They Go Boom! (1929) starring Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Charlie Hall
In They Go Boom!, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are simply trying to sleep through the night in a rented room. Oliver, however, is suffering from a cold, and his sneezing is keeping Stanley awake.
Likewise, Stan’s snoring is keeping Ollie awake. Stan tries to “help” but keeps making things worse. Things such as closing the blind, only for it to roll back up noisily.nailing a fallen picture back up only to puncture a water pipe so that Oliver gets soaked, making a “plaster” for Ollie’s chest (that ends up on his bottom instead), and making a foot bath of hot water (with something else mixed in the water), etc.
Stan tries to coat Oliver’s throat with medicine, having Ollie accidentally swallow the thing, nearly choking in the process. Adding insult to injury, Oliver’s air mattress becomes deflated. They try to re-inflate it, eventually trying to use gas to inflate it … A point that becomes important later on.
Understandably, they make a lot of noise, and their landlord (Charlie Hall) comes up to berate Oliver Hardy for making so much noise. While Stan is sitting in bed, smiling angelically. “Why can’t you be quiet like him?”
Despite his best intentions, Oliver Hardy loses his temper with Stan Laurel and throws a pillow at him. Stan ducks and Ollie unintentionally hits their suffering landlord with the pillow! The furious landlord leaves and Stan and Ollie try to dash into bed and go to sleep before they can get into any further trouble. But the gas is continuing to inflate the air mattress …
In a bit of prop humor worthy of the Loony Tunes, the air mattress keeps inflating without popping, until Stan and Ollie are nearly hitting the ceiling! Oliver sneezes at an inopportune moment, and the air mattress explodes violently, partially collapsing the ceiling above them! Landlord Charlie Hall has taken everything that he intends to. He breaks into the room with a trio of police officers, asking them to arrest Laurel and Hardy! However, Ollie has one more sneeze left in him, which collapses the ceiling again, hitting the inhabitants and police with falling plaster, ending the short film.
They Go Boom! is an excellent slapstick short, fast-paced and funny, and I recommend it very much. They Go Boom! is available on DVD as part of The Lost Films of Laurel and Hardy: Volume 4
Cast of characters
- Stan Laurel (Pack Up Your Troubles) … Stan
- Oliver Hardy (Sons of the Desert) … Ollie
- Charlie Hall (Laughing Gravy) … Landlord (uncredited)
- Sam Lufkin (The Hoose-Gow) … Policeman (uncredited)
- John M. O’Brien … Tenant (uncredited)
[Updated May 25, 2023]