The Finishing Touch

The Finishing Touch is a 1928 short comedy silent film produced by Hal Roach, directed by Clyde Bruckman and starring Laurel and Hardy. It was released February 25, 1928 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Synopsis Stan and Ollie are hired by a homeowner (Sam Lufkin) to finish building a house for him. Furthermore, they are offered a $500 bonus if they do a speedy job. They then proceed on their appointed task with zeal but experience one disastrous result after another. Compounding their difficulties is a nearby hospital whose small but feisty head nurse sics a policeman (Edgar Kennedy) on the finishers for being too loud in their work. The policeman tries to keep Stan and Ollie as quiet as possible. In doing so, he unwittingly gets in the firing line and suffers numerous indignities, including having a bucket of glue and a stack of shingles fall from the roof onto his head. Eventually the home is finished, and Stan and Ollie seem to have done a passable job. The homeowner arrives. Pleased at what he sees, he gladly pays Stan and Ollie their promised $500 bonus. Moments later, however, a tiny bird lands on the house's chimney, causing the chimney to collapse and crash through the roof, which weakens the entire structure of the new house. The enraged homeowner demands his $500 back. Stan and Ollie refuse and engage in some creative teamwork to keep the $500 in their hands. Production and exhibition The Finishing Touch was filmed in November and December 1927. The film is a descendant of two of the duo's solo films: Laurel's Smithy (1924) and Hardy's Stick Around (1925). The paperhanger character played by Hardy in the latter film "was justly important to [Hardy], originating an embryonic form of his eventual screen character."