Their Purple Moment/Should Married Men../We Faw Fown [VHS]

Mr. and Mrs. Hardy are enjoying their first peaceful quiet Sunday at home alone in a month when along comes Stan. They see him coming up the sidewalk and try to sneak away so he won't see them, but their cover is blown when he sees the note he slipped partway under the door being pulled all of the way inside, then pushed back out again. He also sees the couple at one of their open windows, and now there is no choice but to let him in. Stan announces that he wants to play some golf, but when told they're staying at home, he decides he'll stay put too, and proceeds to be a thorn in their side, which he largely accomplishes through destroying a window shade and their victrola. Fed up, Mrs. Hardy orders both men out to play golf.

Once at the golf course, the boys team up with two cute young ladies who need two more for their team, since on this day only foursomes can play. Before heading out to the course, however, they stop by at the soda fountain. Here we see a gag that was later redone in their third talkie, 1929's 'Men O' War.' They only have 15 cents, which they believe will only buy three drinks. However, Stan is his usual dense self and doesn't grasp that he's supposed to be refusing. Then the bill comes to 30 cents anyway, and Stan has to leave his watch with the soda jerk to pay for the rest of the bill. (In the remake he plays a slot machine to make the extra money.) While amusing, this scene kinda falls flat here, since the humor is really dependent upon dialogue. This isn't really suited to silent comedy.

Once on the golfcourse, melee reigns when they have a run-in with Edgar Kennedy, who keeps losing his toupee (at one point accidentally replacing it with a bit of the golfing green, which causes him much humiliation). Mr. Kennedy eventually hits his ball into a big mud pit, and is about to move it when Stan shows him a card saying that one must play the ball from where it lays. As he starts swinging, mud begins to fly, and before long Stan, Ollie, Edgar, a bunch of women, and another male golfer are all involved in a huge fight in the mud pit.

This is a strong short, with a really great premise (it's surprising they only ever did this one golfing short, since Ollie was a passionate golfer in real life), but apart from the final scene in the mud pit, a lot of it just really feels like it would have worked better as a sound short. Obviously the scene in the soda shop did work a lot better and was even funnier when it was remade in the sound era, and much of the scene in the Hardys' house also seems like it would have been enhanced and had even more comic potential had it had sound and dialogue too.

A surprisingly overlooked Laurel and Hardy two-reeler, "Should Married Men Go Home?" (1928) is vintage slapstick all the way - highlighted by a lavish mud fight on the golf course. Edgar Kennedy and his toupée contribute to the hilarious mayhem. Oddly enough, Stan and Ollie's only foray into golf. The Image Entertainment restoration includes an original Vitaphone music and effects track.

This is a very early Laurel & Hardy silent film. They had not yet fully developed the characters that would make them famous,
but you can see the beginnings of it in this film.
The Hardys are enjoying a nice quiet day at home when the Laurels show up. After a failed attempt to hide from the Laurels they
all decide to go golfing.
While playing golf they run afoul of Edger Kennedy, just as they would in so many of their later films. Kennedy would later be
known as the master of the slow burn. But at this point he, like Stan & Ollie, had not yet developed this character.
The film is funny, but a long way from the high standards of later L&H films. What is really interesting about this little
silent two reeler is that you can see the early stages of the characters that L&H and Kennedy would soon turn into comedy
legends.