Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Laurel & Hardy are the whole show in this hour of fun, 13 Mar 2000
By A Customer
Stan and Ollie are private detectives in Mexico City, where Stan has to pose as a matador. Laurel & Hardy's later films usually had confining scripts which didn't give the team much opportunity to do their stuff. THE BULLFIGHTERS is a happy exception, with funny gags and familiar pantomime. This was co-written and co-directed by Stan Laurel without screen credit, so many fans are taking a second look (or even a first look) at this forgotten comedy.
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Fairly smooth ride (at the end of a mighty bumpy road), 8 Feb 2004
It was their last feature of the '40s, their last for 20th Century Fox, and their last chance to convince the powers-that-be to let them do it *their* way - yes, it has been written that Stan was in charge of this straight ahead, traditional comedy, to some extent.
Alas, it looks like too little too late. Yes, they can move freely without worrying about helping the lovers or foiling the bad guys, but even the best scenes have a tired, forced look about them: the boys meet up with a foe in the lobby of the hotel in Mexico. The three engage in a water fight at the fountain. It's well timed, it has a genuinely funny payoff, but there's a problem - the antagonist is a "blue collar" working stiff out on convention. Laurel and Hardy's best contests were always with authority figures, high society types, etc. An earlier scene involves Larceny Nell and L & H. They finally catch up with her only to be humiliated in an egg-breaking bit. Again, we have the right "look" for comedy. But no mirthful resolution. The scene...just ends.
Another scene could have been the hilarious centerpiece for this movie. Stan and Ollie visit a nightclub where they discover an old nemesis, a guy they mistakenly accused of a crime years earlier. Just like the waterworks scene, *they* are not really victims and so the comedy suffers. It's fun to watch them avoid this guy at the place, but when Muldoon gets pulled out on the dance floor to do an exaggerated dance with the star attraction, we realize how much funnier it would have been for Hardy to try to hide his oversized torso *and* try to keep up with the energetic dancer.
Still, the chance to watch Stan play a dual roll (himself and a bullfighter) is very enjoyable.
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