This time, Stan and Ollie help convict a criminal who swears revenge on them, forcing them to try and leave town. Sure enough, all manner of mishaps result. I think that my favorite part of "Going Bye-Bye" was the whole scene with the telephone. It's the sort of movie where you could turn off the sound and it would still be a riot.One can see Laurel and Hardy's influence on the relationship between Gilligan and the Skipper. The characters in Gore Verbinski's "Mouse Hunt" also do a lot of things that are similar to Laurel and Hardy. It just goes to show that these guys were a comedy team for the ages. I understand that they co-starred in a movie in the early 1920s a few years before they became a team - and Hardy had appeared in a number of shorts, billed as Babe - but once they became a team, things took off.Anyway, really funny.

Testifying against criminal Walter Long, Laurel and Hardy desperately try to leave town after a sinister threat causes them concern. They advertise for a travel mate, and what do you know, it turns out to be Long's mill (Mae Busch), a floozie with a heart of acid. Long manages a daring escape, but hiding in a trunk, gets the Laurel and Hardy treatment, ultimately making prison a more pleasant option. But that doesn't stop hilarity from seeking its revenge, leaving the audience with one of the more iconic plot twists and a twisted sight gag that is one of the more famous shots of them, regularly used in comic montages and salutes to the lovable team. Busch is rather underused, more of an intruder in the plot than an actual participant. Pretty good for one of their later shorts, and a fun diversion.

Apart from their wonderful ability to perform slapstick, Laurel and Hardy were more than capable of sit-com and subtlety as shown in this wonderful short.How many people notice the running gag of never putting the flowers down once they enter the apartment?It is also one of the few chances to check out Walter Long, a great Laurel and Hardy stooge who really should have appeared in more of their films. It's also worth seeing him in the shorts "Any Old Port" and "The Live Ghost" as well as an appearance in the film "Pardon Us" as 'The Tiger'.

The critic in me says that the entire film is structured for the sole purpose of the sight gag with which the film ends. But, OH, WHAT A SIGHT GAG!I saw this the other night at a local arts club screening, but available nowhere else. Why isn't this (or for matter, their masterpiece "The Music Box") on video?