Roughest Africa (USA, 1923)

Another film by English actor Stan Laurel before his successful regular pairing with Oliver Hardy. Laurel had been in films for around 10 years before he started working with Hardy, mostly in films that did not stand out both in quality or humor. Perhaps, were not for the Laurel & Hardy duo, if those comedians kept on working on their own, they could ran the risk of not having their proper place in the history of cinema.

Despite having a kinda original plot for a situational comedy, the material of this film has average quality and does not provide much laughter. It is a politically incorrect film for nowadays’ standards because the characters are supposed to hunt animals, including a scene where Laurel tries to shoot a elephant. Although the animal was not hurt, such scene would be of bad taste for current standards. The scene where the elephant swallows a gun is also far from pleasant.

The film remains interesting, as it spoofs  travelogues that showed “exotic” parts of the world, their native populations, wildlife, landscapes, etc, often with a imperialist tone. Such documentaries were into fashion in the first decades of XX century.

Some pioneers are in Africa, although they really lack the bravery they were supposed to have. The scenery and natives look terribly fake already on first sight. The natives, for instance, were white acctors in black face, with make up that was far from sophisticated even to its own era. 

The pioneers face unfriendly natives and wild animals. Not surprisingly, they really lack any hunting skill whatsoever and it is apparently easier to them to shoot each other than to shoot a animal. 

Still talking about animals, it is not hard for nowadays’ audiences realize that neither bears nor Asian elephants are native species of Africa and even the fauna around the actors sometimes look really like the fauna of Northern America. A mistake that would not really go unnoticed in a current film. 

The interaction between people and animals in the jungle and the attempt of pioneers to film the animals provide the input to the gags of this film. The plot became old with time, but this film retains some historical value of an era when hunting animals to death was considered an accomplishment and socially acceptable.

Should Sailors Marry? (USA,1925)

The diminutive Australian-born comedian Clyde Cook was one of many comedians who ended up being forgotten as time passed, although he was quite popular in his era and had a long career that spanned even to talkies. His heyday was on Hal Roach studios in the 1920s. He was known by his acrobatic skills, which unfortunately were not always portrayed in his films. His films were not quit original or funny and were often a bit below average, specially in comparison with the work of more famous comedians like Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Langdon, etc., which can partially explain why Clyde Cook’s popularity did not endure for too long. 

In this film, Cook portrays a physically fragile sailor, who had some savings and corresponded with a woman who he was about to meet with the intention to marry her.

What the sailor did not know is that this woman paid alimony to her first husband and intended to remarry in an attempt to take money from him, so she could still pay the alimony to her ex. So, she had a plan with her ex husband to make the sailor remain married to her for as long as possible, so her ex would have a guaranteed source of income. The help of her ex husband would prove valuable because, after all, he could use his physical skills as a wrestler to physically threaten the sailor. 

When both the woman and the sailor met, things turned out to be a nightmare to the latter. The woman was not as beautiful as she claimed she was and was rather tough. To make things worse, he moved to her house and was introduced to her two children, who were quite misbehaved and, to add insult to injury, her first husband still lived at home. 

After a while, the woman found out that her new husband (the sailor) had lost all his savings and she decided to make him work in a hazardous job. To make the most of his labor, she purchased a insurance policy, which would pay her in case an accident happened to her husband. So, both the woman and her ex wrestling husband make up a plan to kill the sailor at work. But the plan backfired and he escaped both the marriage and the accident with his life.

This film is interesting due to a participation of Oliver Hardy as a doctor who was examining the sailor, prior to his pairing with Oliver Hardy. Hardy’s scene was among the funniest of the film. Although the gags were not very funny, the final gags outdoors, when the sailor was fighting for his life were pretty ingenious for both camera use and special effects.