Film #049 - The Finishing Touch (1928)
Viewed February 18, 2006
The Finishing Touch is an early entry in the Laurel & Hardy pairing and sets the stage for many more “working man” comedies to follow.
The premise is a simple one: Stan and Oliver are hired to finish the construction of a house. The pressures of finishing quickly, combined with the need to be as quiet as possible (there’s a hospital next door) leads to an endless stream of physical gags.
Even this early into their collaboration, Laurel & Hardy have a natural ease with each other that allows them to play off each other perfectly. Their interactions with the other characters are, therefore, seamless as they seem to instinctively know what the other is doing, even when they are not directly interacting.
The gags in The Finishing Touch are fairly straightforward, showing little of the imagination on view in the contemporary work of Buster Keaton or Harol Lloyd, but they are executed perfectly. Again, it is not the specifics of what they are doing that make Laurel & Hardy so appealing, it is the boys themselves.
The Finishing Touch may not be groundbreaking cinema. It may tread ground that had been tread before and would be tread again for years to come. But it is an entertaining short and, more importantly, a perfect example of two professionals at the top of their game in the flush of a new partnership that would carry them through the rest of their careers.