Laurel and Hardy were always best when they combined a series of ever-changing scenarios and built them up into a feature film.

This plot gives them the opportunity to do just that: they quickly go from courtroom to prison to escapees and milk each comic situation for all its worth.

I would buy this again just to hear Laurel turn to the judge in court ask him of the accused: "Aren't you gonna hang him?"

This was Laurel & Hardy's first foray into longer comedies - released in 1930. Unfortunately, it wasn't much of a success as this was one of their poorest films. It wasn't well received during previews and had to be re-written and held back for some time while it was re-filmed. I'm not exactly sure which version is on the DVD but it's clearly not one of their many classics.

As the comedy pair's first release it has an historic importance and interest to their fans but don't expect too much from this particular outing.

Ok.. this is an ok L&H feature.. quite amusing but I found that the padding out of the film with the restored sequences did little for the movie although important from a historical viewpoint.. why didn't they put the original 55 minute version on the disc as well??
In reply to the other reviwer.. Have you seen BLOCK-HEADS?? This is a comedy masterwork and far far better than Pardon Us!!

I think I'm right in saying that this was the first "long" film that Laurel and Hardy ever made, after many many shorts. This one is a bit episodic and clunky, and boasts the peculiar spectacle of Stan firing a machine gun indiscriminately, but there are still a lot of classic moments here that rank among their very best.
During Prohibition, Stan and Ollie are put in prison for brewing moonshine. Here they spend some time in adjacent solitary confinement cells; not so solitary, since they can still hear one another (A brilliant static shot of the outside of their cells as they talk nonsense for ages, whilst Ollie gets increasingly exasperated), and Stan has trouble with a buzzing tooth that makes a raspberry sound.
Halfway through they manage a bit of an escape, getting them into - by today's standards - rather uncomfortable territory, as they black up and hide out on a "negro" cotton plantation. If you can keep in mind that this film is 75 years old however, and accept that, for better or worse, society was VERY different then, this is actually a quite beautiful and charming sequence, with Ollie's moving rendition of Lazy Moon the high point of the whole film. If it's racist, it's at least not mean spirited. The plantation workers aren't here to be laughed at. If you're generous, call it quaint. At worst, it's just patronising...
Back in jail, and there's a big, noisy riot scene, which goes on a bit too long and isn't all that funny, but what's gone before still makes this worthy of a place in your collection. This is easily one of the duo's best feature films - not quite up there with Way Out west and Sons of the Desert, but way better than Swiss Miss or Blockheads.