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After registering many outrageous devices with the U.S.
Patent Office, wealthy career inventor Alva P. Hartley adds his latest
discovery, a powerful explosive, to his list of submissions. When
Alva complains to his father about the War Department's tardiness in
acknowledging his latest invention, which he calls "The Big Noise," his
son Egbert overhears the conversation and decides to play a joke on his
depressed father. Disguising his voice, Egbert calls Alva on the
telephone and, posing as the director of the Patent Office, feigns
interest in the explosive. He cautions Alva to guard the explosive
carefully, and the elated inventor promises to send a sample of the
substance to Washington. Alva then places a call to a trusted
detective agency and asks to have two detectives come to the house.
Instead of speaking with an agency official, though, Alva inadvertently
talks with two janitors, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. The boys,
who have been going to detective night school, see the job as an
opportunity to better themselves, and accept it.
On their way to the Hartleys', Ollie becomes covered with
paint while climbing a freshly painted street lamp to look at the sign.
When they arrive, Alva attempts to clean Ollie by demonstrating his
paint removal contraption, but Stan undermines the process by fiddling
with the device, and paint splatters all over Alva's priceless new
paintings. Later, while Alva shows the two supposed detectives his
explosive, jewel thief Dutchy peers through the window to plan a
robbery. When Dutchy sees the bomb, he tells his cohorts,
ringleader Charlton, his wife Mayme and Hartman, that they should steal
it and sell it to a foreign government. Although Hartman is
interested in the scheme, Charlton and Mayme reject it as unpatriotic.
Meanwhile, Stan and Ollie are befuddled by their
quarters, in which the furnishings are operated by a set of buttons.
The boys eventually settle down but are amazed by the appearance of
Alva's sister-in-law Sophie, who walks in her sleep. Sophie nearly
detonates the bomb, and Alva chastises the two "detectives" for their
carelessness. In the house next door, where the thieves are now
staying, Charlton and Mayme plot to finagle an invitation to Alva's home
by introducing him to Mayme's lovely niece Evelyn.
When Evelyn arrives, she mistakes the Hartleys' home for
Mayme's, and Alva is immediately taken with her. After escorting
Evelyn to the correct house, Alva invites the family to dine at his
home, and the gang plans the robbery. Their scheme is foiled,
however, when Alva receives a call from a real Patent Office worker, who
asks him to bring the explosive to Washington, D.C. without delay.
Upon learning of Alva's plan, Dutchy and Hartman tie up
Charlton and Mayme and go to the Hartley home to steal the device.
Alva is warned by Evelyn, but the couple is captured by the robbers and
taken to Stan and Ollie's room. The boys have already hidden the
bomb in Stan's concertina, however, and Stan tricks Dutchy and Hartman
into entering the closet. Believing that Stan and Ollie have a
decoy bomb, and that he has the real one, Alva loudly tells them to take
the train to Washington.
The crooks follow Stan and Ollie's train by automobile,
although Alva soon discovers that they are carrying the real explosive.
When the boys try to change trains to continue their journey, they must
instead hitchhike to a nearby airfield, where the crooks pick them up.
Stan and Ollie elude their captors, but are forced to hide in an
apparently abandoned airplane. They are amazed when the plane,
which has been equipped with a remote control device, takes off, and
soon find themselves under fire from practicing anti-aircraft gunnery
units. The boys don parachutes and make their escape, and as they
are gliding down to earth, Ollie spots a Japanese submarine and orders
Stan to drop "The Big Noise" on it. After the enemy vessel has
been demolished, Stan and Ollie sit on a buoy while awaiting rescue, and
Stan entertains the fish with a song on his concertina. |
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