classicsoncall Anyone else and I probably wouldn't be as receptive, but Laurel and Hardy make destroying someone's home a unique exercise in physical comedy. Frequent collaborator James Finlayson is on hand as well, not so much as a foil this time, but as a participant in the extremes the opposing parties go to in order to one-up the other. What really amazed this viewer was when Ollie took an axe and actually chopped a tree down in the picture - holy cow! With both sides going on a tear, the one thing that would have made this better and perhaps more ironic, would have been to have Finlayson's character a guest at the home the Boys wrecked. Talk about 'good will toward men', it never had a chance.

SnorrSm1989 Released the very last year before silent films (at least in Hollywood) once and for all were declared definitely prehistoric, Laurel and Hardy may be said to have made, if one omits Chaplin's two features of the 30's, the final comic masterpiece in the silent medium with BIG BUSINESS. They had proceeded to make pie-throwing appear fresh again a couple of years before in THE BATTLE OF THE CENTURY, and this little two-reeler confirms perhaps even more bluntly why the boys, once teamed up, are often thought of as the last great innovators of silent comedy.Trying their luck as wandering salesmen of Christmas-trees, Stan and Ollie predestine the eventual doom of their "business" when ringing the door-bell of James Finlayson. Annoyed as usual, James slams the door in front of the salesmen, causing their tree to get hopelessly stuck. Hardy rings the bell one more time, in order to get James to re-open, so he and his partner can get their object loose, and leave; James interprets this second call as a further intrusion, however, and what follows may be said to be the quint-essential demonstration of the "eye for an eye"-philosophy which so very often characterizes all types of comedy without the public even realizing it. Laurel and Hardy, in BIG BUSINESS and on many later instances, make us painstakingly conscious of this tendency in comedy, and what's more: they make a point of making us conscious of it.It starts off with the tearing of clothes, and goes on to involve furniture, windows, a car and Christmas-trees; all in the name of sweet revenge. As with THE BATTLE OF THE CENTURY, Laurel and Hardy does little here that had not been done (and over-done) plenty of times before, if one watches the film superficially. Had not audiences been fed with frustrated maniacs going berserk on all thinkable objects since the rise of the Mack Sennett Studio one and a half decade before? Definitely. But the oldest of jokes can still be funny, if made funny. These three men—Stan, Ollie, and James—are not maniacs, but reasonably respectable gentlemen finding themselves in an unfortunate misunderstanding, which gradually builds up to a series of spiteful acts going beyond the powers of anyone involved. And it's breathtakingly funny.When I was a child, an acquaintance (approaching ninety by now) recalled howling with laughter at this film when it was originally released, and, already a fan of Stan and Ollie, naturally I longed very much to see it for myself. Getting hold on Robert Youngson's cavalcade WHEN COMEDY WAS KING on video, eventually I did; and howled.

tavm Hours after I rewatched The Fixer Uppers, I remembered another Laurel and Hardy short that had something to do with Christmas: This one called Big Business (also the title of a feature starring Lily Tomlin and Bette Midler from 1988). The boys sell Christmas trees in this one and are not very successful at it (maybe because it's sunny in this short's setting). One customer who's particularly annoyed is played by usual nemesis James Finlayson. The gradual destruction caused by these three as well as their reactions to each indignity make this one of the funniest of the L & H silents. There's also notable bit players like Charlie Hall, Lyle Tayo, and as a cop watching all the shenanigans, Tiny Sandford who's also good in his role. So on that note, this is my favorite of the Laurel and Hardy holiday comedies. P.S. If you can read lips, you've probably noticed Stan addressing Ollie by his nickname, Babe, which he was called when he first worked in the film industry when it was briefly based in Jacksonville, Florida, which is where I once lived during the late '80s-early 2003. Update-9/24/11: I just watched this again at an outdoor screening at the Baton Rouge Gallery with live musical accompaniment by The Incense Merchants, whose contemporary stylings add to the proceedings immensely, with an appreciative audience of which one female member laughed as loud as I did. (she must also be an L & H fan like yours truly!)

Prichards12345 Want to know how to give yourself a self-induced hernia? Just watch this Laurel and Hardy Masterpiece unfold before your eyes. The first time I saw it I was reduced to a fit of hysterics - it made my entire week, and I only have to think of James Finn, a Christmas Tree wrapped around his neck as he tries to snap it, to get the giggles all over again. What can one say that hasn't been said already? To me it seems to tell us so much about why we humans fight and squabble over things that are not that important, and do it in an infinitely better and less heavy-handed way than Chaplin. Ugh! I'm getting all serious here - and one should not be serious at all about one of the funniest twenty minutes in screen history.This is a beautifully polished perfect gem. It will survive as long as the movies themselves.