Swiss Miss

1938 "Yelps in the Alps !"
6.6| 1h13m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 20 May 1938 Released
Producted By: Hal Roach Studios
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

Stan and Ollie are mousetrap salesmen hoping for better business in Switzerland, with Stan's theory that because there is more cheese in Switzerland, there should be more mice.

Genre

Comedy, Music

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Director

John G. Blystone

Production Companies

Hal Roach Studios

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Swiss Miss Audience Reviews

Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
CommentsXp Best movie ever!
MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant
Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
Hitchcoc It's kind of sad that the plot of this thing supersedes the appearances of Laurel & Hardy. Apparently, an opera singer has gone to Switzerland to hide from her domineering composer husband. I wouldn't hire these two to make a soup commercial. The music is just awful and while there are some nice gimmicks, the songs never made the Top 40 in 1938, Now the good stuff. The boys are in Switzerland selling mousetraps; the reason. There is lots of cheese so there must be lots of mice. Great. They stupidly sell their business for what appears to be a lot of money, but the notes are worthless. They eventually get a job helping out around the hotel so they can pay off the debt they have incurred by using the phony money for a very expensive meal. While moving a piano to a tree house over a rickety bridge, they are attacked by a gorilla (what the hell--oh, why not. Stan and Ollie have had trouble with pianos before. There is a neat scene where they spill soap suds into an organ and the bubble keep the sound of the notes inside of them. Watch for these things and don't worry about the plot. It is just tiresome anyway.
JoeytheBrit Swiss Miss is easily one of Stan and Ollie's worst films of the 30s. Much of the comedy is fairly stale and is often recycled from earlier movies. The boys play mousetrap salesmen who travel to Switzerland figuring that's where all the mouse will be. The boys are hoodwinked by an unscrupulous cheese shop salesman (they're a dodgy lot, those cheese shop salesmen) into selling their entire outfit for a counterfeit note which they then try to spend on a slap-up meal in the local hotel. Needless to say, when the forged note is discovered the boys are put to work in the kitchen.The film's plot revolves around a great maestro cloistering himself away from the world at the Tyrolean hotel in which the boys are paying off their debt in order to write his musical masterpieces – which is unfortunately the cue for a couple of operetta-style musical numbers to pad out the running time. His wife tracks him down however and, when Maestro sends her away, deliberately refuses to pay for her slap-up meal so that she can stay. I've got to say that I wouldn't send her away if she was following me to remote mountain hideaways. Anyway, this part of the story is typically rubbish and best fast-forwarded past.Laurel & Hardy's routines raise only fitful laughs. Stan looks old in this picture, and Ollie, always a big man, is truly obese here. Apart from the boy's final picture together (made in 1951), I can't recall him ever looking so large. Anyway, there's still the occasional moment that raises a laugh – but they're woefully few and far between. In fact the final shot is probably the best of the entire film.
jtyroler First, if someone is going to do a Tirolean operetta and go to the Tirolean Alps to do so, Switzerland is not the place to be. The Tirol is in western and southwestern Austria and in northern Italy (the Austrian Tirol was split after World War I). The part of Austria that is closer to Switzerland is the Voralberg. With a last name of Tyroler, it always helps to keep these things straight.Laurel & Hardy are mousetrap salesmen going to Switzerland to sell mousetraps because there is a lot of cheese in Switzerland and if there's a lot of cheese, there are a lot of mice. Pontrasina, however, is in Switzerland (near St. Moritz), and, no, I'm not a geography teacher...There are some good Laurel & Hardy moments - drilling holes in the floor of a cheese shop so the mice can get in and then plugging the holes so the mice can't escape - which leads to Stan & Ollie being stuck working in a Swiss hotel when they try paying for a large meal with worthless currency. For those who enjoy musical interludes during comedies, this probably works better for you. If you're the kind of person who fast forwards through the musical numbers of, say the Marx Brothers' movies, this is good for pressing the fast forward button on your remote. Somehow, I can't imagine too many people getting excited about "The Cricket Song".There are a couple of really great routines: Stan plotting to get the brandy from a St. Bernhard rescue dog and Stan and Ollie trying to move a piano over a rope bridge to a tree house (home of the rare alpine gorilla)- which can really play on one's fear of heights. There's also a scene where Stan & Ollie are cleaning stairs and soapy water gets into organ pipes.
SnorrSm1989 Laurel and Hardy-fans are easily spoiled. Having made such masterpieces of mirthmaking like HELPMATES and WAY OUT WEST, it is easy to dismiss SWISS MISS as a rather minor work. Perhaps that is the case; but only, I think, when seen in relation to the very best of the Boys' output in the 1930s. Boss Hal Roach tended to have a different view on public taste than Stan Laurel; arguing that audiences preferred not to be fed with gags and slapstick for an entire hour on end, Roach reportedly ordered several of his comedies to include so-called subplots, romances involving other characters than the feature's main comedians. This was clearly a decision inspired by the output of comedians from larger studios; the Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields were also cast in such films, much to their frustration. Whether or not Roach's view was accurate for its time, these subplot-comedies have generally aged much less vigorously than features in which our favorite comedians are allowed to do their act throughout all the reels. In SWISS MISS, the subplot involves a handsome opera singer named Victor Albert (Walter Woolf King), whose desire to work in his hotel suite is constantly put to task by his annoying wife Anna (Grete Natzler). As Mr. Albert's profession suggests, we are treated with several musical numbers. While this subplot is not necessarily less interesting than other subplots from comedies of the same era, that really isn't saying much; one longs for Laurel and Hardy to turn up while they are absent. Stan Laurel is reported to have complained about the singing acts himself during production. The combination of comedy and operetta is less effective here than in, say, the earlier film THE DEVIL'S BROTHER.However, while one may find the subplot rather unnecessary or even annoying at times, Laurel and Hardy themselves are no less delightful here than usual, when given screen time. Here, they try their luck (or defy their obvious lack of luck) in Switzerland selling rat traps; a simple plot with plenty of potential for comic invention, which is utilized in several hilarious sequences. There is the rather famous scene having the Boys doing a noble attempt to deliver a piano over a suspension bridge when a gorilla turns up; the projection-work may not be very convincing, even by 1938-standards, but this is hardly of much significance, as it is the performances of Stan and Ollie which grab our attention. Also particularly memorable is the part with Stan coaxing brandy from a St. Bernard; the similarity between Laurel and former silent comedy great Harry Langdon has hardly ever been more evident than here, especially as this scene is nearly a solo performance from Stan, omitting the presence of the dog. The bit with the "snow" had me howling with laughter. All in all, SWISS MISS is certainly worth the time of any Laurel and Hardy-fan, spoiled though we may be; but newcomers should check out certain other titles first.