Main Cast: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Jean Parker, Reginald Gardiner, Charles B. Middleton
Release Year: 1939
Country: US
Run Time: 65 minutes
Plot
In their first starring feature away from the Hal Roach studios, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play a couple of fish peddlers from Des Moines on a Cook's Tour of Paris. While stopping over at quaint suburban inn, Ollie falls in love with innkeeper's daughter Georgette (Jean Parker). At Stan's prodding, Ollie pops the question to Georgette, who gently refuses because there is Someone Else. Disconsolately, Ollie decides to commit suicide by jumping into the Seine, insisting that Stan join him in his plunge to oblivion. The boys are halted from this drastic action by the timely arrival of Francois (Reginald Gardiner), an officer in the French Foreign Legion. Francois convinces Stan and Ollie that they'll forget all about Ollie's lost love if they join the Legion, and within a few days our heroes are in uniform at an outpost in French Morocco, where they are promptly assigned to laundry detail. Alas, try as he might, Ollie can't forget his beloved Georgette-until Stan suggests that he pretend to forget so that they can get back in their own clothes and head home. This Ollie does, but not before accidentally setting fire to a mountain of laundry. After leaving behind a rather nasty letter of resignation for their scowling commandant (Charles Middleton), Stan and Ollie pack their bags and head for the airport-where Ollie is reunited with Georgette, who turns out to be the wife of their commanding officer Francois! Sentenced to death for desertion, the boys tunnel their way out of their jail cell and hide out in an airplane, which Stan accidentally sends into flight. After a wild and noisy ride, the plane crashes, leading to the flm's hilarious-and somehow touching--"freak" ending. Officially a remake of Les Aviateurs, a French vehicle for Fernandel and Toto, The Flying Deuces also owes a lot to the earlier Laurel & Hardy Foreign Legion farce Beau Hunks. Highlights include Stan and Ollie's impromptu soft-shoe rendition of "Shine on Harvest Moon", and Stan's lunatic excursion into Harpo Marx territory as he plays a bed-spring "harp". Produced by Boris Morros and released by RKO Radio, Flying Deuces is unquestionably the best of Laurel & Hardy's non-Hal Roach vehicles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Jean del Val - Sergeant; Clem Wilenchick - Corporal; James Finlayson - Jailer; Monica Bannister - Georgette's Girl Friend; Bonnie Bannon - Georgette's Girl Friend; Eddie Borden; Mary Jane Carey - Georgette's Girl Friend; Jack Chefe - Other Legionnaires; Rychard Cramer - Truck Driver; Billy Engle; Kit Guard; Sam Lufkin - Legionnaires Knocked Out by Corks; Michael Visaroff - Innkeeper; Crane Whitley - Corporal; Frank Clark - Pilot
Credit
Boris Leven - Art Director, Frank Clarke - Consultant/advisor, Edward Sutherland - Director, Jack Dennis - Editor, John M. Leopold - Composer (Music Score), Leo Shuken - Composer (Music Score), Eddie Paul - Musical Direction/Supervision, Elmer Dyer - Cinematographer, Art Lloyd - Cinematographer, Boris Morros - Producer, Howard A. Anderson - Special Effects, Harry Langdon - Screenwriter, Charles Rogers - Screenwriter, Ralph Spence - Screenwriter, Alfred Schiller - Screenwriter
The Flying Deuces was the first Laurel and Hardy film not to be produced by Hal Roach, although they had played supporting roles in MGM features previously. The film was made and released by RKO Radio Pictures after Roach agreed to 'loan out' his two stars.
The successful production of a film away from Hal Roach Studios may have influenced the pair's decision to leave Roach the following year for a larger studio, 20th Century Fox.
Charles B. Middleton reprises the Legion Commandant role he played in 1931's Beau Hunks, while Laurel and Hardy's frequent co-star James Finlayson also makes an appearance as a jailor.
The film is now in the public domain and good quality prints or transfers for commercial VHS or DVD release have been rare. Noted Cinematographers for "The Flying Deuces" are Elmer Dyer, and Art Lloyd.
Plot
The boys are in Paris. Ollie proposes to the innkeeper's daughter Georgette, who is actually married to a soldier, François. When she turns him down, Ollie decides to jump into the River Seine. He drags Stan along with him, and they discuss reincarnation:
Stan: Well now that you're going to go, what would you like to come back as?
Ollie: Well I haven't given it much thought. I like horses. I guess I'd like to come back as a horse.
Stan: Hah!
Ollie: What would you like to be when you come back?
Stan: Oh, I'd rather come back as myself. I always got on swell with me.
The boys are saved from suicide in the nick of time when François changes their mind and recruits them into the French Foreign Legion.
They are sent to a fort in North Africa, where they disrupt drills, and are eventually sent to do laundry work. They accidentally throw wet underwear in the face of an officer and set a mountain of clothes on fire. They find that they are not army material (as one would guess) and they desert, after having sent an offensive letter to their commandant. They are imprisoned and sentenced to execution by firing squad.
Ollie: Shot at sunrise!
Stan: I hope its cloudy tomorrow!
The boys find a secret tunnel, but it caves in. They manage to escape in a biplane, despite Stan's initial protests ("Good old terra cotta for me any time,") and a hilariously frantic take-off. The plane crashes, and Ollie is killed on impact. His soul waves goodbye to Stan as it floats up towards heaven.
At the very end, Stan, on a walk in the countryside back home, meets the re-incarnated Ollie, a moustachioed horse wearing a bowler hat. Stan hugs his friend, who says "Well, here is another nice mess you've gotten me into!"
Music
Stan and Ollie as "légionnaires" in The Flying Deuces.
During the film Oliver Hardy sings "Shine On, Harvest Moon" in a musical interlude which recalls "Lazy Moon" from Pardon Us.
The harp pastiche that Stan plays on the wires under his bed is "The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise". Most of the audience at the time would have recognized that tune and understood the point that Stan and Ollie were waiting for the sunrise too.
At the beginning of the film, the innkeeper's daughter is seen looking at a framed photograph of Ollie. The same photograph can also be seen in the short film Our Wife (1931), where sight of it prompts the father of Ollie's fiance to forbid the wedding.
An unedited version of the film includes an escaped shark (a strange-looking model fin being pulled back and forth) in the river Stan and Ollie are planning on jumping into.
