BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) This is a Laurel & Hardy short film that runs for slightly under 20 minutes as most of their works, is in black-and-white, but has sound. These two were the big exception as they managed a successful transition from silent film stars to still being stars in the sound era. The director here is Lloyd French, who worked with Stan and Ollie on several occasions and was one of the most prolific filmmakers of his time. What is especially impressive is that he only made films for roughly 15 years and yet has a body of work that includes over 100 credits. Anyway, his work "Busy Bodies" is not too funny or memorable I must say. Laurel and Hardy work at a sawmill and you probably already can imagines how much chaos they cause their. They go against themselves, against other people in this film and most of all against the inanimate objects in the sawmill. Lots of mayhem ensues. Maybe too much for 20 minutes actually. The two were in their early 40s when they made this one. Probably not among their finest works, but there is one truly hilarious moment, namely when a supporting character tells Stan that he likes his kind face and Hardy's face expression is simply priceless after that. Not enough though for 20 minutes. Not recommended.

theowinthrop Some comedians rely on plot and screenplay - such as the Marx Brothers, who have to have sharp dialog for Groucho and Chico, and some social target to aim at. So did W. C. Fields. But Laurel & Hardy were frequently at their best when they had a simple story line and just expanded the situation without words.IN BUSY BODIES they are going to work at a wood mill run by Tiny Sanford. They have to go to work by car, and we see them in a rare moment of pleasant peace with the world, listening to music on their car radio - or I should say car "radio" as it is something special. They arrive at the work site, and quickly have their first run in with Charlie Hall, causing him to become discomforted by a mild joke (which he is not crazy about). But shortly they head inside, and keep getting into a variety of simple but effective sequences that are pure gold humor. First Ollie keeps getting hit in the head by co-workers with bars. Then Ollie's fingers get stuck in a window frame, that Stan can't quite get him out of. Curiously enough Stan starts showing a bit of initiative here - looking at a blueprint supposedly of the window frame. Ollie, impatiently points out it is a blue print for the Hoover/Boulder Dam (why? what's it doing there?). Shortly occurs another confrontation with Hall, which ends with a surprising action by Stan. More mayhem (including Stan having to give Ollie a shave with a wood plane - you have to be there to see it) follows, topped by Ollie being shot through an air duct into crashing on top of a shed, demolishing it (and nearly demolishing Tiny Sanford). The film ends with the boys trying to drive off in their Model T, only to find that a buzz saw has other other ideas.It is not as organized as say THE MUSIC BOX or HELPMATES, but it is as funny as those two sound shorts were. This is a delight to watch to see how the boys did so much with so little.

BJJManchester One of Laurel and Hardy's best short films,BUSY BODIES is remarkable for having very little plot (even for a short) and almost even less dialogue.But the incident on show has enough variety and is so beautifully executed that any minor quibbles are irrelevant.It starts charmingly with the boys driving to work on a lovely morning,accompanied by the welcome and familiar sound of LeRoy Shield's background music on their 'radio'.The revealing of this 'radio' is very clever,which leads on to their job at a sawmill.This arguably leads on to the most spectacular slapstick ever seen in a Laurel and Hardy film,with the unfortunate Ollie always on the receiving end.In other less skilled hands,this action may have come across as crude,but here with these two comedic masters,it is technically superb,always funny if sometimes (especially with the shaving scene) a trifle shocking!The stunningly conceived sequences,virtually all performed in mime (but with effective sound effects),are pleasantly counter-balanced by Stan and Ollie's subtle facial expressions and reactions,plus some amusing support performances by familiar foils Charlie Hall and Tiny Sandford.A magnificent closing gag involving their car ends the film on a gloriously high note;it is only marginally below the standards of their most celebrated efforts like THE MUSIC BOX and WAY OUT WEST,but only very marginally,and certainly deserves to be in the top 10 or 20 films they ever made.Over seven decades on,this peerless pair of laughter-makers are as funny as ever.Great!RATING:9 and a half out of 10.

wmorrow59 Some Laurel & Hardy buffs prefer their domestic comedies, the ones where Stan & Ollie have wives and usually try to deceive them in some way-- with scant success, of course --but for hardcore fans there's nothing like watching the boys take on a construction project. Give them a basic task such as building a house, fixing a boat, or putting a radio antenna on the roof, a task requiring a certain amount of physical dexterity and skill, and you're in for twenty minutes of pure slapstick performed by experts. Busy Bodies is a two-reel masterpiece of this comic style, happily unencumbered with any unnecessary plot complications, largely because there's no plot. There's hardly any dialog, either. Stan Laurel doesn't speak at all until the halfway point, and utters only a few carefully chosen words even then. This film seems to have been an attempt to translate the team's silent comedy style into a talkie format, enhanced with cleverly chosen sound effects and the delightful background music of Le Roy Shield. I've always loved the opening gag, as the boys drive to work enjoying a familiar Shield melody ("Smile When the Raindrops Fall") in their car. When the song ends they pull over, then Stan gets out and opens the hood, revealing a phonograph with a record that's reached the end of a side. Stan pulls out another record from their collection, carefully wipes it off with his hand, puts it on and drops the needle. The jaunty tune resumes, and they drive on. Long before the days of tape decks or i-Pods, the boys found a way to supply their own cheery soundtrack music!Once the guys arrive at the sawmill where they work, however, the mood changes. They must deal with co-workers, and, worse, with their assigned tasks. Viewers expecting an actual story to develop (or hoping a young romantic couple will step in and sing a few songs) will wait in vain, for the rest of the movie consists entirely of Stan & Ollie's increasing messy, heroic, yet ultimately futile attempt to put in a day's work. Stan is apparently supposed to plane some lumber while Ollie adjusts a window frame, but nothing constructive is accomplished. Distractions abound. Props at hand include saws, hammers, nails, two-by-fours, blue-prints for Boulder Dam, and Ollie's severed necktie. A conflict develops with a co-worker (the invaluable Charlie Hall), and then further conflict erupts between Stan & Ollie themselves. A paintbrush is forcibly glued to Ollie's chin, and must be removed. Finally Ollie loses his temper and yanks the entire sink out of the wall. It slams into him and flings him backward. Consequently he is sucked into the building's disposal chute, hurled through its maze-like passageways, and violently ejected from the building in a kind of frenzied re-birthing experience, also receiving a brisk spanking along the way. But the movie's not quite over yet: after all this the boys lose their jobs, and must depart. The memorable closing gag employs a lethal-looking band-saw to impressive effect.The climax of Busy Bodies was excerpted for one of the Laurel & Hardy compilation films that came out in the 1960s, thus when I was a kid I was lucky enough to see the finale of this film on a big screen in a theater, where it was enjoyed by a loudly appreciative audience. I'll never forget the laughs that greeted Ollie's wild ride through the disposal chute. In the '70s I acquired a Blackhawk print of the film and still run it now and then, and it still makes me laugh. Laurel & Hardy never received the same degree of respect from critics and film scholars that some of their peers were granted, but for my money they were as great as any of the comedians of their era. And considering the competition, that's saying something.