Perfect Day 1929

Goodbye...

7.024 / 10   62 vote(s)
NR
Comedy

Two families embark on a pleasant Sunday picnic but manage to run into a variety of issues with their temperamental automobile. Each incident requires repeated exits and reboardings by Laurel, Hardy, their wives and grouchy, gout-ridden Uncle Edgar.

Release Date 1929-08-10
Runtime 19m
Director James Parrott
Producer Hal Roach
Writers Leo McCarey, Hal Roach

Edgar Kennedy rather steals the scene here as the gout-ridden "Uncle Edgar" - that's quite some foot bandage he's got. Anyway, he is to be taken on a nice day trip by his family - Stan and Ollie, and their wives Kay Deslys and Isabelle Keith. Of course, this is destined to slapstick failure right from the get go. Indeed, they can't even all get into the car before mishaps begin and nobody is going nowhere! Even from their pre-boarding kitchen antics, I found this to be one of the more repetitive outings for our duo, and the fact that they are talking doesn't really help! It has a really predicable narrative to it and there are only so many sandwich throwing and tyre changing gags that I can smile at before they start to stick in the same gear as their static car. These two men were masters of comedy timing and their synchronicity here is still enjoyable, but a bit more work on mixing up the story might have helped - as well as a little more from Kennedy.

CinemaSerf