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Big Business
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Stan (Stan Laurel) and Ollie (Oliver Hardy) are selling Christmas trees door-to-door. Stan unintentionally insults their first customer (a single woman) when he asks, "If you had a husband, would he buy a tree?" The second house has a sign up that says "No Peddlers." Ollie rings the bell anyway and gets a couple of knocks on the head with a hammer. When they come to Jimmy Finlayson's (James Finlayson) house, he tells them that he doesn't want a tree, and he closes the door -- on a tree branch. They ring the bell again, and Finlayson says that he still doesn't want a tree. He closes the door again, and Stan's coat is stuck in it. So they ring the bell again. Soon, tempers begin to flare, and the orgy of destruction starts small. Finlayson chops their tree in half and cuts Ollie's tie with scissors. Laurel and Hardy rip out Finlayson's phone and the doorbell. By the end of the movie, Finlayson has destroyed our boys' trees and their car. They have smashed his furniture, dug up his yard, and cut down all of his landscaping, as a crowd forms to watch the spectacle. ~ All Movie Guide
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Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
loved it.
This classic Laurel and Hardy two-reeler is as near to perfection as any short comedy, silent, or sound can get. A number of the duo's films are based on the "reciprocal destruction" theme -- Two Tars and Tit for Tat are two other hilarious examples -- but Big Business stands out because of its masterful pacing and brilliant casting (nobody but the ever-irascible James Finlayson could have played the boys' victim so fiercely and funnily, and Tiny Sanford's cop blends just the right amount of disbelief, toughness, and humanity). The tempo starts off close to a snail's pace while Stan and Ollie make a couple of unsuccessful attempts to sell their Christmas trees (the details, by the way, are brilliant; for example, even though they are in sunny Southern California, the boys are dressed in heavy overcoats more suited for a real Christmas-y climate). The pace doesn't immediately pick up when the duo reaches Finlayson's home: Director James W. Horne purposefully lingers while the tree's branch and Stan's coat get caught in Finlayson's door. Then the mass destruction begins, and the rhythm begins to pick up...and pick up...and pick up until all three characters are deep into a furious frenzy of violence. By the end, Finlayson is so beside himself that it's all he can do to wrestle with the boys' remaining intact tree with their car completely annihilated in the background. Stan, oblivious as always, is in the middle of pulverizing a piano when he finally senses Sanford's presence. Accusations, tears, and resolution follow, and the laughs continue to the final exploding cigar. When it comes to structure, Big Business has few peers and to this day it is an example of excellent comic film making. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
 

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rik_tod
rik_tod
loved it.