Review of Oliver the Eighth

I didn't much like this 27min.(3 reels) L&H comedy short, including the ending, which I thought was a cop out. I'll return to that later.........The boys own a barber shop. Their humdrum life is interrupted by a newspaper wanted ad: Rich widow looking for compatible husband. Stan sees it, but Ollie has hopes of beating him to her. They both write letters to her, Ollie supposedly mailing both, but discarding Stan's (as if he had a chance to trump Ollie's). Little does Ollie know that the widow(Mae Busch) is only interested in men named Oliver, for she has slit the throats of 7 already. This is her revenge for the first Oliver standing her up on their wedding day. Ollie won't learn this until the widow's butler tells him, after the widow has locked all means of exit from the house.......After being accepted by the widow, Ollie says that Stan can't go with him, since they will no long be in the same social class. But, later, Stan finds his letter that Ollie discarded, and is angry. He goes to the widow's house and demands that Ollie give him half of what he gets from the widow, or else he will tell the widow (what?) about him: blackmail! Ollie reluctantly agrees, and Stan demands that he stay in this house to keep a tab on Ollie.........When Ollie first meets the butler, the latter seems peculiar in several ways. First, he says "Nice weather we had tomorrow". Then, he pretends he's playing cards, shuffling an imaginary deck, and moving chips around. He will again do the card 'trick' when Stan arrives. Later, after the butler blows "First Call "on his bugle, signaling that dinner is ready, they will be subjected to another pantomime treatment, as they are served imaginary dishes and drinks. They feel they must play along and hide their hunger. The widow borrows Stan's scissors, cuts off Ollie's tie, and throws the 2 behind her chair........So far, we've barely experienced any of the boys usual modes of humor, just strangeness of their hosts. That will change once they go to their room(after the butler plays "Taps" on his bugle), where they are locked in. Ollie says one of them must be awake at all times to alert when the widow comes, in her sleepwalking. Stan is chosen to 'stand' guard at first. But , Ollie finds out he soon falls asleep. So, Ollie has an idea: Tie a string(from where?) onto a candle and the other end tied to a brick he finds(?), and sling the brick over something, so it is above Stan's head. If the string burns, because Stan hasn't moved it down, the brick will fall on his head and wake him up(or knock him out!). Stan finds a rifle in the closet, and wants to test if it's loaded. He blows a gaping hole in Ollie's pajama bottoms, laying on the chair. When Stan thinks he sees the hand of a man at the bottom of their bed, he takes the rifle and blasts it, except that it's Ollie's toes. Their bed also collapses from the explosion. Eventually, the widow sleepwalks to their room and unlocks it, then locks it again when she's in. Somehow, Stan gets locked in the closet with the rifle, and she makes her way to the unconscious Ollie, who received the brick on the head, instead of Stan. She's about to slit his throat, when Ollie awakens from his dream, which he did in his barber chair, with Stan shaving him........I would like to propose an alternative ending, where Ollie is not knocked out, but cowers in his bed(or is asleep). Stan is not in bed, but aims the rifle at her and pulls the trigger, but nothing happens. She leans over the bed where Stan was , ready to strike Ollie. Just then, the candle string burns through and the brick falls on her head, knocking her out. The boys take her knives, but dare not strike her. They find the room key, and take the knives as well as the rifle, looking for the butler, to make him open a door. This he eventually does, after giving them an imaginary bottle of milk..........See it at YouTube, in color or B&W. I found the colorized one a bit fuzzy.