Great Guns

This was not the first film that Stan and Ollie were in the army. The first one was Blockheads (1938) which saw Stanley guard the Western Front for 20 years after the war ended. This Laurel and Hardy film was the inspiration for Abbott and Costello's Buck Privates, which did very well at the box office. After that film, Fox decided to put Stan and Ollie in the army again. Unfortunately, although funny in spots, the film does not have the nice easy flow that the Stan Laurel direction pieces had. This was a major error by the Fox studio to use some hack director in place of Stan Laurel. The plot is rather lame, but Stan and Ollie keep the film from being a flop.