I am a great lover of the Laurel and Hardy movies and so it was with some excitement that I was finally able to rent one of only two movies that Oliver Hardy made without Stan Laurel since their teamwork began (the other, Fighting Kentuckian, also stars another one of my favorite actors, John Wayne, and I enjoyed that one quite a bit). This however was a huge disappointment. It seemed to be Hal Roach's attempt at a prestige piece but it belies its poor roots. The story of a country doctor in the 19th century who treats an carnival elephant named Zenobia and then can't lose the elephant and its affections is poorly written, with little real humour. The performances are lackluster, with the exception of Billie Burke as Ollie's long suffering yet dim-witted wife. Her performance injects each scene she is in with the kind of manic craziness the rest of the movie aspires to but can't deliver. Another major bone of contention was the hideously racist performance of Stepin Fetchit as the servant, Zero. Ollie's later speech on equality can not even begin to make up for this truly offensive addition to an already poor movie. An early L&H sound short, Laughing Gravy, was included on the tape and showed us what Ollie could really do when given the proper material with Stan and I laughed out loud many times. I only wish that Zenobia could have made me do that just once.
