The film starts with the loading of a ship called the Merry Maiden. Oliver is first mate on the ship and described as "a bully, the nastiest crew member, after the captain of course". He features a beard and a moustache, rather than his usual solitary moustache. Stan plays Willie Brisling a guy who is engaged to Nelly and they are in love. The captain leaves his ship, he sees N...
A Wrestler and his ex-Wife (Noah Young and Fay Holderness) try to con a recently-discharged Sailor (Clyde Cook) out of 4 years' pay. When they learn that he lost the money in a 'shell game', they put him to work in the hazardous job of a High Steel Worker, and insure him against accident, then try to see that he has one.
Laurel and Hardy are almost on their way to Atlantic City with their wives, when Ollie gets a phone call from Cookie, a lodge buddy. Cookie tells Ollie that a stag party is taking place that night in their honor and reveals irresistible details of the event when Ollie says they won't be able to attend.
Ollie pretends to be sick and sends the wives on ahead, promising that he an...
Stanley and Oliver are mousetrap salesmen hoping to strike it rich in Switzerland, but get swindled out of all their money by a cheesemaker. While working off their hotel debt, Oliver falls in love with a chambermaid, Anna, who in reality is a famous opera singer spying on her composer husband, Victor, while he works on his new opera. The boys are assigned to move Victor's pian...
After working in the noisy horn factory, just the sound of one drives Oliver into a violent fit. Dr. Finlayson prescribes a long, restful sea voyage, so Stan and Oliver rent a boat and set sail, unaware that escaped killer Nick Grainger has stowed away onboard. To disable the crook, the boys prepare him a meal using string for spaghetti, sponges for meatballs and soap for chees...
Working as chef and butler, the boys wreck a fancy dinner party and, in the process, accidently foil a plot, by enemy agents, to poison a young exiled king.
Novice policemen Stanley and Oliver, eating lunch in their patrol car, nearly have their spare tire stolen by a thief and his sassy partner. They then miss the broadcast address of a burglary in progress, and Stanley borrows the phone in a jewelry store to call the station, mistaking the safecracker inside for the shop's owner. The boys eventually manage to catch the apparent b...
A group of stable hands is given a race horse when its owner retires from the business. (The group is played by the "Original Sing Band," which uses their mouths to sound like musical instruments.) They raise money to run the horse in the Hollywood Derby at Santa Anita race track. Many Hollywood personalities attend the event.
With Stan in drag, the boys get jobs as a butler and maid for a dinner party at the Vandevere's. After that ends in disaster, they're reduced to sweeping streets, and accidentally capture a bank robber. The grateful bank president sends them to Oxford for a proper education. There they become victims of student pranks, getting lost in the Maze and taking over the Dean's quarter...
