(Review originally written at 15 March 2007)

This American WW II time propaganda movie tells about the invention of the jeep and the everyday use of it by the American army during WW II. The end result is an interesting to watch short film, that also works quite well educational.

Not trying to sound like a big history buff but I know quite a lot about WW II and its weapons and vehicles of its time. Nevertheless, it wasn't until this film that I really fully started to realize- and appreciate the importance of the jeep and what a quite revolutionary invention it was, for its time. Let's face it, without WW II the jeep would had probably not had been invented for another 10 or 15 years. War always brings new inventions, that are revolutionary and in many ways ahead of its time. The jeep is really one of those revolutionary war-time inventions.

This short film shows the jeep in full action and shows for what purposes it all can be used by the army. I still learned some things I didn't knew yet. It all is told and explained from the point of view of the jeep itself. It might sound childish perhaps but it works really well.

Instead of having a 30 minutes+ long documentary with lots of talking, this is a fast paced only 9 minutes short documentary that tells you everything you really want to know and it does this in a rather light and amusing way, without ever loosing any of its informing and educational value. The short running time and its pace also makes sure that it keeps you interested for its entire duration.

The film also features a whole lot of military, royal and Hollywood celebrities driving the jeep, to once more- and to extra point out the importance, reliability and usefulness of the vehicle.

Great light educational, little short, WW II-time film.

8/10

(Review originally written at 7 February 2007)

The movie is not halve as bad as people want to make you believe it is.

What is the reason why so many people hate this movie? Is it because it's Laurel & Hardy's last one together and it's not their best? Or is it because of the lack of Laurel & Hardy regulars? Or because it's not made by the Hal Roach studios or 20th Century Fox?

Definitely true that this movie is not a successful attempt to revive Laurel & Hardy and bring them to the '50's. It's also definitely true that the movie is far from their best but honestly, the movie still entertains well, making this movie also far from their worst. Not the most worthy 'goodbye' movie imaginable but an entertaining and suiting goodbye nevertheless. Both of them retired from movies after completing this one.

The movie still features some great slapstick moments and the chemistry between Laurel & Hardy is obviously still very much present. It also makes this movie better than most of their movies together from the '40's. Quite a surprise that the slapstick humor still works out as great as it does, considering that the days of slapstick comedy had been over, ever since the '30's.

The story is perhaps not as entertaining as it could had been and it features too many sidekicks and characters, with as a result that the movie looses its focus on the boys at times. A shame, because they are still the ones that really carry and make the movie.

Sad to see in what poor form Stan Laurel was at the time of making this movie. He really looked ill and old, which he also of course was. He was well over 60 years old already. But after a surgery he fully recovered and still lived for another 15 years, before dying in 1965, 8 years after his good friend Oliver Hardy.

An entertaining, though not perfect goodbye to the boys, Laurel & Hardy and the end of 3 decades of fun, humorous, quality slapstick entertainment of movies that are still being watched and loved by people all over the world.

7/10

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(Review originally written at 7 February 2007)

This is an incredibly simple movie with almost no-story present in it. The movie really feels like a lame excuse to show off with all of the stars that are present in the movie.

Most of the stars play themselves in this movie. Some of them are in it for about 5 seconds. It's ridicules! Yet in a way it also makes the movie irresistible to watch for the movie nut, like myself.

The movie really features some great big stars of its period but also lots of one-day-fly's. no one now would had ever heard of. Big stars in this movie are Joan Crawford, Edward G. Robinson, Laurel & Hardy, 'Our Gang', Buster Keaton, Irene Dunne, Gary Cooper, Douglas Fairbanks Jr and Fay Wray, among others. Amazing the amount of celebrities present in this movie, yet only the comical actors feel really at place in it.

The story is far from entertaining and the movie really relies on the purely the performances of the actors to make the movie work out entertaining. It has a couple of laughs and good one-liners as a result.

The movie succeeds in some parts but also fails at others. It makes the movie an unbalanced one, though it still remains a perfect treat to watch to those who are familiar with most of the celebrity names attached to this movie.

6/10

(Review originally written at 2 February 2007)

This is your standard musical comedy fro

m the '30's, with a big plus that it features some well known '30's actors in small fun cameo's.

There is not much to the story and basically the movie is all about its fun and 'no-worries' overall kind of atmosphere, with a typical Hal Roach comedy touch to it. Appereantly it's a 'Cinderella story' but I most certainly didn't thought of it that way while watching the movie. The story gets very muddled in into the storytelling, that features many different characters and also many small cameo appearance, when the main characters hit the Hollywood studios.

Of course the highlight of the movie is when Laurel & Hardy make their appearance and show some of their routines. It's like watching a movie and getting a Laurel & Hardy short with it for free. Also Laurel & Hardy regular Walter Long makes an appearance in the routine and James Finlayson (without a mustache this time) as the director of the short.

It's certainly true that all of the cameo's and subplots distract from the main plot line and character but in this case that is no problem, since its all way more fun and interesting to watch than the main plot line and the shallow typical main character.

The movie is most certainly not any worse than any of its other genre movies from the same time period, though the rating on here would suggest otherwise.

7/10