film from 1939. This DVD is not as clean as some of the remastered films in re-release, but plays adequately with acceptable sound. The story begins in Paris where the Oliver Hardy character has fallen in love but does not know is beloved is already married to a French Foreign Legion officer. After a failed suicide attempt at the Seine River, Stan and Ollie join the Foreign Legion, recruited by the husband of Ollie's beloved, none of them knowing how they are inter-connected. Ollie and Stan treat their enlistment just like any other job and when they find themselves facing military discipline, they resign. That gets them in the guardhouse, facing execution for desertion. Their escape is a classic of slapstick humor and the closing, reuniting Ollie and his beloved briefly, as she arrives to join her husband at his desert outpost, adds a touch of tragedy to the comedy.
Stolen Jools is an add-on to the Flying Deuces DVD. Its film quality is poor and the sound less than desirable. Its main attraction is the inclusion of virtually every major star in Hollywood in 1931. It is a "short" produced by the Masquers Club of Hollywood, to raise funds for the National Variety Artists Tuberculosis Sanitarium. The plot, such as there is, involves the theft of jewels from Norma Shearer, occurring at a Hollywood party. The police interview all of the party attendees, providing cameo appearances for many of the big name stars of 1931 from RKO, MGM, Paramount and Warner Bros. It's only real value is this bringing together of so many talented stars from the early days of talking pictures. Among the film notables are Warner Baxter, Wallace Beery, Joe E. Brown, Maurice Chevalier, Gary Cooper, Joan Crawford, Richard Dix, Irene Dunne, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., William Haines, Oliver Hardy, Eddie Kane, Buster Keaton, Stan Laurel, Dorothy Lee, Bert Lytell, Victor McLaglen, Jack Oakie, Eugene Pallette, Edward G. Robinson, Norma Shearer, Barbara Stanwyck, Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Fay Wray, and Loretta Young.
Reviewed by Richard R. E. Kania (1 August 2008)Read full review
![Flying Deuces (Miracle Pictures) / Stolen Jools [DVD] [*READ* VG, DISC-ONLY]](https://ir.ebaystatic.com/rs/c/prpweb-src-images-space-98af7172.gif)