The Laurel and Hardy comedy short Big Business is predicated off of the reliable comedic screen writing device of persistency, where characters tirelessly chase after a certain goal or continue engaging in a dead-end action hellbent for success (and laughs). The result can often be tiring, but the theme finds its home efficiently in this eighteen minute short by two of comedy's greatest leading men. Big Business concerns Laurel and Hardy as a pair of door-to-door Christmas tree salesman, looking to score big from ill-prepared clientele this holiday season. The two stumble upon a grumpy customer (James Finlayson), becoming persistent in their efforts to make a sale with him and effectively alienating him more and more with every word.The man finally gets enough of it and proceeds to chop one of their Christmas trees with his hedgeclippers, which escalates a feud like no other. The men take turns by destroying whatever item they can get their hands on that belongs to the other person, meaning the home owner destroys Laurel and Hardy's inventory and their vehicle, while Laurel and Hardy take turns destroying the home of the home owner. This back-and-forth camaraderie catches the attention of a police officer (Tiny Sandford), who watches it all go down in awe.One of the funniest scenes of the entire short is seeing Laurel throw the home owner's vases out of a window onto Hardy, who is standing on the front lawn using a shovel to hit and break them. The scene makes for hilarious, rapid-fire comedy that is only all the more impressive being that it's clearly and impromptu skit. Furthermore, the zealous attributes of Laurel and Hardy keep the comedy flowing, with complete and total awareness in terms of pacing and structure, on part of writer H.M. Walker and directors James W. Horne and Leo McCarey. Big Business is one of the funniest Laurel and Hardy shorts I have yet to see.Starring: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, James Finlayson, and Tiny Sandford. Directed by: James W. Horne and Leo McCarey.

Seriously. Laurel & Hardy take a basic comedy situation -- malicious property destruction -- and riff on it for 20 minutes, proceeding from minor damage to a Christmas tree, to the dissection of a car, to the destruction of a house. It's particularly enjoyable watching them confronting common enemies (rather than each other), which shows off their distinct comedic styles to better advantage.It's ironic that "Big Business" was made in 1929, as Hollywood was transitioning to sound. Laurel & Hardy's sound films are much inferior (even the Oscar-winning "The Music Box")."Big Business" is perfect visual comedy, and if you're not rolling on the floor, you are badly humor-impaired. I wish I could give it an 11. Just thinking about it gets me laughing.PS: The reviewer who complained that this is a "one-joke comedy" misses the point. Of course it is! A single idea is taken to its logical (???) conclusion. Which is why I compared it to Bach.

Yuletide Mayhem Saturday July 17, 2010, The Castro, San Francisco"Merry Christmas!" Two salesmen who refuse to take "no" for an answer meet their match in an equally stubborn homeowner.Only Stan and Ollie would attempt to sell Christmas trees door-to-door in sunny California. Their failure is of course inevitable, as is the havoc they wreak on the home of unfortunate Jimmy Finlayson, who has the temerity to rile them up! By the time a policeman finally arrives, the house and their truck are all but demolished as a neighborhood crowd watches from the street. Stan pitches breakable objects out a window to a batting Ollie on the lawn, while Finlayson gleefully dismantles their truck, one piece at a time as the cop observes unnoticed.A popular Hollywood myth claims Hal Roach arrived on the set late in the day to discover the cast and crew of Big Business had destroyed the house next-door to the one he purchased for the film!

This is the granddaddy of all Laurel and Hardy fight with the neighbor shorts. A small disagreement escalates to a near-world war and destruction and mayhem result. This formula worked great here and was reprised in such Laurel and Hardy films as TIT FOR TAT, TWO TARS and THE BULLFIGHTERS. All these fights are excellent, but I have to give a higher score to this film because it was the first and most outrageous.Laurel and Hardy are door-to-door Christmas tree salesmen! Naturally, their business is terrible (since it is Stan and Ollie) and some of their prospective customers, namely James Finlayson, are irritated by their bothering them. Well, this mild irritation quickly escalates to breaking the boys car and the boys destroying the man's home. All this is very funny and well-paced and I especially liked the ending--it might just catch you by surprise. This silent short is about as good as you can find from this duo.By the way, this film appears in an abbreviated form at the end of Robert Youngson's compilation film WHEN COMEDY WAS KING (1960).