Be Big!

This particular Hal Roach short with Laurel and Hardy seems to have worked so well that the idea was later expanded into their classic Sons Of The Desert comedy.

Stan and Ollie are a couple of henpecked husbands who have planned to take a joint vacation to Atlantic City with the wives. But then Ollie gets a call from a hunt club that he and Stan belong to and it seems as though the gang is throwing them a bash. And since this is a guys only type gathering, they have to ditch the wives.

Ollie fakes a tremendous headache in the usual overactive Ollie fashion and the wives decide to make it a girls only trip to Atlantic City. With the ruse working, Ollie and Stan have to get into their hunting outfits.

Personally I find it hard to believe that some hoity toity outfit would even have Laurel and Hardy as members let alone as honored guests at a party. But leaving that aside, most of the film from this point on is taken up with Hardy having managed to squeeze into Laurel's boots by mistake now trying to get them off his feet with Laurel's inept assistance.

I've never seen one gag milked so successfully for a film, granted it's just a short subject. Seeing poor Laurel struggling to get those boots off Hardy's feet, dragging him around the apartment and wrecking half of it is hilarious.

Who could have known that in reality the title Be Big referred to Ollie's feet.