Sick Product of a Sick System

Sadly Over-hyped

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Anyone else and I probably wouldn't be as receptive, but Laurel and Hardy make destroying someone's home a unique exercise in physical comedy. Frequent collaborator James Finlayson is on hand as well, not so much as a foil this time, but as a participant in the extremes the opposing parties go to in order to one-up the other. What really amazed this viewer was when Ollie took an axe and actually chopped a tree down in the picture - holy cow! With both sides going on a tear, the one thing that would have made this better and perhaps more ironic, would have been to have Finlayson's character a guest at the home the Boys wrecked. Talk about 'good will toward men', it never had a chance.

Big Business is one of Laurel and Hardy's best silent comedies. The whole idea of the two selling Christmas trees door to door is already a set-up for disaster. Trouble soon begins when an irate James Finlayson becomes extremely frustrated with the two annoying salesmen. Having slammed his door on them, the unwanted Christmas tree continues getting caught in Finlayson's door over and over until a hilarious tit-for-tat between the three escalates into a full blown destruction of Finlayson's property and Laurel and Hardy's car reduced to rubble. The facial expressions and comic antics of all involved are absolutely priceless. Hystericaly funny and very well paced, with a surprise ending, this is Laurel and Hardy at their finest. If you have never seen a Laurel and Hardy silent film, then Big Business is the perfect film to start with.

In this twenty-minute silent short, Laurel and Hardy are door-to-door Christmas tree salesmen. They make the mistake of knocking on James Finlayson's door. Finlayson doesn't want a tree but in closing the door he catches one of its branches, which requires Hardy to ring the doorbell again. It happens again. Then it happens with Laurel's overcoat.One thing leads to another and Finlayson demolishes Laurel and Hardy's Model T Ford, while they do their best to flatten his home.It was to become a fairly regular routine in Laurel and Hardy's movies and has been imitated in other comedies since then -- one man standing there, watching with interest, as a second man deliberately assaults him with a can of paint or a pair of scissors. (See "The Great Race" for at least one example.) An amusing diversion.

Yuletide Mayhem Saturday July 17, 2010, The Castro, San Francisco"Merry Christmas!" Two salesmen who refuse to take "no" for an answer meet their match in an equally stubborn homeowner.Only Stan and Ollie would attempt to sell Christmas trees door-to-door in sunny California. Their failure is of course inevitable, as is the havoc they wreak on the home of unfortunate Jimmy Finlayson, who has the temerity to rile them up! By the time a policeman finally arrives, the house and their truck are all but demolished as a neighborhood crowd watches from the street. Stan pitches breakable objects out a window to a batting Ollie on the lawn, while Finlayson gleefully dismantles their truck, one piece at a time as the cop observes unnoticed.A popular Hollywood myth claims Hal Roach arrived on the set late in the day to discover the cast and crew of Big Business had destroyed the house next-door to the one he purchased for the film!