ShangLuda Admirable film.

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

mark.waltz Stunning sets and some truly hysterical moments highlight this operetta spoof which takes Laurel and Hardy back to what they had done three times before, top bill in enlarged supporting parts as the attraction that the producers knew would bring the audiences in. They are incompetent mouse trap salesmen who create more harm as they try to make a living than make a sale. As a result of their stupidity, they end up as equally incompetent handymen who create more chaos than getting things done, all with hysterical results, almost preventing operetta writer Walter Woolf King from completing his intended masterpiece.The Swiss Alp setting is stunning, highlighted in the classic comedy scene where laurel and Hardy spoof "The Music Box" when they try to deliver a piano across a Swiss mountain range with their way blocked by the strange sudden appearance by a gorilla. Laurel befriends a St. Bernard and gets drunk off a keg of rum; an organ filled with soap suds, making its own kind of music, and they pretty much turn an entire house into Swiss cheese while trying to sell one of their mousetraps. The operetta songs are pretty upbeat, but a few gags don't seem to land as well as they could have. Fine support by Eric Blore adds charm, and the musical numbers are pretty lavish. It was one of my favorites as a kid, but really hasn't stood the test of time as well as I thought it would.

theowinthrop It's not a total washout among their feature films. It has some very fine moments - among my favorite Ollie serenading Grete Natzler with, "Let me call you Sweetheart" which Stan is playing on a tuba! There is also Stan and the St. Bernard he fools into giving him a bit of his medicinal brandy. There is also the gorilla and the boys and the piano on the swaying bridge. But the film is a wash-out when compared with SONS OF THE DESERT, WAY OUR WEST, or BLOCK-HEADS.It should have been better - it was their last attempt at an operetta format. In fact the plot deals with a composer (Walter Woolf King - "Lasparri" in A NIGHT AT THE OPERA) struggling to compose the score of his next operetta for him and his wife (Ms Natzler). Set in Switzerland, like THE BOHEMIAN GIRL the boys get into fun costumes. They are in the alps because they are mouse trap salesmen in Switzerland (because of it's cheese). They are swindled and owe a huge hotel tab. Ollie has insulted the hotel cook (Adia Kuznetzoff) who is determined to make them pay by forcing them to slave for him as busboy waiters until their bill is paid off. When they try to cheat he forces them to break more plates to replace the figures they wiped out.All this is more than promising, but structurally it is not good. This seems to be the fault of the studio owner, Hal Roach.Roach was aware that Laurel and Hardy were his biggest star attractions, and he knew that the revenue they generated might give him the chance to expand his production company. Roach did get somewhere in the late 1930s with bigger films. He produced the "Topper" films (the first with Cary Grant and Constance Bennett, as well as Roland Young), and also ONE MILLION B.C. with Carole Landis. But Roach's conservative instincts interfered with his plans here. For one thing he could not bring himself to treat Stan and Ollie as a unified bargaining unit. He had their contracts end at different dates, in an irritating attempt to keep them in check. Stan in particular had to be kept under control. So in the late 1930s Roach suggested a "Hardy Family" series with Ollie and Patsy Kelly as husband and wife, and Spanky MacFarlane as their son. It sounds interesting, but it got nowhere (one wonders if it was planned to go anywhere). He also made the feature ZENOBIA in 1939 with Laurel replaced by Harry Langdon (Langdon was working for Roach as a gag writer at the time). The boys retaliated by doing THE FLYING DEUCES with producer Boris Morros - a hint to Roach that he was equally replaceable. It was a message that Roach quickly noted, but probably resented.Secondly there was the issue of being penny wise and pound foolish. Roach kept close watch on film budgets. When Stan and Ollie made the film OUR RELATIONS, Stan was active producer on that film, and he spent money quite freely on it, especially in the sequences set in a nightclub. Compare the really realistic nightclub there with the more spartan ones shown in some of the shorts Roach controlled like BLOTTO. Roach did not care for this at all. So he looked at the script of SWISS MISS and tampered with it.In the original script, apparently, Natzler is having a marital dispute with King which involves their rival egos and his refusal to let her help him with his operetta work. She is ordered to leave. She disguises herself and becomes a maid at the hotel that Stan and Ollie are stuck working their bill off at. Ollie falls for the new maid. But so does the boys' adversary Kuznetzoff, who is furious watching Ollie trying to ingratiate himself with her. He also notes that King is trying to ingratiate himself with the maid (King recognizes Natzler, but is pretending he is in love with the "maid" to make Natzler furious and jealous). So Kuznetzoff tries to get rid of all three of them by putting a bomb in the piano that they have to carry across a swaying rope bridge to King's chalet. This part of the famous sequence was cut out by Roach, trying to cut costs and time. There is a still photo showing Stan arguing about the cut sequence, and it shows him as really angry. He was right to be angry - the sequence is still very funny with that gorilla, but it had moments of Stan and Ollie crashing into the keyboard that were meant to make the audience expect a premature explosion.For a musical it lacks any memorable tunes - unlike WAY OUT WEST with "In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia" and "We're Going to Dixie", or with THE SONS OF THE DESERT with "Honalulu Baby" or THE BOHEMIAN GIRL with "I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls" (or even unlike the later THE BIG NOISE with "Maizy Doats"!). Instead, King cooks up a little ditty called "The Cricket Song" which has the opening line, "Crick, crick, crick goes the cricket...singing merrily, all day long!" Like the ridiculous conclusion of the Don Ameche biopic on Stephen Foster, wherein everyone hearing the music - supposedly - of "Old Folks At Home" for the first time sing it standing as the film ends, here the entire village is singing this ditty. At least Foster's tune was a great one. I assure you "The Cricket Song" is not!!Little else positive to add except for those few good bits I mentioned - and the brief appearances of the always welcomed Eric Blore (as King's butler). It barely rises above the bulk of the films of the 1940s for MGM and 20TH Century Fox, but enjoy it's best moments without any second thoughts.

greggt89 being a fan of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy for as long as i can remember. i have seen all of their films from Lucky Dog up to the dire Atoll K and this is in my top five favourite Laurel and Hardy films of all time.Stan and Ollie play mouse trap salesman who get riped off by a cheese salesman and must pay off their debt by working at a local hotel. there are many funny moments in this film including the fire scene (once you see this film you will know what i mean) but there are a lot of boring songs that spoil the comedy of Stan and Ollie but apart from that a classic piece of vintage comedy.watch this and enjoy!

bob the moo Laurel and Hardy are travelling through Switzerland selling mouse traps (unsuccessfully it has to be said). When a man offers to buy the business from them, Hardy accepts and takes the foreign money. After the duo eat a large meal at a posh hotel they find that the note is worthless in Switzerland and are forced to work in the hotel to pay off their debt (and pay for every plate they break). While they are there they also get involved in a marital spat between a composer and his famous singer wife.As someone who has seen more of their shorts than I have of their features, I was worried that a longer running time (70 minutes) would be too much for the duo to sustain. Having seen other features I knew they COULD do it if they were given the chance – sadly here they weren't given that chance. Instead they are given surprisingly little screen time and not allowed to work their magic for very long, with an off-putting amount of time devoted to the martial problems I have previously alluded to.I don't know who made the decision that Laurel and Hardy were unable to carry a feature and required a structure to base their routines around - they should always be within the structure! The mistake shines through though in several funny scenes where Laurel and Hardy are given the good material – the gorilla (in Switzerland!) on a bridge may not make much sense but it is funny, although my highlight was Laurel trying to coax brandy out of a St Bernard's! Sadly the chances for them to produce are limited by the tradition (and overdone) song and dance numbers (where we also have the usual `Laurel does funny voice' stuff) and the romantic subplot.Hardy is good as is Laurel, but Laurel's character is much stronger than in the shorts – he still bears the brunt of stuff but he is more forceful than before, not to mention a lot chubbier! I personally didn't take to this as well as I'd hoped I would – for whatever reason the changes were made, they off balanced the relationship that I love between the two. The support cast are roundly OK but it is hard to get interested in them simply because, while they are on, Laurel and Hardy aren't.Overall this is a very weak feature from the usually reliable pair. The majority of the running time is taken up by the songs and the romantic subplot, with the duo only given a few chances to shine (which, happily, they take). In the 70 minutes it took to watch this I could have watched three of their shorts – each of which would have been better than this!