In the Parque del Retiro, in Madrid, Spanish writer Ramón Gómez de la Serna weaves a humorous and absurd monologue about a monocle without glass, the noises that can be heard in a chicken coop and the importance of gesturing correctly with a large hand if someone wants to succeed in the art of oratory.
Ramón Gómez de la Serna
Himself - Writer
In the Parque del Retiro, in Madrid, Spanish writer Ramón Gómez de la Serna weaves a humorous and absurd monologue about a monocle without glass, the noises that can be heard in a chicken coop and the importance of gesturing correctly with a large hand if someone wants to succeed in the art of oratory.
Street musicians Stan and Ollie have no success earning money in the dead of winter in a bad neighborhood. Their instruments are destroyed in an argument with a woman, but their luck seems to turn when Stan finds a wallet.
Barbershop owners Stan and Ollie answer an ad in the newspaper from a wealthy widow looking for a husband. Ollie only mails in his response and is invited to the widow's mansion. Stan discovers his unmailed letter and insists on tagging along. At the mansion, the widow's creepy butler informs them that the woman is crazy. She was once jilted by an Oliver and now her hobby is marrying Olivers and then slitting their throats. Now the boys must figure out how to escape.
Stan and Ollie join the French Foreign Legion after Ollie's sweetheart rejects him.
Although they are successful fishmongers, Stan convinces Ollie that they should become fishermen too, but making a boat seaworthy isn't an easy task.
On the morning of his wedding to oil baron Peter Cucumber's daughter, Ollie receives a jigsaw puzzle from Stan as a wedding gift. The boys soon become absorbed in the puzzle. A taxi driver, butler, policeman and messenger boy join in as well.
A shipowner intends to scuttle his ship on its last voyage to get the insurance money. Charlie, a tramp in love with the owner's daughter, is grabbed by the captain and promises to help him shanghai some seamen. The daughter stows away to follow Charlie. Charlie assists in the galley and attempts to serve food during a gale.
Laurel and Hardy try to entertain a female neighbor, unbeknown to Hardy’s wife.
Oliver's in trouble with his wife after missing a payment on their furniture, having given the money to Stanley, who used it instead to pay Mrs. Hardy for his room and board. At Stan's suggestion Ollie then withdraws the couple's savings from the bank to pay for the furniture and inadvertently pays virtually the whole amount at an auction for a grandfather clock which is soon crushed under a passing truck. Mrs Hardy then unintentionally causes serious injuries to Ollie requiring him to be rushed to hospital for a blood transfusion. The doctor conscripts Stan to be the unwilling blood donor. Problems occur with the transfusion and when Stan and Ollie leave the hospital they appear to have morphed into each other.
Stan and Ollie are greeting card salesmen who agree to help a woman put a spark in her loveless marriage by making her husband jealous.
Oliver is making plans to marry his sweetheart Dulcy with Stan as his best man, but the plans are thwarted when Dulcy's father sees a picture of Ollie and forbids the marriage. The couple plan to elope, and run away to a Justice of the Peace. After typical Laurel and Hardy blundering, they manage to sneak the girl away from her father's house.