MAJESTIC THEATRE

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 72, 18 December 1937, Page 14

MAJESTIC THEATRE

* “Way Out West” To describe Laurel and Hardy's method of fun-making in a sentence, one might say that it is much ado about nothing. But it is the "ado” that is so funny. Personally, I prefer these two in their short comedies; the effort of sustaining the merriment in a full-length feature always seems just a little too much for them. «Yet I must acknowledge that that is probably not the view of the majority of picturegoers, and I must also acknowledge that “Way Out West,” their latest M.-G.-M. feature, which began yesterday at the Majestic, comes up to the standard of its predecessors. For “Way Out West,” Laurel and Hardy have resorted to the past, while retaining enough of the present to give the picture modern mice and novelty. The pantomime technique of the old silent days—which was brought to its fullest flowering by Charlie-Chaplin—comes into its own again in several sequences; and ns against this there is the unusual sight of the lugubrious Mr. Laurel and the longsuffering Mr. Hardy making merry with a swing band and two songs—“On the Trail of the Lonesome Pino” and “I Want to Be in Dixie." The story is thin, but it is strong enough to support the succession of gags by the stars. Knighterrants of the Wild West, they are entrusted to deliver to a poor orphan (Rosina Lawrence) the deed to a gold mine left her by her father. A blonde siren takes the papers from them by guile, and thereafter they are concerned with recovering them for the rightful owner. That is all there is to the plot, hut it is the incidental slap-stick that counts, as the ridiculous couple invariably take the longest and most painful way round to any given point. The first hectic efforts to regain the stolen papers end with Laurel being tickled into submission and much hilarious by-play involving the hat which he is supposed tn eat as the result of losing a bet. Then they fry more subtle means—to wit. a burglary in which silence is to be the watchword. They succeed in being about as silent ns an aerial bombardment, the episode (and indeed the whole picture) coming to its peak with much choice foolery involving a pnlly and a mule. James Finlayson, an old friend with Laurel and Hardy fans, is again tn the fore with burlesque villainy, and Sharon Lynne steals the limelight occasionally as the feminine “menace.” But it is the two stars on whom everything reallv depends. and they make “Way Out West” a very suitable entertainment for the festive season.