BLOCK-HEADS, one of Laurel & Hardy’s two contributions to 1938 (Swiss Miss the other) only runs 55 minutes, and for die-hard fans that seems to be just swell, per other reviews you can find. Alas, we at Fort Ala ran low on patience by the mid-point, and the last ten minutes get so shrill with bellowing between Ollie and his frau that a polite frozen smile turns to a stiff grimace. L&H devotees, we are genuinely sorry: when a movie about the fellas (2018’s superb Stan & Ollie) is more fun than most of their old movies, it’s time to make room for Bud & Lou.

World War One (now that’s a riotous situation), 1917. When his unit goes ‘over the top’, private Stan is left behind to patrol their trench. The Armistice comes, but nobody tells the dopey doughboy, who stays at his post until 1938 before he’s wised up. Back in the States, former comrade Ollie, now married (henpecked as in other plots), discovers that his old pal is alive and he invites him to meet-the-wife-and-dine. As demanded by the prescription of the duo’s internationally famous routines things go from clumsy to catastrophic. We feel compelled to add beloved (because they were and still are): they kept at it, thru 32 short silent films, 40 short sound films, and 23 full-length feature pictures.

Granted, the sight gags are good, the teamwork finessed to razor sharp: it just depends how one reacts to the style and pacing. Plus, it’s a rather odd choice to start the show off in a trench in No Mans Land—action footage is clipped in from The Big Parade, Wings and All Quiet On The Western Front—especially considering the globe’s self-proclaimed smartest species and their chosen representatives were busy spinning headlong towards the next, much worse calamity. Bring on the jokes about losing limbs.

In the cast: likable Patricia Ellis as Oliver’s friendly married neighbor; Minna Gombell, hard to take as his screeching harridan of a wife; Billy Gilbert, funny as the neighbor’s pompous big-game hunter husband; Charles Finlayson as one of the stray passersby irritated by Oliver and Stanley.

Marvin Hatley’s music score received an Oscar nomination: to us its wall-to-wall cuteness wore thin early on. Directed by John G. Blystone, this slapstuckstick exercise was written by Charlie Rogers, Felix Adler, James Parrott, Harry Langdon, Arnold Belgard and Mr. Laurel. Box office of $2,300,000 marked 99th among the 455 feature films delivered up by the majors and independents in 1938. Swiss Miss (which I will not miss missing) trailed at 131st.