Pack Up Your Troubles

Pack Up Your Troubles is a 1932 pre-Code Laurel and Hardy film directed by George Marshall and Raymond McCarey, named after the World War I song "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag, and Smile, Smile, Smile". It is the team's second feature-length film. Plot In 1917, Stan and Ollie are drafted into the American Expeditionary Force to fight in World War I. Their ineptitude during basic training antagonizes the drill sergeant and they are assigned to kitchen duties. When they ask the cook where they should put the garbage cans he sarcastically tells them to take them to the general. They take him at his word and put them in the general's private dining room. The cook, who is thrown in the stockade with them, curses their "snitching" and threatens them with violence after they are released. They escape his wrath when they are shipped to the trenches in France. Serving close to the front line, they befriend soldier Eddie Smith, who received a Dear John letter from his wife before shipping out. When Eddie is killed in action, the boys determine to rescue Eddie's daughter from her brutal foster father and deliver her to Eddie's parents, with whom he was estranged. Meanwhile they distinguish themselves in combat by losing control of a tank and accidentally forcing a German platoon into the open where they are captured. After the Armistice, Stan and Ollie venture to New York City to retrieve the girl and look for Eddie's parents. Using the city telephone directory, the task proves both monumental and problematic (Smith being the most common surname) as the boys blindly attempt to visit each Smith until they find the grandparents. After taking punches from an annoyed prizefighter and disrupting a society wedding, they resort to telephoning first.