We're all used to seeing Stan Laurel as the slightly more dimwitted half of Laurel and Hardy in brilliantly-timed gag sequences that play off their characters. This one, produced several years before his regular teaming with Mr. Hardy, is a bit different. The humor lies in the silly and pun-filled title cards and the use of animals -- about like Jules White's awful Dogville shorts of the early 1930s, but without the obvious and uncomfortable cruelty involved in those movies. If you wish to see an amusing Stanley without Ollie, here's proof that he could do other things well, even if he could be brilliant only with Hardy.
Review of Roughest Africa
