Review of A Chump at Oxford (1940) by Mike M — 14 Feb 2011
A patchwork job, certainly - and thus less organic-seeming than the very best Laurel and Hardy - yet one with marvellous moments. The best material comes in the opening 20 minutes, tacked on for the European release, in the course of which the duo manage to comprehensively ruin Finlayson's dinner party.
.. Some of its directorial choices are faultless: take the cut from the porter Meredith's excited declaration "Oh, what a brilliant mind!" to the typical close-up of Stan not so much lost in, as utterly oblivious to, his own thoughts - in a sequence that would these days be trumpeted as an origin story, and ends with Stan's transformation into the ear-wiggling Lord Paddington, perhaps the most radical thing Hal Roach ever did with the Laurel persona.
This review of A Chump at Oxford (1940) was written by Mike M on 14 Feb 2011.
A Chump at Oxford has generally received very positive reviews.
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