Just so...so bad

Charming and brutal

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Blistering performances.

I used to watch this with my kid when he was about ten years old and it always cracked us up. I'm beginning to realize now that what I enjoyed most about this movie -- and other Laurel and Hardy efforts -- is his enjoyment of them. They're funny without being particularly witty."A Chump at Oxford" appears to be a collection of four or five separate shorts, brusquely strung together by a slender narrative thread that brings them as students to Oxford.First, they wangle their way into a job as butler and maid, with Laurel in drag and serving the salad "without dressing." They get kicked out and wind up as street sweepers. They unwittingly capture a bank robber and the owner of "The Finlayson National Bank" sends them to England for an education.The students there trick Laurel and Hardy into getting lost in a maze of hedges. When they try to settle down for the night, one of the students introduces "the third hand" into Laurel's twiddling thumbs. This stunt probably originated with Laurel in vaudeville and has since shown up all over the place, from "I Love Lucy" to "Young Frankenstein." It's always amusing.Next, the students rib the newcomers by taking them to the Dean's quarters and telling them that these are their rooms. It was good enough for Errol Flynn's writers to use in "They Died With Their Boots On." Finally, a window slams down on Laurel's head and he regains his memory of himself as Lord Paddington, an Oxfordian so athletic and so brilliant that he's won all sorts of awards and is consulted by Professor Einstein from Princeton. It's the most engaging of the scenes because it involves Laurel adopting an upper-class accent and acting like a snob, tucking his hankie away in his sleeve and insulting Hardy every time he speaks to him. (He calls him "Fatty.") Laurel pretty much pulls it off, too, though I doubt that his accent would fool another Brit. British accents differ from American in that they serve as indexes not only of place but of social class. American English has nothing like the Received Pronunciation of England.Anyway, it's a decent comedy but, as I say, maybe best appreciated in the company of children. I don't mean to sound snooty myself but compared to, say, Charlie Chaplin at his best, Laurel and Hardy, though likable enough, lacked artistry.

Before this, I've elephant fly and monkeys explaining the Theorem of Pythagoras but that all is nothing compared to seeing Peter Cushing in a Laurel & Hardy movie.This is a good and fair, late effort from the boys, who already clearly had their best years behind them. This movie still reminded me at times of some of the good old Laurel & Hardy pictures from the early '30's. But there also lays a problem; the movie its originality. In multiple movies Laurel & Hardy reused some jokes or even situations but the fact that this movie is from 1940, multiple years after their glory years, leaves an even worse aftertaste. Nevertheless it as always still works effective so it's not really a big complaint about this movie, at least not the biggest.Basically the movie can be divided into three separate parts. The boys trying to get a job, the boys getting a job at the Finlayson residence and the boys at Oxford. Perhaps if the movie really was divided into three separate parts, each of them would work out better. As a whole its a bit too much. Each part is really great on their own and provides some good slapstick entertainment but as a whole it doesn't always connect. This is the biggest problem of the movie and the reason why it's nothing more than an above average Laurel & Hardy movie, despite having some great comical premises and situations.The sequences at the Finlayson residence are certainly the most 'Laurel & Hardy' ones, also of course thanks to the presence of James Finlayson. It's in the middle of the movie but in my opinion it's the best part of the movie. It's not really ever a good sign when the middle is better than the ending. The end part at Oxford is also most definitely good and enjoyable but the humor is a bit stretched out at times. Some sequences last too long, which sorts of drags down the amusement level of the movie with it. Nevertheless those parts still provide some good amusing entertainment, with a couple of fellow student who are giving the dumb and naive Laurel & Hardy a hard time. One of the students giving the boys a hard time is Peter Cushing, in one of his very first movie roles.Definitely worth seeing but a bit too stretched thin and disjointed at certain moments.7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

I saw this movie several times as a child and only recently I saw it again. I was pleasantly surprised how much I liked the movie and this surprised me, as this was completed as the pair's career was heading downhill. Shortly after making this movie, then Saps at Sea, they made the mistake of signing with 20th Century Fox and made a string of completely forgettable and unfortunate comedies (they simply deserved better material).The story is a takeoff on the MGM film A YANK AT OXFORD and so much of it parodies this film. Stan and Ollie accidentally help a rich guy and are rewarded by receiving an all expense paid admission to Oxford! Talk about being in the wrong element! The movie then moves at a very leisurely pace in their adventures trying to fit in to this fancy-schmancy school.It's not the best they did, but a nice well-worth seeing picture nonetheless. Another decent movie they did in this same period is Blockheads--it's well worth a look as well.

As if Stan Laurel were not sufficiently funny in character, in this film a knock on the head turns Stan into his look-alike Victorian uncle who was one of the most brilliant Oxfordians ever in attendance at the fine school. Unbeknownst to the school rowdies who had elected the famous duo for a hazing, when the knock on the head changed Stanley it also gave him the peculiar ability to wiggle his ears and assume super human strength. As might be imagined he decided to teach the rowdies a lesson and the rest is hilaric history. This flick is a must for any classic American film library.