Their Purple Moment

1928

Comedy

6
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 57%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 57% · 50 ratings
IMDb Rating 6.6/10 10 899 899

Plot summary

The boys sneak out for a night on the town, unaware that Stan's wife has switched her grocery coupons for Stan's secret stash of mad money. The boys run up a huge tab treating a couple of girls to dinner at a snazzy nightclub and much trouble ensues.

Director

Top cast

720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
209.93 MB
1280*958
English 2.0
NR
24 fps
12 hr 22 min
Seeds 17
390.1 MB
1434*1074
English 2.0
NR
24 fps
12 hr 22 min
Seeds 27

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by wmorrow59 6 / 10

A great build-up . . . to a big let-down

For about three-fourths of the way, Their Purple Moment is a sharp, funny Laurel & Hardy comedy, albeit one with a distinctly sour take on married life. This is the first of the L&H domestic comedies, and sets the tone for much of what would follow: Stan and Ollie are each at the mercy of their domineering wives, a pair of hard-bitten shrews who treat them like children, promptly appropriate their paychecks, and deny them any pleasures. (Later on the wives would usually be more nuanced, sometimes even sympathetic, but in this early film they're quite mean.) In what would become a standard plot for the team, this film tells the sad story of what happens when the boys attempt to fool their spouses. Of course, the only question is just how disastrously the situation is going to backfire.Here, Stan and Ollie tell the wives they're going bowling, then defiantly set out on a spree, under the delusion they've got lots of cash on hand. So when they encounter two attractive young ladies in distress, stuck with a bill they can't pay, naturally, they step in and gallantly offer to treat them to dinner. And it's all downhill from there!The situation the boys blunder into is a well-constructed comic nightmare that steadily builds in intensity, and the sequence is genuinely suspenseful -- right up to the food-fight finale, which is such a fizzle it practically ruins the whole show. This is surprising, considering that, according to the various books on the team, a much more offbeat and imaginative ending was planned and filmed, but then jettisoned. The original finale utilized the midget troupe of entertainers who perform a floor show in the restaurant. In the earlier version, when the boys discover they have no money to pay their bill, they were to escape by disguising themselves as midgets -- midget women, at that -- and slip away with the troupe. The idea flirts with tastelessness, but it sure seems funnier and more memorable than the finale as it stands now.Oh well. There are good reasons to watch and enjoy Their Purple Moment nonetheless, among them the famous gag of the uncle's portrait with the hidden pocket, the spirited performance of Patsy O'Byrne as the town gossip, and the always welcome presence of Anita Garvin, here playing a good-time gal who packs a knife. There's also a priceless close-up of Stan, when it dawns on him that he has no money to cover the ever-growing tab: in an extended shot he displays a remarkable range of expressions, from horror to befuddlement, to hope and despair and back again. He was the greatest!
Reviewed by BJJManchester 6 / 10

Not their best film moment

The Laurel and Hardy team was now reasonably well established at this time in 1928,but for some reason THEIR PURPLE MOMENT takes one or two steps back;Stan is billed as 'Mr.Pincher'and not Mr.Laurel,and a proposed final scene involving an escape from the night club involving a midget troupe was removed before the film's release,and replaced with a rushed,rather(for L & H)hackneyed final pie throwing sequence.Still,there are some very funny moments,especially with a waiter who keeps on falling into a tray of mashed potatoes;these gags were reworked into the following year's THAT'S MY WIFE(1929).Edgar Kennedy was apparently in these deleted scenes.
Reviewed by rmax304823 6 / 10

Up To Standard.

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