Block-Heads (1938)

By 1938, Laurel and Hardy had been making audiences laugh for well over a decade, and Block-Heads arrived at a curious moment in their careers. The pair had already produced some of their most celebrated work for the Hal Roach Studios, including the Oscar-winning short The Music Box and the feature-length Sons of the Desert, and audiences knew exactly what they were getting. Block-Heads leans into that familiarity. The premise is a good one: Stan has spent the twenty years since the armistice still patrolling a stretch of French trenches, blissfully unaware that the First World War ended in 1918. When Ollie spots his old friend's photograph in a newspaper, he goes to collect him, bringing Stan back into a domestic American life that neither man is remotely equipped to handle. It is the kind of high-concept absurdist setup that suits the duo well, and it gives the film a wartime flavour without ever being a war film in any serious sense. For a bit of contrast, you can see how differently the First World War has been treated on screen more recently over in the review for 1917.

The film was directed by John G. Blystone, who had a long history in Hollywood comedy going back to the silent era (his earlier work includes Our Hospitality from 1923). Produced by Hal Roach Studios on a modest budget typical of their output, Block-Heads runs a tight 57 minutes, which was standard for the duo's features at this point. The supporting cast includes Patricia Ellis as Ollie's patient wife, Minna Gombell, and Billy Gilbert, whose physical presence and flair for broad reaction comedy made him a reliable fixture in the Roach ensemble. The film was written with Stan Laurel himself heavily involved in shaping the gags, as was his usual practice. The result is polished but unremarkable in technical terms, the kind of production the Roach lot could turn out efficiently and competently, with the real craft sitting entirely in the performances rather than the filmmaking.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy had by this stage refined their screen personas to something close to perfection. Stan's childlike obliviousness and Ollie's long-suffering dignity were a pairing that worked almost regardless of the material around them, and Block-Heads gives both men plenty of room to do what they did best. The two-man dynamic carries the film through its quieter stretches in the way that only genuine comic chemistry can.

Block-Heads (1938) is a charming, if slightly uneven, late-career Laurel and Hardy film that holds up surprisingly well for a film pushing 90 years old. Freed from the constraints of silent cinema but still rooted in physical comedy, the duo delivers their trademark blend of bumbling innocence and escalating chaos. Stan Laurel plays a shell-shocked WWI veteran who’s been living in the trenches for two decades, unaware the war ended, yes, it’s absurd, but that’s the charm. Oliver Hardy, as ever, is the exasperated man trying (and failing) to reintegrate him into civilian life. The gags are hit-or-miss by modern standards: some land with timeless silliness, while others feel dated or stretched too thin. There’s nothing here as iconic as their earlier work, but there’s still genuine warmth in their chemistry and a gentle, nostalgic rhythm to the pacing. It’s not laugh-out-loud hilarious, but it’s consistently pleasant, clever in spots, and a testament to how much joy these two could wring from simple misunderstandings. Not essential, but far from forgotten. A solid, sweet-natured relic that proves even “just ok” Laurel and Hardy is better than most comedies today.

I keep coming back to that point about chemistry, because it really is what saves the film when the individual gags don't quite fire. There is a kind of ease between Laurel and Hardy here that no amount of sharper writing could manufacture. They had been doing this long enough that even the slower moments feel comfortable rather than slack. It is not a film I would press on someone as a starting point for the duo, but if you already have a fondness for them, there is plenty here to reward an hour of your time. Sometimes a film does not need to be essential viewing to be worth your while. It just needs to be good company.

Rating: ★★★  | Year: 1938  | Watched: 2026-03-07

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from John G. Blystone: Our Hospitality (1923)
More with Stan Laurel: Sons of the Desert (1933) · The Music Box (1932)
More from the 1930s: Earth (1930) · Monkey Business (1931) · Sabotage (1936) · People on Sunday (1930)
More comedy: The Eagle (1925) · The General (1926) · Americana (2023) · The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
More war: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · The General (1926) · Men Without Wings (1946) · Fires Were Started (1943)