KnotMissPriceless Why so much hype?

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

bkoganbing For those wondering what Oliver Hardy was doing in a film without Stan Laurel, we have to remember that Hal Roach created the team back in silent days when he had these two comedians both signed to contracts with him. Their contracts were negotiated separately unlike Abbott and Costello or the Ritz Brothers, etc. So with Ollie signed with studio again and Stan balking at terms, Hal Roach decided to pair Hardy with Harry Langdon who was trying to recapture the stardom he enjoyed in the silent era.Ollie is a country doctor in post Civil War Mississippi who lives with wife Billie Burke and daughter Jean Parker in genteel poverty. James Ellison, late of the Hopalong Cassidy series, wants her hand in marriage, but his mother Alice Brady forbids it as Jean's parents are just not her sort.Nevertheless Ollie and Billie try to help Jean with her romance, but Ollie gets himself entangled with traveling medicine show man Harry Langdon and his performing elephant Zenobia. When the pachyderm becomes ill, Ollie effects a cure and the beast's gratitude makes his life miserable.Though they were advertised as a team, Langdon and Hardy are not a team really in this film, though their scenes with Zenobia are pretty funny. They're like Abbott and Costello in The Time Of Their Lives, a comedy team in two separate roles in which they only interact occasionally. Actually Burke and Brady, a couple of veteran Broadway performers, have some scenes together and they're pretty good in and of themselves.Getting Alice Brady and Billie Burke was a casting coup of sorts for Hal Roach. Look at the rest of his cast which he got from the major studios, if he was to have a new comedy team, they would be launched properly.Of course Stan Laurel came to terms and Langdon and Hardy were no more. But Zenobia is a film filled with gentle humor and some good comic situations.

Michael_Elliott Zenobia (1939) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Oliver Hardy plays a country doctor's whose life gets turned upside down when his daughter is about to marry into a rich family that doesn't want her. To make matters worse, the doctor is asked by a circus man (Harry Langdon) to look at his sick elephant. The doctor cures the creature but then the elephant refuses to leave his side. This was Hardy's first and only starring role without Stan Laurel but the screenplay really seems like it was originally meant for the two. Langdon, a silent screen star, fills in for Laurel and one can't help but think the duo could have made this film together but didn't for whatever reasons. The film takes place during the Old South and features a lot more than just laughs as the doctor always talks about he Declaration of Independence and how important that is to him. The battles between rich and poor as well as black and white are dealt with in a pretty honest manor considering the type of film this is. There's one sequence where a black boy asks Hardy if he'll ever be white so that he will be able to do more things. The response Hardy gives him makes for some good drama but it's also interesting in what's said. I was surprised at how honest they looked at the racial tensions but some of them are nearly thrown to the side with Step'n Fetchit playing his normal slow slave character. He's certainly very good at what he does but the performance does go against some of the speeches in the film. Hardy proves that he could carry a movie on his own and delivers many laughs including a very funny sequence where he tells Langdon that he isn't an elephant. Langdon's comeback is great and he also manages to do his part quite well and add plenty of laughs. I didn't care too much for any of the other supporting performances as I found them very annoying due to how they were written in the screenplay. This film certainly isn't a masterpiece or even a classic but it makes for a mildly entertaining 70-minutes.

martin o'sullivan I have read the post before mine about this movie. Much I do agree with, but I wish to comment a bit more in defense of this movie. At the time, Hal Roach had a contract dispute with Stan. In short, Stan was offered more money then Oliver, and Stan said either pay us equal, or you don't have us anymore. That loyalty is amazing in any era. This movie was suppose to be for the both of them, but had to be re-written for just Oliver. Yes, the movie's writing suffers in many places, as it gets to be too silly, and even racist. However, the actual acting of Oliver, and Billie are truly wonderful, even if their lines were not. I view this movie as a rare treat, a historical footnote in the years of Laurel and Hardy. No, not a classic, nor anywhere near one, but entertaining? Yes. One can not compare this with any Laurel and Hardy movie. That would be unfair. They never knew if they would work together ever again at this point. True, at times I thought the concept of this movie was childish, but in an innocent entertaining way. As if to say we know it is silly, but it is just a silly movie. So no huge amount of thumbs up for this movie, but a nice treat for hardcore Laurel and Hardy fans. I will say though, thank God they got back together again! Ha! Two movies like this would have been a bit much to take Ha!

Clark Richards Plodding along clumsily through themes of race and class, 'Zenobia' is the movie equivalent of a television after school special that tries desperately to force feed its audience a plate of moral fiber for digestion. This morality feeding does not go down smoothly at all, even with a spoonful of humor provided by the antics of Oliver Hardy and company. Hardy is decent, but the humor in the film is never up to his standard and the preachings of the other plot lines is just incredibly lame.The irony of 'Zenobia' is that when it begins to preach, it comes of as comical, when it tries to be funny, it falls seriously flat. The problem I have in slamming this movie is that its heart seems to be in the right place, sort of. Besides, how can you hate an Oliver Hardy film?I spent most of my time laughing AT THE MOVIE. Hardy, a doctor by trade, explains race to his black child servant simply as being the difference between white pills and black pills. He mentions that the Declaration of Independence is made up of black, white, red and yellow pills. When Hardy asks the child if he understands, the child answers back, "No, Suh". What does Hardy mean? Is he saying that all pills are created equal? Hardy finally appeases the child's questions by bargaining a quarter to the child if he can memorize the Declaration of Independence. Well, that settles it. Now Hardy can go to the all white party where no colored people are allowed to attend.When Hardy gets to the party he is subjected to a bit of class-ism. Hardy squints a shade of disapproval, but is able to carry on happily enough until Zenobia the elephant crashes the party. Suddenly Hardy finds himself in a confusing lawsuit over the affections of an elephant or from an attempt to embarrass his daughter into not marrying into another family, or something, I'm not really sure.One thing is certain, this was the first film where the comedy duo consisted of Oliver Hardy being the skinny one.Pretty dire stuff. Stay away if you like comedy.