Wonderful character development!

The greatest movie ever made..!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

I have a fondness for "The Chimp" as it was the first time I saw a Laurel and Hardy film. That was about 1983 and I haven't stopped laughing at Stan and Ollie's antics ever since. In the above film, they are members of the local circus. Due to their blundering incompetence, the circus has to close up. Regulars James Finlayson and Tiny Sandford make welcome appearances during the opening scene. Ollie doesn't particularly care for a comment made by Stan at the beginning of the film. The owner being flat broke, gives his employees a share of the circus in place of their salary. Each person draws a certain animal. In the case of Laurel and Hardy, the former picks the box of fleas and the latter a gorilla named Ethel. After being chased by the lion of the circus, the three of them need to find a room for the night. That is where the trouble begins! I laugh myself silly, every time I watch the bit where Ollie can't retrieve his own trousers and Ethel lends a hand! Her and Ollie don't get on too well but she likes Stan alright. The scene where Ollie is stalked by the same lion is very funny. Billy Gilbert is on top form as a somewhat perturbed landlord of the boarding house where Ollie attempts to procure a room. He has hardly rung the doorbell before he is yanked into the building and wonders what the hell is going on! To his credit, Billy Gilbert is sincere in his apologises. Gilbert was certainly blessed with a powerful voice and he puts it to good use (David Niven eat your heart out). The dancing scene was well done as Stan and Ollie struggle to get some sleep. "The Chimp" is a bit longer than the usual comedy short, clocking in at 25 minutes. It is a joy though.

No where even close to looking like a chimpanzee, the circus attraction traveling with Laurel and Hardy is still cute enough to warrant attention. They inherit both the ape and a flea circus, and end up in temperamental hotel manager Billy Gilbert (fresh from destroying the piano in "The Music Box") who opposes both the chumps and the chimp. There's also a ferocious lion on their trail, one Laurel jokingly refers to as MGM. It's amusing thanks to the wild animals involved, but not one of the funnier ones. I did find the use of titles to toss in some narrative wisecracks to be very funny, and who wouldn't laugh at a dancing simian in a tutu, or the presence of hundreds of pesky fleas? As long as it's not me dealing with them. It's also ironic that Gilbert (whose wife has the same name as the gorilla) doesn't find it odd that Laurel and Hardy share one bed when there are two.

I'm sure I must have seen this short Laurel & Hardy comedy before but I don't really remember it. Perhaps that's because it falls far short of the standards of most of their other short films. Stan & Ollie are hapless assistants at a circus that literally collapses thanks to them being allowed too close to a cannon. The circus owner gives each employee an asset from the circus. Stan gets a flea circus (which soon escapes in his bed), while Ollie wins a gorilla in a tutu called Ethel. The trio then get into a number of misadventures, none of which are particularly funny. While the surreal image of a tutu-clad gorilla dancing ballet at the foot of Ollie's bed is certainly a striking one, the film as a whole will quickly fade from your memory. And is it me, or are the opening titles the wrong way around? Surely the line about Mr. Laurel never getting past the monkey cage should come last

Laurel and Hardy are working at the circus as a pantomime horse. When the circus comes to an end the assets of the circus are split among the staff by way of lottery. Hardy wins Ethel – a man-sized ape! Laurel, Hardy and Ethel go off on their way, with Ethel taking a shine to Laurel, however before they do anything else their first problem is to find a hotel that doesn't mind having a monkey for a guest!I saw this as a double bill with `Their First Mistake'. I thought the former was weaker than their usual work, but I appreciated it more when I watched `The Chimp'. I have never before felt disappointed with a Laurel & Hardy short (and I've seen a few). Usually I am sucked in by their funny, punchy nature and it's so short that it's over before I even consider getting bored! However here I felt uncomfortable from the start – the circus set up felt too different from their normal roles to be easily accepted. Also I just found the whole use of the monkey to be poor and unimaginative.That's not to say I didn't laugh, because I did, but I laughed a lot less frequently that I normally do with their shorts. There are no really good routines after the circus clowning (excuse pun) is finished with – and the final punch line can be see coming from the halfway mark! It was a let down because it all seemed quite forced at times and lacking in the free flowing feel that their better shorts have.Laurel is still good and Hardy works his double takes well, if not as often as he would probably have liked to. The chimp of the title is too obstructive to the dynamic that exists between Laurel and Hardy and is a most unwelcome addition to the duo. The fact that the chimp is more than just a plot device (as the baby was in `Their First Mistake') but becomes a participant is to the film's detriment. The support cast are pretty poor – even James Finlayson is woefully underused, not even one trade mark double-take and squint!Overall this is one for fans only. I'm a fan and I still felt let down. It doesn't have any really strong scenes and the majority is quite ordinary. It is L&H of course, so it is impossible NOT to be funny at all, but this is way off their usual standard. The monkey used to set up basically every scene bar the early ones causes more damage to the onscreen dynamics than good and is the root of this film's weakness. I still laughed but the space between these laughs was way too long.