Swiss Miss (film)

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Swiss Miss
Swiss Miss DVD cover
Directed by	John G.Blystone
Produced by	Hal Roach
Starring	Stan Laurel Oliver Hardy Walter Woolf King Della Lind Eric Blore Adia Kuznetzoff Charles Judels Ludovico Tomarchio Franz Hug Jean de Briac George Sorel Charles Gemora
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s)	1938
Language	English
IMDb profile

Swiss Miss, is a 1938 comedy film directed by John G.Blystone, produced by Hal Roach and starring Laurel and Hardy. It also features Walter Woolf King, Della Lind and Eric Blore in support.

1 Plot
2 Trivia
3 Cast
4 See Also
5 External Links

[edit] Plot

Stan and Ollie are mousetrap salesmen hoping for better business in Switzerland, with Stan's theory that because there's more cheese in Switzerland, there should be more mice. While visiting one village, a cheese shop owner cons them out of there wares with a bogus banknote, and they are forced to work as dishwashers in a nearby hotel after ordering a slap-up meal they are unable to pay for. A Viennese composer present at the hotel is disrupted by the presence of his wife - an opera singer who upstages him constantly; Ollie subseqently falls in love with her. After various adventures (including a confrontation with a gorilla on a perilously-perched swing-bridge), the boys overpower the hotel's burly chef and leave the hotel and village, but only to be confronted by the vengeful gorilla (in crutches) before they depart.

[edit] Trivia

The film has always had a mixed critical reaction, both with Laurel and Hardy buffs and non-buffs. Some comic sequences, involving Stan cajoling a tot of brandy from a St.Bernard dog, and the aforementioned swing-bridge scene, have garnered much praise, though the romantic sub-plot with the composer and his wife, have often received the opposite.

Producer Hal Roach is said to have indulged in artistic interference during the film's editing, much to Stan Laurel's chagrin. Always a large creative force behind the camera, Laurel objected to Roach removing scenes including the addition of a bomb in the composer's piano, where the tapping of a particular key would set it off. A drunken Stan is seen touching the piano keys during the piano delivery sequence involving the gorilla; Laurel initially thought the inclusion of the bomb would give the scene more power. A musical number in the cheese shop was also removed; only a few lyrics remain in the film.

Oliver Hardy at one point serenades Anna (the composer's wife) with the song Let Me Call You Sweetheart; the version from the film is currently being used by the mobile phone company Orange in an advertisement being shown on UK TV.

Familiar comic foils such as Jimmy Finlayson and Charlie Hall are not present. The support cast mainly consists of actors from mainland Europe with foreign accents, maybe because of it's Swiss setting. However one familiar performer, Anita Garvin, has a brief role near the beginning; it was her first appearance in a Laurel and Hardy film since 1931.