A Chump at Oxford
A Chump at Oxford, directed in 1939 by Alfred J. Goulding and released in 1940 by United Artists, was the penultimate Laurel and Hardy film made at the Hal Roach studios. Originally released as a streamliner featurette at forty minutes long, twenty minutes of footage largely unrelated to the main plot were later added for the European distribution. The longer version is the one most often seen today. The title echoes the popular film A Yank at Oxford 1938.
At the dinner party, Stan eats the nibbles he is supposed to be giving to the guests and tips the rest into Mrs. Vandeveers lap. Ollie calls the guests to the meal with a hand held xylophone. He says there is everything From Soup to Nuts folks come and get it. Stan is told to take the cocktails and instead of clearing them away, he drinks them and becomes drunk. Ollie gets the guests to sit down with the men on one side and the women on the other side of the table. Mr. Vandeveer tells Ollie to change the seating arrangement and Ollie begins to move the guests around for a while until Mr. Vandeveer gets impatient and tells them to sit anywhere they like at the table. Mr. Vandeveer then tells the drunken Stan to serve up the salad without dressing so Stan takes off his clothes and serves the salad in his underwear. Seeing this, Mr. Vandeveer angrily storms into another room to take a shotgun. Mrs. Vandeveer arrives, having changed her dress, and faints at the sight of Stan. Mr. Vandeveer returns, gun in hand, and chases Stan and Ollie out of the house. A single gunshot is heard and Mr. Vandeveer returns, followed by a policeman, who tells him, why dont you be more careful you almost blew my brains out? When the cop turns to leave, the seat of his pants have a large jagged hole ripped in them, revealing smouldering undershorts.Stan and Ollie then become road sweepers and wonder why they are always in the gutter. They decide to get an education because in Stans words were not illiterative enough. They are sitting outside the Farmers amp Merchants Bank of Commerce building eating a packed lunch, while a robbery is taking place inside. They inadvertently catch the robber when he slips on a banana peel tossed on the sidewalk by Stan. A grateful bank manager offers them a reward by suggesting that they could have a job in his bank. When Oliver mentions they would not be much use since he and Stan do not have an education, the bank president expands on their goal to attend
Source: Wikipedia
