Sons of the Desert

1933 Directed by William A. Seiter

Their new full-length feature picture!

Ollie and Stan deceive their wives into thinking they are taking a medically necessary cruise when they are really going to a lodge convention.

Stan Laurel Oliver Hardy Mae Busch Dorothy Christy Charley Chase Lucien Littlefield Ernie Alexander Brooks Benedict Charita Ellen Corby Robert Cummings John Elliott Billy Gilbert Charlie Hall Pat Harmon Ty Parvis Hal Roach

Alternative Titles

Les compagnons de la Nouba, Laurel & Hardy - Die Wüstensöhne, Die Wüstensöhne, Os Filhos do Deserto, Öknens söner, Helan och Halvan på rymmen, Fraternally Yours, Gøg og Gokke: Ørkenens sønner, Laurel et Hardy - Les Compagnons de la nouba

comedy

68 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Joe ★★★★★

"And nobody's any the wiser."
The movie that birthed a million sitcom episodes and comedy sketches, but I think its power goes even deeper than that, watching this movie is like swimming among the Platonic Comedy forms, everything is funny but also Funny.
Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★½ 2

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy's most ingenious and hilarious work is frequently more found in the shorts they made during the final days of silent cinema, the exception being The Music Box which they made with James Parrott in 1932. And although they went on to make almost thirty full-length sound films, Sons of the Desert and Way Out West are widely recognised as the best during this period, and from my standpoint, this is the most favourable out of the two.
While the writing by Frank Craven features some amusing back-and-forth, it does feel a little old fashioned and awkward. Admittedly it's not helped by the absence of an actual plot other than the comedy duo wanting to go…
Review by Nolio ★★½ 4

Sons of the Desert is a comedy film about.. domestic violence?
I get it, the year is 1933 and this kind of stuff was probably funny back then. Frankly, the humor really didn't work for me a lot of the time. There were some pretty funny slapstick moments though, and I chuckled a handful of times at those. A lot of the film consists of long, drawn-out jokes that seem to never end. Then again, some of these jokes are funny while some seem a bit forced and wooden.
Laurel and Hardy are two names that I still have to familiarize myself with, as this is the first project by them that I've seen. They do have decent comedic chemistry,…
Review by Jacob ★★ 7

With slapstick comedy displayed at this level you are not supposed to take anything seriously but sometimes the two goofballs draws the line that leaves me no choice but to question the logic behind some jokes.
For instance, why milk a joke with a guy who doesn’t know how to open a door with him twisting and turning on his own to keep him from opening it or have a wife believe her husband who is faking sick and the only cure is a vacation to Hawaii because a “doctor” told her so. I’m sorry, but that doesn’t appeal to me as slapstick. That’s just plain stupid and hard to laugh at.
I can’t recommend this when more has done it better. There’s just no charm, no charisma, no cleverness to the jokes. A very very stale comedy that feels way longer than 1 hour.
Review by Anna Imhof 🌸 ★★★★½

"Charley tells me you're from Los Angeles. What part?"
"All of me."
Review by AD917 ★★★★

Did Stan Laurel invent the comedy of awkwardness? His dimwitted demeanor and mushmouthed delivery feels remarkably contemporary when compared to most of his peers.
Laurel & Hardy were at their peak at a time when Chaplin was still doing pantomime, Groucho Marx was delivering rapid fire one liners with impossible wit, and The Three Stooges were dealing in bumps on the noggin and “why I oughta” shenanigans—all of which I love, but they haven’t exactly been in vogue in recent years. Yet I daresay you could take this duo’s act—Laurel’s mumbly doofus persona in particular—and fit it right into any modern comedy without significant changes.
That’s probably because the fat guy/skinny guy buddy dynamic has been imitated so often since. Except…
Review by Blair Russell ★★★★½

This month on TCM they are showing a decent amount of Laurel & Hardy films, both shorts and feature length. As I haven't viewed much of this classic cinematic duo & this is arguably their most famous work... at least on Letterboxd it is the most highly regarded.
The plot is not too terribly complex: our duo are members of a fraternal lodge obviously modeled on The Shriners; their original name was the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. This is why both wear fez hats and their leaders dressed in stereotypical Arabic person garb. Anyhow, there's an oath to attend their annual convention in Chicago. Laurel & Hardy can't go because their spouses won't allow it. They don't…
Review by Patrick Pryor ★★★★

Sons of the Desert: 20XX. Two Laurel and Hardy types join the Proud Boys mistakenly thinking they’re a good time party fez fraternity.
Seriously, though, I’ve never seen a Laurel and Hardy talking picture before. Throw me in movie jail! I like their large adult son routine and how Laurel just seems dazed and out of it like a toddler who accidentally inhaled some paint fumes. The faces he twists while eating a wax apple for five minutes had me screamin’! And I like how the entire plot revolves around L&H deceiving their obvious beard wives so they can go party with a bunch of other dudes in a “Honolula” themed night club. There’s more than just the spark of bumbling bro friendship in Sons of the Desert, right?
Review by PUNQ ★★★★ 2

Probable the best movie Laurel & Hardy ever made! I love this one. A lot of silly stuff with one the greatest ends in comedy history! Just the sight on Laurel's wife spoiling her man by fluffing his hair just like he normally do is just an iconic Stan Laurel moment for me! And the war in Oliver's Hardy's home just as fantastic!
Review by Joe ★★★★★

Not as radical or formally daring as, say, Duck Soup, but packed with enough comic details big and small (not to mention laughs) to more than make up for it. And the subtle characterization of Stan and Ollie's wives as vicious killers is a hilarious parody of sitcom tropes that still exist today, decades before the term "sitcom" even existed.
Definitely on my list of the funniest movies of all time.
Review by Albie Hay ★★★½ 1

My first Laurel and Hardy film. I laughed!
Review by Rafael Jovine ★★★

I just love how when a picture depicts a woman being brutalized by a man, its a dark and horrific film, but when its the opposite then its HILARIOUS :/ #doublestandards
Anyways, despite this the film has a great charm courtesy of its stars. The chemistry between the two by now its a thing of legend and rightfully so. Some of the gags are pretty funny and got a chuckle out of me. The story was pretty good with some nice twists and turn.
Unfortunately most of the great jokes have been made to exhaustion by all sitcoms and comedies to the point I no longer found them funny and spent most of the time just frawning at the ridiculousness.…

Recent reviews

Review by beasterne7 ★★

My first Laurel and Hardy movie. Unfortunately, not a great experience. There were one or two funny lines, and the scenario was amusing. But there was so much slapstick that didn’t make me laugh, and a lot of lazy jokes that made me groan rather than laugh.
Review by James Ford

A whole film of proto-"Honeymooners" husbands-try-to-have-innocent-fun-without-their-shrewish-wives-finding-out humor; which is not the funniest thing in the world to me personally, but I certainly did appreciate such a classic idiom in American humor iterated in its classic context; this feels extremely successful in its efforts to stretch out a 2-reel L&H short to feature-length, and of the two L&H features I've seen so far -- the wretched "Babes in Toyland" is the other -- it's certainly the better of the two.
Review by drdaisy ★★★½

would love to see a version with just lottie and betty tbh
Review by sweiler ★★★★½

Sons of the Desert is filled with all of the nuances that made Laurel and Hardy icons. Oliver Hardy sings, bellows, dances his fingers, and flirts. Stan Laurel cries, pratfalls, double takes, and misconstrues everything.
The plot of the movie has been around for almost 100 years. Two men want to go to a convention so they tell their wives that they are doing something else. It never works. It didn't work for the Honeymooners or the Flintstones and it doesn't work here. But how it doesn't work is what is entertaining. In reality the comedy couldn't be more classic.
In the middle of the film we are treated with a production of "Honolulu Baby." It would have been a hot number in 1933. Today it is more of a historical view of entertainment. In fact, the whole movie is a historical view of two of the greatest comedy geniuses.
Review by Daniel ★★★★½

Even though all this stuff has been done to death in the years since by probably thousands of sitcoms, this still felt really fresh! I laughed! Love Stan Laurel’s whole “Kramer on a bunch of downers” persona.
Review by Travis AK ★★★

Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into.
Review by Chad Smith ★★★★★

Watching something like this isn't QUITE on the level of, say, the Rosetta Stone of situational comedy, but it's pretty darn close.
Laurel and Hardy want to go to their Sons of the Desert fraternal order national convention, and they have to lie and scheme their way into going. Of course, as soon as they think their scheme's going their way, THINGS happen to not only foil their plans, but also make things all the more worse.
One minute you're spanking some fraternity asshole with a paddle and the next your wives think you're dead in the Pacific Ocean. That's usually about how it goes.
Yeah, you've seen some iteration of this if you've ever watched a sitcom, and maybe…
Review by Daniel Krunz ★★★★½

Ollie lässt sich nicht verhöhnen,
Das Treffen mit den Wüstensöhnen
Hat die Frau ihm untersagt,
Doch der Mann bleibt unverzagt.
Übrig bleibt ihm eines nur:
Er stellt sich krank und fährt auf "Kur".
Doch der Schwindel wird erkannt,
Nun ist Frau Hardy wutentbrannt.
Review by Jamie ★★★

Going back in time with movies.
Sons of the Desert.
First ever Laurel and Hardy for me. Definitely digging Laurel more than Hardy, and that’s probably what’s intended.
I give it a 6 out of 10.
Verdict: Respectable.
Review by Michael Cross

First time watch for arguably their best feature. This is strictly sitcom material, but spending most of the runtime on a simple premise is noteworthy. Just makeup an excuse to tell their wives and then sneak to a convention. I’ve been aware of Charley Chase all my life as a director, but have never seen his on screen work. He is fine as a boorish Texas club member. It ties up nicely and is consistently amusing.
Review by Max Cross

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

The first feature length Laurel & Hardy recommendation from Stan_Laurel and I accidentally watched it the day after it’s 87th anniversary.
It was delightful. Like a spiritual sequel to Blotto, Laurel and Hardy being so terrified of their wives was hilarious. The wives are super imposing — there’s another shotgun here — but also got great scenes on their own (especially in the movie theater) that show a genuine love there: it’s not all a goof.
Stan’s mangling of phrases and the English language continues to be one of my favorite bits of theirs. His guilty face when pressured by his wife to tell the truth was so funny. Their Honolulu cover story being complicated by a real life ship wreck/typhoon was too. And I was very…
Review by DVDudes ★★★

Film #53
Score: 6,43
Orig. score: 6,40
Tema: "DVDude vælger, runde #4: Komedieklassikere (Mads)"
Anders: 6
Anton: -
Asbjørn: -
Christian: 6
Fillip: -
Jonatan: -
Josua: 7
Kristoffer: 6
Mads: 7
Niels: 7
Peter: 6
Thyge: -