Strictly average movie

Lack of good storyline.

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Laurel & Hardy would have odd moments in their films that suggested bleakness or pathos without labouring the point; and 'Pack Up Your Troubles' is the film that most sustains such a quality throughout (including Marvin Hatley's melancholy few bars of the title song that punctuate the film), juggling frequent side-splitting moments of vintage L. & H. slapstick.Much of the pathos derives from the presence of the extremely cute Jacquie Lyn who seems to take in her stride some very bizarre situations. One of the factors that keep you smiling are the lineup of familiar faces from other Laurel & Hardy films of the same vintage, most of them on good form; plus a hilarious uncredited cameo from co-director George Marshall as a crazed army cook.

Amidst the expected humor of a Laurel and Hardy flick, there's a bittersweet aspect to this story of a soldier who doesn't make it, leaving his orphaned young daughter behind. The soldier's ex-wife is given short shrift since she left him for another man; one wonders why she had no room in her heart for her own daughter, a situation not dealt with in the story.There's some battle action in the early part of the film, allowing our boys to create some havoc with an armored vehicle. It calls to mind the exploits of Sergeant Alvin York during World War I, that story brought to the big screen in 1941 with Gary Cooper in the title role. It would be just like Stan and Ollie to inadvertently capture a German platoon while screwing everything else up.The search for the grandparents of their war buddy's little daughter takes on a huge dimension once Stan and Ollie are out of the service. With the last name Smith, the search could take forever, and it almost does. Comic gags on the name Smith bring them to a black man, who's identity seems to go over Stan's head, along with Stan's own quest to Poughkeepsie to locate the Smith Brothers of cough drop fame. I also got a kick out of the boys' lunch wagon, 'Caterers to the Elite' as they bill themselves. The elite that is, who could pay ten cents for a ham or egg sandwich. Those top one per-centers of the era could probably afford a lot of those.The film ends on a successful note with Laurel and Hardy locating the appropriate Smith family before the welfare association of the era could force the boys to give up their young ward. I'd have to say that as the representative of the Eastern Welfare Association, Charles Middleton earned his future role of Ming the Merciless.

Two years after Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante were "The Doughboys" and a year after Wheeler and Woolsey became "Half Shot at Sunrise" and a foil for Edna May Oliver, Laurel and Hardy took on their own battle in the trenches of "the Great War", creating all sorts of havoc among their own allies. The first quarter of the movie has them doing all they can to avoid the draft (a very funny scene where they pretend that they both only have one arm), the next quarter is them proving their ineptitude, and finally the last half has them back in the states taking care of the young daughter of an army buddy and avoiding the police and child protection services who want to take her away from them and place her in an orphanage.A bit funnier than their previous film ("Pardon Us"), this actually seems to be several of their two reelers rolled into one to make a feature length comedy. It's still pretty creaky and not always funny. The last half has a few moderately funny moments when the boys are trying to hide themselves and the little girl from the police and growing crowd, but its pretty maudlin material to be totally enjoyable. But Laurel and Hardy, about to make the jump out of shorts into features permanently, had better things coming, so their earlier films can be referred to as missed opportunities that don't hold up as well as their later Hal Roach films but still offer some slight amusement.

PACK UP YOUR TROUBLES only begins to pick up at the point the boys decide to track down the father of a little girl in their care. The best scenes involve their relationship with the cute tyke, who has a wonderful scene with STAN LAUREL where she puts him to sleep with her own version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.Another highlight has the boys needing $2,000 and going to see a bank manager who has a good laugh when he sees that their restaurant business is nothing more than a traveling cart on wheels."I'd have to be unconscious to give you any money for that," he cries, and presto he knocks over a heavy vase that falls on his head. The boys escape with the money and even wackier developments follow.Finally, the situation is straightened out when they accidentally run into the girl's grandparents who intend to see that L&H get the proper award for finding their lost grandchild, just in time for the happy ending.A bit too plot heavy, but there are many scenes that are good for the kind of laughs you expect from any Laurel and Hardy film.Worth seeing, but not one of their best.