This is the last comedy short than Laurel and Hardy starred in, after surviving quite a few in English, as well as several other, languages. It's a pretty good one, with a special surprise ending.........First, we have a dispute between Stan and Ollie's wife Daphne about whether Stan payed his monthly room and board. He claims he gave it to Ollie instead of her : a no no. Then , we have a dispute between Daphne and the boys whether they are going to wash the dishes or go to the ball game. Daphne wins, but ultimately loses all her dishes in a mishap, as we might expect. The kitchen scene involves some initial slapstick, followed by a sight gag, as Ollie does the dish washing and rinsing, while Stan does the drying. But, absent-minded Stan puts the dishes back in the wash basin, while Ollie is rinsing another. Eventually, Ollie catches this, and corrects Stan, who, then puts them on the lit stove burner to further dry them. Ollie doesn't see this last step and burns his hands when he picks them up.......Next, bill collector Jim Finlayson comes to collect a late payment on some furniture. Daphne says she gave the money to Ollie, who gave it to Stan, who gave it to Ollie, etc.. Daphne summaries the said transactions in a hilarious run that much reminds me of the later famous performance by Abbott and Costello: "Who's on First?" This drives Finlayson out of his mind! .......Later, Ollie suggests he withdraw all of the $300. in their bank account and pay off the rest of their furniture bill. Daphne says "No!". She rightly doesn't trust him with that much money. Bad boy Ollie withdraws all that money anyway. On the way to paying for the furniture, they chance upon an auction. Very inadvisably, they enter and sit down, not expecting to buy anything. The woman next to them very much wants the grandfather clock currently being bid on. But, the bidding has gone too high, and she wants to go home, and get more money. She asks Ollie to keep bidding for her until she returns. Foolishly, Ollie agrees. In fact, she never returns, and Ollie keeps bidding up the price. Toward the end. Ollie is only bidding against Stan! They stop at $290. The auctioneer requires them to pay for the clock, even if they were bidding for someone else. Also, they have to take the clock now. So, they carry it along the streets until they are tired and decide to set it down for a bit. Very stupidly, they set it down in the middle of a street! A truck comes along and smashes it to bits. The boys are forced to return home and make up a lie about what they have been doing. But, Daphne has been to the bank, and happened to come across Finlayson, who was at the auction, and knows what happened. So, after everybody gets home, and Ollie has told his lies, 4'9" Daphne gets a big frying pan, then gets on a chair and beans Ollie, who just stands there , expecting it.........In the final section, we see Stan coming to the hospital to visit Ollie. But, he is collared to give Ollie some blood. At first, he refuses, saying he's not a bloodworm. But, he's finally coerced. But, during the transfusion, the valve on the transfuser becomes stuck, resulting in Stan giving too much blood. Now, Stan has passed out, and the flow of blood is reversed, so that he gets some of Ollie's blood. We skip some time, and see the 2 leaving the room. But, Stan now looks and dresses like Ollie, has his mannerisms, and talks like him (clearly dubbed by Ollie). For Ollie, it's the reverse. I found it hilarious and think it was a fitting way to end their comedy shorts career. See it at YouTube, where there is a B&W copy, as well as a copy of the colorized version. I found the latter too blurry for my liking.
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