هنرمند آرشیو استن لورل و الیور هاردی

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 Vic.

The two-man Laurel and Hardy Zoot Suit Band find themselves fronting a scam for "gasolene pills" in wartime oil-short America. They are however soon on the side of the angels helping recover $10,000 for an attractive young lady whose family have themselves been swindled.

At Stanlio's urging, Ollio foists himself off as the dread singing bandit Fra Diavolo and unknowingly attempts to rob the notorious brigand himself. As punishment, Diavolo orders Stanlio to hang Ollio, but gives them a second chance when Stanlio bungles the job. Taking them on as his retainers, Diavolo travels to the Tavern de Cucu in his guise as the foppish Marquis de San Marco to rob the rich, aged Lord Rocburg and woo beauteous Lady Pamela. Stanlio drives Ollio and the innkeeper to distraction by playing "earsie kneesie nosie" and "finger wiggle," and gets drunk helping Ollio fill tankards of wine, sending him into an uncontrollable laughing fit. The boys plot to capture Diavolo but wind up with him in front of a firing squad.

So that he and Stan can sneak away to Chicago and attend the annual "Sons of the Desert" lodge convention, Ollie pretends to be sick, and gets a doctor (who turns out to be a veterinarian) to prescribe a long ocean voyage to Hawaii. Decked out in leis and strumming ukuleles, they return home only to learn that the ship supposedly carrying them has sunk. Their hastily-contrived tale of "ship-hiking" their way back cuts no ice with their wives, who've been at the movies watching a newsreel of the lodge's convention parade, starring - guess who?

A band of Gypsies are camped outside the walls of Count Arnheim's palace. Oliver's wife kidnaps the Count's daughter Arline, then leaves the child and runs off with her lover, Devilshoof. Not knowing her true identity, Oliver, with the help of "Uncle" Stanley, raises the girl as his own. Years later, Arline, still unaware of her noble birth, is caught trespassing on the Count's grounds and is thrown into the dungeon. Meanwhile, Stanley and Oliver pass the time playing "fingers" and bumblingly ply their trade picking pockets. Finally, just when Oliver needs his help to rescue Arline, Stanley gets drunk while siphoning wine into bottles.

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.

Mrs. Hardy is irate that her husband Oliver spends more time with his friend Stanley than with her. Oliver decides to adopt a baby, hoping that it will keep his wife occupied so that he and Stanley can continue to carouse. But upon returning home with the infant, they find a process server with a divorce summons, and spend a sleepless night caring for the squalling baby.

Oliver is heartbroken when he finds that Georgette, the inkeeper's daughter he's fallen in love with, is already married to dashing Foreign Legion officer Francois. To forget her, he joins the Legion, taking Stanley with him. Their bumbling eventually gets them charged with desertion and sentenced to a firing squad. They manage to escape in a stolen airplane, but crash after a wild ride.