Best movie of this year hands down!

Absolutely brilliant

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

"The Hoose-Gow" is an American 19-minute live action short film from 1929, so this one will have its 90th anniversary next year. It is one of the earlier sound films starring Laurel and Hardy and it is a black-and-white film of course too. Don't be fooled by versions out there that include color, which was added later on, but to me did not have a positive impact on the film. Like several other Stan and Ollie works, this one here was made by the unluckily short-lived Parrott and Walker and our duo of "heroes" here ends up arrested and at jail. But they are not really behind bars here, but basically doing prison labor on the outside where they are causing more harm to each other and t o the guards of course than really to any of the other inmates. I have seen quite a few Stan and Ollie shorts and this one simply wasn't funny enough for me to say it is among the better ones. The element of effortlessness, which is so strong in many of their works, feels missing almost entirely here, it all seems so forced, almost try-hard. At times, this one reminded me a bit of a Three Stooges short film in terms of the plot and general approach and as I am not the biggest fan of the trio by any means, this should not be seen as a compliment. So yeah, I wanted this one to be better. It's not even among the better works from Laurel and Hardy's sound film period. Do not watch.

Laurel and Hardy are already in enough trouble, having been falsely arrested and sent to prison where they should be released just so they don't accidentally burn the prison down. They end up on a chain gang, try to chop a tree down that has a prison guard attached to it, and overfilling the governor's car up with gasoline with amusing results. This was two years before they starred in their first feature, "Pardon Us", a more detailed prison comedy. While photographed by George Stevens, this has some creaky moments of little sound, but that wet goo fight at the end is straight out of the keystone cops. A disturbing visual has Laurel's mouth stuffed with a whole apple which he can't get out and had me cringing.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are the most famous comedy duo in history, and deservedly so, so I am happy to see any of their films. A police patrol car pulls into a prison, and all new inmates get out, with Stan and Ollie in amongst them fidgeting over each other. Getting out, they explain that they were only watching the raid that got them in this situation, and a little kick fight (started by Ollie trying to shut Stan up) gets the Warden (Tiny Sandford) a kick too. Then Ollie explains a secret plan he has made with another prisoner, involving oranges thrown over the wall to get a rope ladder. The Warden spots these oranges, gets the boys to get rid of them, and the last in Stan's mouth is swallowed with a hard pat on the back. An orange is thrown over the wall, and the rope ladder is dangled, and the Warden chases the danglers outside the door away, and with the door open the boys run to escape, only to return with powder burns on their backsides from a gun shot. Next we see the boys on the side of the road with pickaxes, with Stan continually sticking his in Ollie's coat, and still he gets hit when he gives Stan a spade. The bell rings for a food break for all prisoners, and when the boys have nowhere to sit, they mistakingly get the Warden's table, have some pepper trouble, and are shouted away. The only way to get their food is to get loads of wood for the chef, and they find a tree to cut down, which they don't realise has a Treetop Lookout post and guard (Charlie Hall) at the top, so both fall into the below gazebo. Then everyone gets back to work with the Governor (James Finlayson) coming to inspect, and when Ollie gets his coat ripped again, he manages to throw Stan's pick-axe into the Govenor's car radiator. To stop the leak of gas a prisoner suggests filling it with rice, and this seems to work until the car starts to drive and the radiator erupts with this gas/rice mixture. The Warden pushes Stan in the mound of mixture as lesson, and Stan throws some in his face, and throwing back the Warden manages to hit the Governor. So the Governor accidentally hits Ollie, and soon enough everyone including the two women in the car, other prison staff and all the inmates are throwing this mixture at each other. With this chaos going on, the boys run away, and the Warden and Governor decide to get the Manager to stop the whole thing, and they reverse a car into a cart carrying barrels of white paint, which spills on the boys hiding in the back of the car. Filled with wonderful slapstick and all classic comedy you could want from a black and white film, it is an enjoyable film. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were number 7 on The Comedians' Comedian. Good!

As some people have already pointed out on this page THE HOOSE GOW isn`t by any means the best of the L&H shorts , and when I saw it last week BBC 2 made the error of showing it after THE LAUREL AND HARDY MURDER CASE which is my all time Stan and Ollie short Not to be too negative the action starts with a van arriving at a prison and thus we arrive at the start of the story . This is a better opening than a few other of these shorts where Stan and Ollie bumble around for a few minutes in a scene that has nothing to do with the rest of the story . I could be cruel and point out the character interaction is somewhat confusing since a fellow prisoner tries to get Stan and Ollie out of the clink then plays a practical joke on them with the warders table , but like I said that would be cruel and when you stop to think about it maybe the worst thing that could happen to someone in the American penal system in the 1920s is having Stan and Ollie as cellmates . Imagine Chris Keller and Vern Shillinger from OZ walked into this Laurel and Hardy story !