County Hospital

This is one of the Laurel & Hardy comedies that show how resourceful they could be in getting the most out of the limited resources within a confined setting. Most of the gags work well, and only a somewhat uneven finale keeps it from being among the better of their two-reel comedies.

The simple story setup has Oliver in the "County Hospital" as a patient in traction, with Stanley stopping by to visit. You would hardly expect that anyone could get into so much trouble in a confined space, but they come up with a lot of comedy ideas, from hard-boiled eggs to the traction equipment, and more, with a couple of particularly good ones.

The climactic sequence is a bit hard to figure, because the back projection so obviously does not match the main footage. It's so much out of sync that you almost wonder whether it was done deliberately for the sake of comic effect, or whether it had to be left that way due to limits on time or money. In any case, this is a funny comedy with a few bits that are quite good.