Another Fine Mess

The mansion of Allan Quatermain-style adventurer Colonel Wilberforce Buckshot is to be rented while he is off on a hunting trip in Africa. Meanwhile, Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel are being chased by a police officer. The officer tells another that the duo are vagrants he was trying to clear out of a park, only for Stan to make him violently angry after accidentally calling him "ma'am". Stan and Ollie hide in the basement of the mansion. There, they overhear the butler and maid sneaking off for a holiday to get away from their eccentric owner, leaving the house empty. With the officer loitering around the building trying to find them, the duo become trapped.

Just then, a rich couple - Lady and Lord Plumtree - arrive, seeking to rent the house. Ollie has Stan disguise himself as the butler, dubbing him "Hives", and tell them they need to leave. Stan tries, but seeing the officer still outside, he instead decides to keep them occupied to avoid drawing attention and calls for Buckshot. This forces Ollie to play the role of Buckshot. Stan and Ollie are forced to keep entertaining the couple, with Stan further dressing up as Hives' twin sister and the maid, Agnes, and end up endearing themselves to the Plumtrees.

The real Colonel Buckshot unexpectedly returns to fetch his bow and arrows, only to find the disorder that had ensued after his departure. Stan and Ollie try to entertain him, but eventually see a portrait on the wall that makes them realize the truth and proceed to flee into a closet. The colonel, assuming Stan and Ollie are burglars, alerts the police outside and calls for backup. Lord Plumtree, oblivious to the situation, directs Buckshot and the police to the closet. Stan and Ollie escape dressed as a wildebeest on a stolen tandem bicycle. Chased by the police while Buckshot taunts them from his home, they ride into a railroad tunnel. A tram soon comes by and splits the bicycle in half while also literally stripping the officers of their uniforms. Stan and Ollie emerge from the tunnel riding "unicycles" and slowly pedal to their fate.

• Stan Laurel as Stan[2]
• Oliver Hardy as Ollie

Uncredited:

The film's technical credits are recited by two girls in usherette outfits at the beginning of the film. Beverly and Betty Mae Crane performed the "talking titles" for several Hal Roach productions during the 1930–31 season as an experimental alternative to standard title cards.[3]

Another Fine Mess is the first Laurel and Hardy film to feature background music by Leroy Shield. Several previous Laurel and Hardy sound shorts experimented with music scores, but beginning with this film, music would be heard regularly in Laurel and Hardy, Our Gang and Charley Chase shorts and other Hal Roach productions such as The Boy Friends. Although some contemporaneous Laurel and Hardy films were also produced in foreign-language versions, with dialogue spoken phonetically, none are known to exist for Another Fine Mess.[3]

Exteriors were filmed at the former Guasti Villa at 3500 West Adams Boulevard in Los Angeles, which still stands and is the home of the Peace Theological Seminary & College of Philosophy.[4]

• List of American films of 1930

• Another Fine Mess at IMDb
• Another Fine Mess at AllMovie
• Another Fine Mess at the TCM Movie Database
• Another Fine Mess at Rotten Tomatoes