Our Relations is a 1936 film directed by Harry Lachman, starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.
In this one Stan and Ollie are respectable middle-class folks with wives (who, naturally, all live together). Ollie gets a letter from his mother, who sends a photo of Stan and Ollie with their long lost twin brothers, Alf and Bert. Ollie's mom passes on some gossip she's heard, that Alf and Bert are losers who went off to sea.
Cut to Alf Laurel and Bert Hardy, whose ship has just pulled into port. Alf and Bert stupidly give their pay to their fellow sailor Finn (regular Laurel and Hardy antagonist Jimmy Finlayson) who promises to "invest" it for them. Alf and Bert's captain makes the major error of trusting the boys with a valuable ring to deliver. Alf and Bert find their way to a beer hall, where they get into their usual nonsense—namely, ordering a big dinner for two pretty girls at the beer hall but being unable to pay as they gave their money to Finn. Comic hijinks ensue as Alf and Bert go to get their money back from Finn, and wind up getting repeatedly confused with Stan and Ollie, who have taken their wives out for dinner.
Tropes:
- Brotherhood of Funny Hats: Stan and Ollie belong to a lodge of an unspecified order. (The Sons of the Desert?)
- Carpet of Virility: An unusual spin on this. The captain gets his shirt ripped off, which reveals he has an absurdly thick forest of chest hair. Stan promptly strikes a match and lights it on fire.
- Cement Shoes: The gangsters who think that Stan and Ollie have the fancy ring (they don't; Alf and Bert do) stick their feet in metal bowls and pour them some cement shoes. Then they take the boys to the dock to make them talk. Cue a comic sequence where Stan and Ollie are wobbling back and forth like Weebles without being able to fall over.
- Contrived Coincidence: The setting appears to be at least a medium-sized city, but both pairs of twins independently go first to the same beer hall and then to the same fancy club.
- Distinctive Appearances: After Alf and Bert change into civilian clothes. While Stan always had a bow tie, and Ollie had a long tie (which he often fluttered), Alf and Bert are the reverse, with Alf having the long tie and Bert with the bow tie. This helps the viewer keep track of which twin is which as the four scramble about.
- Dodgy Toupee: A Running Gag has Finn with an extremely ugly and fake-looking toupee that keeps falling off. In one scene Ollie slathers Finn's bald head with mustard and then slaps the toupee on top.
- Double Take: A cop on the beat does this when seeing both pairs of twins walking past him in different directions. So does the drunk who first befriends Alf and Bert in the beer hall, when he sees both pairs at the fancy nightclub.
- Dramatic Irony: Stan, at the nightclub, says "I wonder what our wives are doing," and Ollie answers "They're probably at home crying their eyes out." Cut to their wives, coming into the nightclub with Alf and Bert (whom the wives have mistaken for their husbands).
- Extremely Short Time Span: The story takes place over a single day.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: One of a few L&H movies where big Oliver Hardy was paired up with 4'9" Daphne Pollard as Mrs. Hardy, for comic contrast.
- Insane Troll Logic: Ollie points to the photo of them with their twins and specifically points out Stan. Stan says no, that's Alf. When Ollie asks how he can tell, Stan says "Well, I'm the oldest."
- Kitschy Themed Restaurant: All the characters wind up at a fancy restaurant/nightclub that is pirate-themed. The greeter outside is Dressed to Plunder in standard pirate style, and inside there's a fake ship complete with mast and rigging. Naturally, Alf and Bert wind up climbing into said rigging and destroying it, when they're chased by Finn and his goons.
- Long-Lost Relative: Alf and Bert, who have been away at sea for at least 15 years, wind up running into their twin brothers Stan and Ollie.
- Malaproper: Usually this was Stan but it's Ollie (or rather, Bert) this time. When the captain gives them the ring to deliver, Ollie says "You can trust us insipidly."
- Mistaken for Cheating: The understandable conclusion when Mrs. Laurel and Mrs. Hardy discover Alf and Bert with their girlfriends at the beer parlor.
- Mistaken Identity: The whole final third of the film, as various characters—Finn, the captain, Alf and Bert's girlfriends, Stan and Ollie's wives, the boys themselves—keep mistaking the twin pairs for each other.
- Pie in the Face: Ollie gets a cake slammed on his head by his vengeful wife.
- Running Gag Stumbles: Near the end Stan and Ollie have been captured by gangsters who are demanding the ring. They Speak in Unison yet again (see Speak in Unison below), both saying "I haven't got the ring!" Then Stan says "Shakespeare!", but Ollie says "Not now!"
- Speak in Unison: A Running Gag. Stan and Ollie have a habit of saying sentences in unison. Whenever they do, Stan says "Shakespeare!", Ollie says "Longfellow!", then they do some nonsense patter and a silly handshake.
- The Stateroom Sketch: Alf and Bert manage to cram themselves into a phone booth because they need to have a private conversation. The phone in the booth rings, and the drunk, who was expecting the call, also squeezes himself in. A long comic set piece ensues which ends with the three of them toppling the phone booth over and wrecking it.
