Air Raid Wardens

Air Raid Wardens is a 1943 comedy film directed by Edward Sedgwick and starring Laurel and Hardy. It was the first of two feature films starring the duo for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Air Raid Wardens
Theatrical poster for Air Raid Wardens (1943)
Directed byEdward Sedgwick
Written byMartin Rackin
Harry Crane
Jack Jevne
Charley Rogers
Produced byB.F. Zeidman
StarringStan Laurel
Oliver Hardy
Edgar Kennedy
Jacqueline White
CinematographyWalter Lundin
Edited byIrvine Warburton
Music byNathaniel Shilkret
Production
company
Distributed byLoew's Inc.[1]
Release date
  • April 30, 1943 (1943-04-30)
Running time
67 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Plot

During World War II, just after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Stan and Ollie try various business ventures. Their store opens and closes in various guises, including as a bicycle store, but without success. They then enlist in the army but fail there too. They return to their home town of Huxton only to find out that their store is open, run by a man named Eustace Middling selling radios. Middling offers to share the space in a joint venture. Stan and Ollie do not realize that Middling is a German spy using the shop as a base for espionage.

Stan and Ollie support the civil defense by becoming air-raid wardens. To complete their training, they must participate in an advanced military drill, but Stan receives the wrong assignment, which is far more complicated than they can handle. They begin their mission to rescue prominent banker J.P. Norton from a fire but fail once again, burying Norton alive in a huge load of sand. They are given one more chance as air-raid wardens, assuming the task of ensuring that all of the town's citizens extinguish their lights at night. They quarrel with one of the more troublesome inhabitants, Joe Bledsoe, resulting in a rumor that spy activity is taking place in Joe's home. Stan and Ollie are dismissed from the corps.

Back at their shop, they overhear the spies speaking German and follow them to a hideout outside of town, where Middling is plotting the destruction blowing the town's magnesium plant with another spy. They try to send a message to the civil defense, but instead they are captured by the German agents. They flee and alert the civil defense, which arrives at the plant just in time to stop the sabotage. Stan and Ollie expose Middling as a German spy.[2]

Cast

Reception

In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Theodore Strauss wrote: "'Air Raid Wardens' seems little more than a mild two-reel comedy thinned out to feature length. The Laurel and Hardy style of stumbling idiocy seems considerably less hilarious today than it did in the heydey of two-reel comedies a decade and a half ago. As simpletons who are caught in a complicated mesh of enemy intrigue and accidentally unmask a whole gang of villains, the pair still insist on traveling the longest distance between two points; the simplest acts such as pulling a rope or climbing a ladder become operations hardly less complicated than the invasion of Europe. But gags that were spontaneous comedy long ago seem premeditated today."[3]

References
  1. Air Raid Wardens at the American Film Institute Catalog
  2. "Air Raid Wardens (1943) - Overview". TCM.com. Retrieved 2014-08-12.
  3. Strauss, Theodore (1943-04-05). "The Screen: Where Hilarity Reigns". The New York Times. p. 15.
Bibliography
  • Everson, William K. The Complete Films of Laurel and Hardy. New York: Citadel, 2000, (first edition 1967). ISBN 0-8065-0146-4.
  • Louvish, Simon. Stan and Ollie: The Roots of Comedy. London: Faber & Faber, 2001. ISBN 0-571-21590-4.
  • McCabe, John. Babe: The Life of Oliver Hardy. London: Robson Books Ltd., 2004. ISBN 1-86105-781-4.
  • McCabe, John with Al Kilgore and Richard W. Bann. Laurel & Hardy. New York: Bonanza Books, 1983, first edition 1975, E.P. Dutton. ISBN 978-0-491-01745-9.
  • McGarry, Annie. Laurel & Hardy. London: Bison Group, 1992. ISBN 0-86124-776-0.
  • MacGillivray, Scott. Laurel & Hardy: From the Forties Forward. Second edition. New York: iUniverse 2009 (first edition 1998). ISBN 978-1-44017-239-7.
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