Live Life Team
Genre: Comedy
Director: James Horne
Starring Cast: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Sharon Lynn, James Finlayson, Rosina Lawrence
Stanley (Laurel) and Ollie (Hardy) travel to Brushwood Gulch to fulfil their promise of delivering a dead prospector’s gold mine deeds to his daughter Mary (Lawrence). The saloon owner Mickey Finn (Finlayson) is Mary’s guardian, but he wants the deeds for himself. He tells his wife Lola Marcel (Lynn) to pretend to be Mary, and Stand and Ollie give the deeds to her. Lola then gets Mary to sign the lease over to her as guardian, then Stan and Ollie discover the real Mary, and the battle is on to get the deeds back for her.
Way Out West contains some of the most delightful pieces of Stan and Ollie fare. At one stage, they do an exquisite soft shoe shuffle. Another finds them singing a still sought after version of “Trail of the Lonesome Pine”. Their attempt to rescue Mary from her wicked guardians involves a rope, a pulley, and Ollie as a counterbalance being pulled up by Stan who lets go for a moment so that he can “spit on me hands”. There’s the grand tickling scene, and the one where Stan lights a lamp with his flaming thumb, plus when he gets a lift on a stagecoach by showing a leg. They have as many ideas in a single scene, as some directors can muster in a whole film, and at least as many laughs.
