Nothing but Trouble is a 1944 film directed by Sam Taylor, starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.
The film opens in 1932 with Stan and Ollie, respectively a butler and chef, looking for work. There's no work to be had in the Great Depression, so the boys head off to foreign lands.
A Failure Montage moves the story to 1944, as our heroes come back home in defeat. What Stan and Ollie don't know however is that the labor market in 1944 is just a tiny bit different, what with a war economy and millions of men under arms. Indeed, Stan and Ollie are practically dragged out of the employment office by Mrs. Hawkley, a snooty rich lady who is desperate to find some servants.
She's desperate to find servants because she will soon be hosting a dinner for King Christopher II of "Orlandia", an Eastern European monarch who is in exile in America because his country has been conquered by the Nazis. King Christopher, as it happens, is a boy of about 12 who loves America and football and dreams of playing for Notre Dame. Unfortunately for the king, his uncle and guardian Prince Saul wants the throne for himself and is plotting to murder his ward.
Prince Saul sends one of his henchmen out with the king for what is supposed to be a day of leisure but is really a chance to murder King Christopher. The boy has no inkling of his uncle's treachery but still wants to escape from his minders. He does, and who does he meet on the streets of New York? Stan and Ollie, of course.
Tropes:
- Accidental Hero:
- Ronetz puts a poison capsule in King Christopher's salad. Then Stan and Ollie get the salads mixed up, so Christopher doesn't eat it.
- It turns out the capsule was on Saul's own salad, which Stan and Ollie take away after a jittery Saul leaves the ballroom. Later, as they bumble in the kitchen, Stan and Ollie drop the poison pill on a hors d'oevure. Saul eats it and dies.
- Contrived Coincidence: Stan and Ollie have been engaged by the Hawkleys. They're sent out for groceries, and while out they meet Christopher, who happens to be the guest of honor at the same dinner that Ollie is going to cook.
- Distant Prologue: The opening scene has Stan and Ollie in 1932, looking for work but being unable to find any. Then after a montage the main story starts in 1944.
- Down to the Last Play: The pickup football game that Christopher plays with some local boys ends with Christopher intercepting a pass and scoring the game-winning touchdown. Ollie the referee cheats blatantly, running with Christopher and blocking would-be tacklers.
- Establishing Character Moment: King Christopher's first scene has the boy being guided by his uncle as he has a formal meeting with some government person. Then, after the others leave, the king eagerly reads from a book called "How to Play Football", before opening his own toy football that plays the Notre Dame fight song.
- "Eureka!" Moment: After everyone finds out who everyone is, Christopher wants to give Stan and Ollie jobs. Prince Saul objects, saying that they can't put Stan and Ollie in the kitchen because "they'd poison you." Then his face lights up as he realizes that he can poison Christopher and pin it on Stan and Ollie.
- Evil Uncle: King Christopher's uncle Saul wants to kill him, partly because he disapproves of his nephew's liberal tendencies, but mostly because he wants to be king himself.
- Gilligan Cut: Prince Saul says that Christopher works so hard for his people that "he hardly sleeps or eats." Cut to Christopher, wolfing down a sausage that Stan and Ollie gave him.
- Karma Houdini: It appears that Ronetz will get away with conspiring to murder Christopher and dropping poison into his salad, since Saul dies and no one else knows about their connection.
- King Incognito: King Christopher plays football with some local boys and engages in some hijinks with Stan and Ollie, who have no idea who he is.
- Lethal Chef: The soup and peas that Ollie makes have Mr. Hawkley groaning in misery and thinking that Ollie poisoned him. And that's not counting the steak, which Ollie didn't know was actually horse meat.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Prince Saul tells his minion Ronetz to kill King Christopher and make it look like an accident.
- Offscreen Crash: Of plates. Mrs. Hawkley gives Stan a tall stack of plates and tells him to set them up. Stan exits stage left. As Ollie and Mrs. Hawkley talk, the sound of plates being shattered offscreen happens repeatedly, causing both of them to cringe.
- Royal "We": Christopher does this when having formal meetings.
- Ruritania: Christopher is the boy king of a vaguely Eastern European country called "Orlandia". He meets a prince from another country called "Marshovia." (Christopher may be Inspired by… King Peter II of Yugoslavia, who acceded to the throne at the age of 11 and had to flee Yugoslavia when he was 17, as the Nazis were conquering it.)
- Separated by a Common Language: Prince Saul disapproves of the slang that his young nephew is picking up.King Christopher: That makes it ok by me!
Prince Saul: [contemptuous] Oh, your majesty, how American.
