Nothing but Trouble (1944 film)

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, butler and chef following in their ancestors' famous footsteps, can't find jobs in 1932. They embark for other countries, with no success, and return to America in 1944. Now they are mobbed by anxious employers in desperate need of servants.

Social climber Elvira Hawkley is hosting a big formal dinner that evening, and spirits Stan and Ollie away. The guest of honor is the young exiled King Christopher of Orlandia, newly arrived in the city. Christopher is unaware that his uncle, Prince Saul, is planning to murder him and take over the throne.

Stan and Ollie have forgotten to buy a steak for dinner, so they steal a steak from the local zoo -- unaware that the steak is really horsemeat. Christopher befriends Stan and Ollie, and tags along with them to the Hawkley mansion. Dinner is served while Christopher hides under the table, but the new servants can't cut the horsemeat steak, not even with a two-man saw! The dinner is ruined and the Hawkleys are embarrassed as Prince Saul takes his hurried leave.

Mrs. Hawkley discovers Christopher in the kitchen, but doesn't know he's the king. She throws all three out, and they take their refuge at a mission. A tramp there recognizes Christopher from a picture in the papers, and alerts the police, thinking that he's been kidnapped by Stan and Ollie.

The police arrive, and arrest them; but later, Christopher demands they be hired as his help, and the charges are dropped. Saul sees an opportunity to use the two dimwits as pawns in order to kill Christopher. Ronetz puts poison in Christopher's salad, but the plates are then mixed up on the tray, so there's no telling who's got the poisoned one. Ollie, thinking the salad is spoiled, unwittingly puts the poison on a canapé.

Christopher overhears the plot to kill him, and goes to tell Ollie and Stan. Saul follows, and forces the three out onto the skyscraper's ledge at gunpoint. Christopher jumps, landing safely on painters' planks. Stan and Ollie follow, but the planks have been withdrawn, leaving Stan dangling high up above the street, hanging onto Ollie's trousers. Christopher manages to get down to the street and fetch the police, who arrive just in time to rescue them. Prince Saul inadvertently eats the poisoned canapé himself.

The story ends happily with Christopher, Oliver and Stan singing the Notre Dame victory march, together with the two policemen. [1]

Interestingly, the coming-attractions trailer shows either different moments of Stan dancing at the end, or, a different take. Further, a different take in the Trailer appears at the zoo, where Stan is heard asking Ollie if the Lion has read " 'That' book'" they're discussing; but in the film the question was " 'The' "Book".

During the late 1930s and 1940s, great silent-screen comedian Buster Keaton, a close friend of Stan Laurel, worked as a gagman at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and supplied gags for Nothing but Trouble. At Stan Laurel's funeral in 1965, Keaton said that he believed Laurel to a greater comedian than Charlie Chaplin.[2]

Nothing but Trouble was completed in August 1944 but stayed on the shelf for seven months; MGM was rushing all of its military-themed productions into release first. When Nothing but Trouble was finally released in March 1945, it became a surprise hit internationally as moviegoers, waiting anxiously for the war to end, flocked to the Laurel & Hardy movie as an escapist comedy. Nothing but Trouble was Laurel & Hardy's most successful feature film, earning $1,500,000 in ticket sales.[3]

Jack Lindquist, as 'The Kid', eventually became President of Disneyland, between 1990-'93.

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