Themes: College Life, Fish Out of Water, Culture Clash
Main Cast: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, James Finlayson, Forrester Harvey, Wilfred Lucas, Peter Cushing, Forbes Murray
Release Year: 1940
Country: US
Run Time: 63 minutes
Plot
Back at Hal Roach Studios for the first time since 1938's Block-Heads, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy star in the uneven but generally rewarding A Chump at Oxford. The boys are cast as street-sweepers who hope to better their lot in life by attending night school. Fate intervenes when Stan and Ollie are instrumental in the capture of a bank robber, whereupon they are rewarded by the bank's grateful president (Forbes Murray) with an all-expenses-paid education at England's Oxford University. Arriving on the venerable old campus dressed in Eton jackets, our heroes are pounced upon by a group of prankish students and subjected to all manner of practical jokes. After spending most of the night trying to escape from a maze, Stan and Ollie are installed in their "new quarters"-which turns out to be the bedroom of the Dean (Wilfred Lucas). This sort of collegiate nonsense comes to an end when it is discovered that simple-minded Stan is actually Lord Paddington, the brainiest student and finest athlete that ever attended Oxford. According to Meredith the valet (Forrester Harvey), His Lordship wandered away from the university upon being rendered an amnesiac by a blow on the head. An accidental tap on the noggin restores Stan to his aristocratic Lord Paddington status, whereupon he beats up a crowd of bullying students and deposits them one by one in a nearby ditch. Though Ollie is aghast to learn that Stan-er, His Lordship-has no recollection of their previous friendship, he decides to stay on at Oxford as Paddington's manservant. After having been humiliated once too often by his vain and condescending employer, Ollie angrily packs his bags and prepares to head for home, when yet another bop on His Lordship's skull causes him to revert to lovable, bumbling old Stan again. Originally intended as a four-reeler (running approximately 45 minutes), A Chump at Oxford was completed in the spring of 1939, whereupon Laurel and Hardy were loaned out to producer Boris Morros to star in The Flying Deuces. When shooting was finished on the latter film, the team was summoned back to Roach to film a 2-reel "prologue" for Oxford, bringing the film's running time up to 63 minutes. The new footage consisted of a reworking of the boys' 1928 comedy From Soup to Nuts, with temporary servants Stan and Ollie unintentionally wrecking a dinner party held by Mr. and Mrs. Vandevere (played by veteran L&H supporting players James Finlayson and Anita Garvin). The patchwork stucture of A Chump at Oxford works against its overall effectiveness, but the scenes in which Stan Laurel undergoes a complete change of character as the genius-level Lord Paddington more than make up for the film's earlier shortcomings. One of the students (the tall, mustachioed one) is played by Peter Cushing, in his second Hollywood film appearance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
A Chump at Oxford really does have a piecemeal sense about it, but the humor is so well done that it overcomes its fragmented nature. When its original 42 minutes was being shot, producer Hal Roach was in the midst of creating his aborted "Streamliners" series of featurette-length films. This spoof of 1938's A Yank at Oxford was originally meant to be but four reels long. Previews were so successful, however, that Roach tacked an extra two-reel segment onto the beginning to make it feature length (although at 63 minutes it's still on the short side). Each segment (and there really are three -- even the 42-minute version had a prologue-type beginning) show comic duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in top form. The added-on footage takes its cues from the boys' 1928 silent, From Soup to Nuts, and even features Anita Garvin, reprising her role of the society matron in need of help for her dinner party. This time around, however, James Finlayson adds his classic double and triple-takes as her husband, and Stan, in drag, is posing as a maid. After Finlayson chases them out of his home, we next see the boys as street cleaners who stop a bank robber with that eternal comedy device, a banana peel. The bank president (Forbes Murray) rewards Stan and Ollie by sending them to Oxford to get their much-desired education. While the razzing the boys get from the students is hilariously funny, it's really the last few minutes in which the film transcends Laurel and Hardy's usual fun. A window sill hits Stan on the head and he changes from his everyday dim self into the brilliant but haughtily arrogant Lord Paddington. It's the only time during Stan Laurel's tenure with Oliver Hardy (at least, once the duo was established) in which he plays a character markedly different from his familiar persona. The surprise this creates is matched only by the relief felt -- by both Ollie and the audience -- when Stan is knocked on the head once again to become his old, nitwit self. Stan's transformation is truly magical and it's a reminder that his talent had a richness and depth that is often taken for granted. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
Charles Hall - Art Director, Hal Roach - Associate Producer, Alfred Goulding - Director, Bert Jordan - Editor, Marvin Hatley - Composer (Music Score), Art Lloyd - Cinematographer, Walace L. Stevens - Set Designer, William Randall - Sound/Sound Designer, Felix Adler - Screenwriter, Harry Langdon - Screenwriter, Charles Rogers - Screenwriter
Stan and Ollie are down to their last 6 bucks and call a lift to a job agency to find a work. A City Water Dept. truck driver offers them a lift and drenches them with water as a joke and leaves them behind. They finally arrive in a badly damaged car that has been towed away. At the job agency a call comes from Mrs. Vandeveer looking for a maid and butler to help at a dinner party she is holding that night. Ollie tells the receptionist they can fill the post and to leave it to them. They arrive and Stan is dressed in drag, pretending to be the maid 'Agnus'. Stan curtsies to Mrs. Vandeveer and his underwear rips loudly. As he walks off they are around his ankles.
At the dinner party Stan eats the nibbles he's supposed to be giving to the guests and tips the rest into Mrs. Vandeveer's lap. Ollie calls the guests to the meal with a hand held xylophone. He says "there is everything From Soup To Nuts folks, come and get it". Stan is told to take the cocktails and instead of clearing them away he drinks them and becomes drunk. Ollie gets the guests to sit down with the men on one side and the women on the other side of the table. Mr. Vandeveer tells Ollie to change the seating arrangement and Ollie begins to move the guests around for a while until Mr. Vandeveer gets impatient and tells them to sit anywhere they like at the table. Mr. Vandeveer then tells the drunken Stan to "stir up the salad without dressing" so Stan serves the salad in his underwear. Seeing this, Mr. Vandeveer angrily storms into another room to take a rifle. Mrs. Vandeveer arrives, having changed her dress, and faints at the sight of Stan. Mr Vandeveer returns, rifle in hand, and chases Stan and Ollie out of the house. A single gunshot is heard and Mr. Vandeveer returns, followed by a policeman, who tells him, "why don't you be more careful, you almost blew my brains out". When the cop turns to leave, the seat of his pants have a large jagged hole ripped in them, revealing smouldering undershorts.
Stan and Ollie then become road sweepers and wonder why they are always in the gutter. They decide to get an education because in Stan's words "we're not illiterative enough". They are sitting outside the Farmers & Merchants Bank of Commerce building eating a packed lunch, while a robbery was taking place inside. They inadvertently catch the robber when he slips on a banana peel tossed on the street by Stan. A grateful bank manager offers them a reward by suggesting that they could have a job in his bank. When Oliver mentions they wouldn't be much use since he and Stan don't have an education, the bank president expands on their goal to attend night school by saying, "If it's an education you want, you shall have the finest education money can buy." He enrolls Stan and Ollie at Oxford University in England, and they depart the U.S. towards Oxford by steamship.
When Stan and Ollie arrive at the University, the snobby undergraduate students, led by the mischievous Johnson (Peter Cushing) decide to give them the "royal initiation," which involves a number of pranks. They are sent off into a maze in order to get a pass to see the dean and quickly became lost. One of the students (Henry Borden) dresses as a ghost in order to frighten Stan and Ollie, and while they sit on a bench to sleep, the ghost's hand comes through the hedge to help Stan smoke his pipe and cigar (substituting for Stan's actual hand).
They spend all night in the maze and exit the next morning. Johnson poses as the dean and gives Stan and Ollie the real dean's quarters to live in. They make themselves at home only to be confronted by the dean. The prank is uncovered and Johnson is due to expelled. Before this happens the students decide to run Stan and Ollie out so they can't give evidence against Johnson. The boys are taken to their real quarters where Meredith the valet recognises Stan as Lord Paddington, the "greatest athlete and scholar the University ever had". He says that Lord Paddington had lost his memory when the window fell on his head and wandered from campus. Stan and Ollie dismiss his story as a "dizzy spell".
The students arrive and decide to throw Stan and Ollie out of the window. Stan and Ollie decide to escape through the window and in doing so the window falls on Stan's head, which transforms him back into Lord Paddington. When the students accuse him of "squealing", he becomes angry and his ears wiggle - something that occurs whenever Lord Paddington becomes angry, according to Meredith's story - after which he throws all of the students out of the window. However, Stan doesn't remember Ollie any longer so he becomes furious when Ollie tells him of his former life and throws Ollie out the window as well.
Lord Paddington takes pity on Ollie and employs him to be his personal valet. He calls Ollie by the nickname "fatty" and criticises him which makes Ollie so angry he quits his job. Stan hears students come to cheer him outside and as he looks out of the window it falls on him once again of which he returns back to his usual self. Stan and Ollie make up. The film has a happy ending rather than the more usual unfortunate ending.
Film production details
The dinner party scenes are those omitted from the original American release and are a partial remake of their 1928 silent film From Soup to Nuts.
The dinner party ends in the same way as in their 1927 film Slipping Wives.
