bkoganbing It's been remarked by some critics that Laurel and Hardy on the screen played it gay. I think most are reading too much into that, but in the case of The Dancing Masters this might be the exception.Meet Stan And Ollie proprietors of a dance studio and seeing them at the beginning in costume, especially Stanley in ballerina drag might just make you wonder. It was quite a treat to see them as dance instructors especially Ollie. For such a big guy he moved pretty good.They've got themselves in a situation. Already owing a lot of back rent to landlord Matt Briggs who has only been staved off from throwing the boys out by wife Margaret Dumont and daughter Trudy Marshall. Stan and Ollie get intimidated into buying insurance from some shady characters. The old protection racket with a veneer of legitimacy.They are also guardians to Marshall and her boyfriend Robert Bailey who apparently years ahead of his time has perfected laser technology. The invention works, but in Stan and Ollie's hands only too well.Although not up to the standards of their work with Hal Roach, Stan and Ollie do recapture some of the magic of those previous films. Best scenes are an auction where Ollie is suckered into buying some useless junk and the climax on a runaway bus. That final scene is more like an Abbott&Costello sequence, but it works for Laurel&Hardy.Allan 'Rocky' Lane plays a favorite of Briggs whom he'd like to match up with his daughter. And Robert Mitchum plays one of the 'insurance' salesmen. Speaking of Lane, Briggs does a rather unconvincing 180 degree turn in regard to Lane and Bailey for the hand of his daughter. That does weaken the film somewhat.Still die-hard fans of Stan and Ollie should like The Dancing Masters.

mark.waltz I can understand after watching this again for the first time in many years how it is considered one of the worst Laurel & Hardy's. For me, it isn't as close to as bad as "Air Raid Wardens" and "The Bullfighters", but there are some definite huge flaws in it. The film is set up to show Laurel and Hardy as the owners and instructors of the dance studio. Hardy is funny as the prancing lead of a "London Bridge" dance, surrounded by 20th Century Fox starlets, while in the next room, Laurel teaches the beginners ballet while wearing a ballerina outfit. A clumsy carpenter spills glue on the floor, leading to a predicable gag where Hardy ends up the looser. Then, in come the racketeers, now selling insurance covering up their protection racket. One of them is a very young and handsome Robert Mitchum. But no sooner do they bully the boys into buying insurance, they are arrested.This is the end of the gangsters and the last time we see the dance studio. The rest of the film is devoted to Laurel and Hardy's support of wealthy patron Trudy Marshall and her inventor boyfriend, Robert Bailey. They first try to help them hide their relationship from her disapproving parents (Matt Briggs and Margaret Dumont) and hopeful suitor Allan Lane, whom we can tell right off is a no-good swine. This leads to Briggs' hidden bar being revealed to tea-totaling Dumont, and a gag where a rug is literally pulled out from the wealthy patriarch which crashes his bed into a pond below. When Bailey uses the boys to help display his ray gun, pandemonium ensues. The dead-pan butler announces to Case and Dumont that their house is on fire.Later, Hardy wants to use the insurance policy to gain money to pay their dance studio rent and hopes to get Laurel to break a leg to do so. There is no reference to the fact that the insurance salesmen were gangsters and that the policy would probably be invalid. (Even if they were to have become legitimate insurance salesman, after being arrested, their licenses would have been revoked). Laurel ends up getting off a bus which had been abandoned by the driver over a supposedly rabid dog (only a frosting covered, cake devouring Toto look-alike, or possibly the actual pooch), causing Oliver to end up on a huge beach roller-coaster that somehow the bus has ended up on, perfectly fitting its wheels onto the tracks. Roller-coaster gags can be exciting, as evidenced in "Abbott and Costello Go to Hollywood", and this one is amusing but anticlimactic.As the story wraps up, all of these gags seem to have no point, giving the impression that this was simply a series of one-reelers put together to make a full-length feature, hopefully part of a double bill. L&H, as I've mentioned in other reviews of their later films, had lost much of their luster after leaving Hal Roach's employ, but surprisingly here, they do not come off as old and tired looking as they had in films made in the same year. Had the gags not been as amusing, as was the case with some of their other films, this surely would have ranked a "2" as opposed to a "3".

Boba_Fett1138 Problem with this movie is that nothing in the movie really feels connected to each other. The story feels messy and weak. On top of that the supporting actors were also quite horrible in their roles.No, this is not the best Laurel & Hardy movie. It still is good for some laughs certainly but overall it's a disappointing movie to watch. The movie already begins weak and unfunny. The movie does get better as it progresses but it never reaches the same level as any of the other Laurel & Hardy movies.Another disappointment was Stan Laurel. He didn't seem to play his character with as much joy as he used to do and his acting was to be honest poor at times.Still watchable but not really recommendable, even though the movie does have its moments.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

BJJ-2 Another unfortunate chapter in Laurel & Hardy's post-Hal Roach efforts,this is a desultory,poorly-constructed comedy which tries to compensate by reworking much material from the boys' Roach days.Such films as COUNTY HOSPITAL(1932),THICKER THAN WATER(1935) and THE BATTLE OF THE CENTURY(1927) have revamped sequences in this film.THE DANCING MASTERS plot however,makes little sense and the scenes from the above earlier,better films seem to have been lazily added as an afterthought,almost as though screenwriter Scott Darling realises he has no funny ideas.This is probably correct,but sadly the reworkings don't work as they are pointless.Darling's own material is woefully hackneyed.The scenes where Ollie tries to cause an accident on Stan are at least of some interest,as these scenes reworked from THE BATTLE OF THE CENTURY are lost.The supporting cast has some interesting names;Robert Mitchum in one of his earliest film roles;A former Roach Mrs.Hardy,Daphne Pollard,has a bit part;former Keystone Kop and Charlie Chaplin foil Hank Mann,in his only Laurel & Hardy film;and Margaret Dumont,The Marx Brothers perrenial leading lady.But they,like Stan & Ollie,can only do so much out of a banal screenplay.The best moments come from Stan's 'rhetorical strangle' and a locked safe;beyond that,there's little else.