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Reviews
Frozen Hearts (1923)
One of the best from Stan Laurel's solo career.
Most people are used to seeing the boys, Stan and Ollie, as a team. It doesn't feel right to some viewers to see them separated, playing much different characters than the ones that made them world famous. Because of this, Stan's solo work is oftentimes dismissed as awful, unwatchable. I disagree! While he certainly had some bores under his belt before the forming of Laurel and Hardy, he had just as many hilarious films that showed a true comedy genius at work. Frozen Hearts is one of those gems. I laugh from beginning to end every time I watch it.
The long fight between Laurel and Jim Finlayson is definitely the funniest part of this film. Out in the snow, they strip down to their undershirts (well, Finlayson has on an undershirt...Stan is wearing a corset decorated with dainty little bows, similar to the one he wears in his parody Mud and Sand), and engage in a sword fight that leaves them exhausted and sprawled out on the ground. Then they are dragged inside and exchange their broken swords for guns. During this duel, they shoot and kill nearly everyone around them, but completely miss each other.
Watch this (and his other films) with an open mind, try to separate him from his lovable dimwit character in L&H. You won't regret it if you do!
A Mandarin Mixup (1924)
Probably the worst of Stan's solo shorts
This short starts off with some promise, but sadly goes downhill quite fast. In the beginning, we see the "baby" Stan Laurel sitting in a high chair, fighting with his older brother (who, oddly enough, looks like a young Oliver Hardy) at the dinner table. Seeing a full grown Stan acting like, and dressed up as, a baby in a bonnet and spit curl is quite amusing.
Baby Stan flings a spoon full of food toward his big brother, and the brother responds by throwing him into a laundry bag that is taken to the Chinese laundry. The movie continues with Stan all grown up, working at the Chinese laundry as a fellow called Sum Sap.
Most of the gags and plot (if you can call it that) fall flat. The most amusing gags are when Stan tries to get into the bunk bed in the room he shares with several people. In typical Stan Laurel fashion, he makes the simple task of getting into bed look like a nearly impossible feat. Once he's finally on his top bunk, he lays down and moments later gets high on the opium the fellow beneath him is smoking. He jumps buildings and floats around Chinatown, chasing after his hallucination of the China Girl. But even those gags lack the rib-cracking humor Stan would perfect in later years.
He manages to make The Tong angry with him, and tries to escape using not-so-clever disguises. One would think the master of comedy would make this scenario hilarious, but dear Stan unfortunately fails to deliver. Everything after the opium scene is darn near excruciating to watch. It's almost a relief when the end comes (He marries his China Girl and is reunited with his real, rich family).
It pains me to give such a low rating to a Stan Laurel film, but it is a terribly dull short and would only be of interest to die hard Stan Laurel and L&H fans. 3/10. Sorry Stanley :(.