"Oh, Fanny!" "What do you want?" With this overly dramatic simple line of dialog, we meet Mrs. Laurel and Mrs. Hardy, the frazzled wives of Laurel and Hardy who live together but can't stand each other. Years ago, Stanley married Ollie's sister, and vice versa. The fact that Laurel and Hardy not only play themselves but each other's wives is an automatically hysterical, and the fact that the women are obviously not palsy/walsy like the boys sets up the plot for a ton of verbal and visual gags.
The slight plot premise is that it is both of their anniversaries (double ceremony, you know...) and the domineering Mrs. Laurel (complete with the voice of a mature Olivia de Havilland) insists that the two couples spend a quiet evening at home. The preparations for the dinner go awry when Fanny gets more than she bargained for with the cake, a hysterical sight gag involving a painting of British royalty. Then, there's Laurel's attempts to buy ice cream, Mrs. Hardy's request for horse's radish and Mrs. Laurel's reaction to a blow of pepper from the vindictive Mrs. Hardy.
While there are other Laurel and Hardy shorts which are more famous (most obviously the Oscar Winning "The Music Box"), "Twice Two" is hysterically funny because it thrives on farce rather than the dark comedy of many of their earlier shorts. It is too bad that they never repeated the roles of the wives, although drag was definitely a sight gag that had been a part of their schtick for years, as well as the subtle gay undertones that may not have entered their minds at the time that they were making these films but was obviously there before the entrance of the production code. This makes a great double bill with "Brats" where they play themselves as adults and their bratty children.
The slight plot premise is that it is both of their anniversaries (double ceremony, you know...) and the domineering Mrs. Laurel (complete with the voice of a mature Olivia de Havilland) insists that the two couples spend a quiet evening at home. The preparations for the dinner go awry when Fanny gets more than she bargained for with the cake, a hysterical sight gag involving a painting of British royalty. Then, there's Laurel's attempts to buy ice cream, Mrs. Hardy's request for horse's radish and Mrs. Laurel's reaction to a blow of pepper from the vindictive Mrs. Hardy.
While there are other Laurel and Hardy shorts which are more famous (most obviously the Oscar Winning "The Music Box"), "Twice Two" is hysterically funny because it thrives on farce rather than the dark comedy of many of their earlier shorts. It is too bad that they never repeated the roles of the wives, although drag was definitely a sight gag that had been a part of their schtick for years, as well as the subtle gay undertones that may not have entered their minds at the time that they were making these films but was obviously there before the entrance of the production code. This makes a great double bill with "Brats" where they play themselves as adults and their bratty children.