Chickens Come Home

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Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel in Chickens Come Home (1931)

Mr. Hardy is running for mayor but an old flame of ill repute shows up to blackmail him with an old naughty photograph.Mr. Hardy is running for mayor but an old flame of ill repute shows up to blackmail him with an old naughty photograph.Mr. Hardy is running for mayor but an old flame of ill repute shows up to blackmail him with an old naughty photograph.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.4/10

1.7K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Photos27

Top cast19

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Stan Laurel

Mr. Laurel

Oliver Hardy

Mr. Oliver Hardy

Mae Busch

Ollie's Old Flame
(uncredited)

Baldwin Cooke

Office Worker
(uncredited)

Gordon Douglas

Passerby Outside Apartment
(uncredited)

Norma Drew

Mrs. Laurel
(uncredited)

James Finlayson

Butler
(uncredited)

Elizabeth Forrester

Passerby Outside Apartment
(uncredited)

Charles K. French

Judge
(uncredited)

Clara Guiol

Secretary
(uncredited)

Frank Holliday

Mr. Holliday
(uncredited)

Ham Kinsey

Mr. Kinsey
(uncredited)
…

Dorothy Layton

Office Worker
(uncredited)

Venice Lloyd

Office Worker
(uncredited)

Bob Minford

Doorman
(uncredited)

Patsy O'Byrne

Busybody
(uncredited)

Gertrude Pedlar

Judge's Wife
(uncredited)

Frank Rice

Hardy's Dinner Servant
(uncredited)

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
'Chickens Come Home' is a "three-reel' sound remake of the two-reel silent, 'Love 'Em And Weep' from 1927, which was also made at the Hal Roach Studios. Oliver Hardy (who had a bit part as a judge in the silent) plays the featured part, which was originally played by James Finlayson in the silent version. Finlayson is relegated to the small part of the butler in the sound version. Stan Laurel and Mae Busch play the same parts in both films.

Goofs
(At around 3 mins) The camera is on the notepad and the pencil that Laurel is holding breaks. We can see that Laurel only squiggled on the notepad rather than writing the words Hardy had told him to write. Those "squiggles" are in fact Shorthand, an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to a more common method of writing a language. Shorthand was used more widely in the past, before the invention of recording and dictation machines.

Quotes
Stanley: Do you mind if I smoke?
Ollie's blackmailer: I don't care if you burn up!

Alternate versions
The version of this film available on DVD is a mediocre Film Classics reissue print in which the original MGM credits have been replaced and the title of the film is absent. The computer-colorized version features the original credits minus the MGM lion. The Spanish language version, "Politiquerías", features the full MGM credits and the lion as well.

Connections
Alternate-language version of Politiquerías (1931)

Soundtracks
Somebody's Coming to My House
(1913) (uncredited)
Written by Irving Berlin
Performed by Oliver Hardy

User reviews28

Review

Featured review

8/10

Guys This Is A Great And Funny Short

It's not often I feel I have to defend something on this site but after seeing CHICKENS COME HOME a few days ago I must say I'm slightly puzzled as to why some people think it's not as good as made out . I remember seeing this as a young child and enjoying it immensely and after seeing it again as an adult it's - Unlike a few other L&H shorts - just as enjoyable now

Yeah the flaws with this short are the same with any other one in that the performances are very stagy with lots of shouting and over emphatic mannerisms but no one ever complains about that in other short films featuring Stan and Ollie and unlike a lot of the other shorts CHICKENS COME HOME does feature a coherent plot instead of a lot of episodic incidents

Some people have moaned that the duo are kept apart from each other hence this is somehow less of a success but that's all down to opinion because I was very impressed with the fact Stan and Ollie were both funny on their own throughout the running time with Ollie getting the lion's share of laughs . Come on anyone with a pulse and a sadistic sense of humour will wet themselves as Mr Hardy sings " Somebody's coming to my house " or screams when he sees an indiscreetly placed photograph but the best moments are the ones featuring Ollie and his Butler who knows too much . If I remember correctly there was a situation comedy from over 20 years ago featuring Keith Barron and Carlos Douglas called DUTY FREE with a very similar premise