Laurel And Hardy - The Flying Deuces (1939)

Stan and Ollie are holidaying in Paris. Ollie intends to remain in France to marry Georgette (Jean Parker), the innkeeper's daughter, but she refuses his proposal. Ollie decides instead to jump into the Seine, along with Stan, but François (Reginald Gardiner), a Foreign Legion officer who is actually Georgette's husband, offers an alternative. On his recommendation, they join the Legion but discover they cannot leave merely when Ollie has managed to "forget". Stan and Ollie are arrested and sentenced to death but make their escape when hiding in an aircraft. The flight ends in disaster and only Stan survives - but an earlier musing on reincarnation produces a bizarre postscript.


In between films for their usual producer, Hal Roach, Laurel and Hardy made THE FLYING DEUCES for another independent film maker, Boris Morros. One of the film's highlights is a song-and-dance routine to SHINE ON HARVEST MOON, which was eventually released as a 45 rpm single.