SmugKitZine Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Catherina If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

naseby Because of the nature of this comedy, where the duo have twin brothers, who, are getting mistaken for them/each other it was a good vehicle for total confusion that works well.The 'respectable' Ollie and Stan and their twin bad-boy sailor brothers, 'Bert and Alf' get into these scrapes. Ollie and Stan decide NOT to tell their wives that they have no-good twin brothers though, leading to more confusion. So much so, it is hard to explain away the gags - it's far better to watch this film and enjoy it. 'Bert' and 'Alf' naturally will try and pick the girls up, only for the married Stan and Ollie, with their wives in tow, who get split up from the boys allowing further confusion, to be accused later of philandering and so the situations continue. This was well written with plenty of gags. It was nice to see Betty Healy as Stan's missus, as according to IMDb she hadn't had much in the way of acting roles and intentionally or not, she looked a good, gangly and scatty partner to Stan.Of course, the great Jimmy Finlayson played the boys' foil well with some good lines coming his way too.Very good and it reminds us all of why the boys are the greatest comedy duo of all time and rightly so!

maxcellus46 At this point in the history of Hal Roach Studios, Mr. Roach wanted to progress beyond the "two reeler" concepts and begin to compete with MGM and the other large studios by making feature films exclusively. His main concept was to produce what he termed "streamlined" comedies which would run just about an hour or a little more. The purpose being that he could produce feature length films on a shoestring budget and therefore be more competitive with the large studios. Not a bad idea, in concept. With "Our Relations" Stan Laurel wanted to show that if Roach would allow them to spend more money on production, that he and Ollie could make "A" grade comedies instead of just the quicky type two-reelers. Stan produced this film and the next one to follow, "Way Out West", and it shows what he had been after for a very long time. "Our Relations" is a breezy, fast paced comedy that shows L&H not only capable of the 'ol slapstick bits but also most capable of handling situational comedy as the type Cary Grant and other similar stars were performing at this time. There's lots of original gags and lines in this film demonstrating the apt writing of one of the old masters by this time, Felix Adler, who also wrote for numerous Three Stooges shorts. In a way I'm saddened by this film because it was one of the very few times in L&H's careers that production values were not a concern and they obviously had absolute creative control over their performances. It's a shame that Hal Roach didn't appreciate them enough to keep them on past 1940 and continue with their logical progress toward even greater things. Had he done that, there would have been much more to enjoy from them and maybe they might have even given Abbott & Costello a real run for their money. Whatever the case, if you enjoy L&H, don't miss this one!

Theo Robertson Normally when you see a Laural and Hardy short you notice that the script is rather disjointed and comes across as a series of sketches with no real plot at the core and considering that OUR RELATIONS lasts for a a total of 73 minutes I came to it expecting a rather incoherent story saved only by the uncanny ability of Stan and Ollie being able to tickle my funny bone My doubts were unfounded because this is a fairly tightly plotted comedy where Stan and Ollie suffer from a case of mistaken identity . Of course it's not flawless and there's some very serious suspension of disbelief needed . What's the chances of Stan and Ollie having two identical brothers ? So identical that they also share the exact same mannerisms . Not only that but they also end up through a series of unlikely events sharing the exact same clothes and appearing at the same locations that their twin brothers attend . The mind boggles at these coincidences It really says something of the standard of Laurel and Hardy that despite noticing these coincidences this feature wasn't ruined in any way . It should also be noted that OUR RELATIONS feels more cinematic than many of the shorts that come across as very stagey , about the only criticism on a technical level is the pier scene ( Prepare to wet yourself ) which is rather poorly edited , but this is a very good Stan and Ollie feature

The_Movie_Cat Is this the most violent Laurel and Hardy film ever made? Surprisingly, while Stan and Ollie's twin brothers – Bert and Alf – are described as "bad lads", it's the originals that are the most malicious, in this sadistic – yet very funny all the same – Laurel and Hardy showcase. Stan gets to headbutt a barman and set fire to another man's chest hair, while Ollie, for his part, sticks a lightbulb in a man's mouth (James Finlayson, a regular stooge for the boys in 35 movies) then punches him in the face so he swallows the broken glass. Their supposedly rogue twins, meanwhile, merely try to save money and treat some ladies to a meal. In order to distinguish between the twins (other than the level of violence they display), musical cues are used – a sea shanty for the sailors Bert and Alf, and the Laurel and Hardy theme for Stan and Ollie.There are lots of great sustained jokes in this movie, such as Ollie's broken spectacles, and the ultimate in a sustained gag is the mistaken identities between the sets of twins. This joke is taken so far towards its logical conclusion that the duos don't discover each other's existence until the final ninety seconds of film. This causes the plot to be far more imaginative, whereas a lesser film would have had greater reliance on the two pairs meeting. Arthur Housman is also good as the drunk, a role he seemed to make a career out of playing in many of his 159 film roles. It was a also a role he reprised with Laurel and Hardy, having played both "drunk" and "drunk sailor" in Scram!, The Live Ghost and The Fixer Uppers.The direction by Harry Lachman is well above average for the pair. Some scenes are shot through a fish tank or the back of a bed's headrail, and there are lots of aerial shots. The split screen technology, while used sparingly, was extremely proficient for the time. One thing of note is that a couple of the sequences, such as the crushed in the telephone box scene, are slightly similar to sight gags in the Marx Brothers film of the previous year, A Night At The Opera. It's not that obvious, and may just be coincidence, but I'd rather hoped that Laurel and Hardy had inspired the Marx Brothers, and not the other way around. But it's probably funnier here anyway, particularly poor old Stan with a boot on his neck. Finally, one of the concluding scenes – Stan crying hysterically as he rolls around on concrete boots – is a real winner.