"Two supremely brainless men, totally innocent of heart, and outrageously optimistic -- there is no one as dumb as a dumb guy who thinks he's smart." John McCabe
The availability of rare classic movies is definitely not on the list of less-than-wonderful things about living in the 2020's. The latest vintage celluloid goodness coming to Blu-ray is the earliest Hal Roach Studio films of Laurel & Hardy.
In our book, Laurel & Hardy remain the greatest of all movie comedy teams.
Some of us diehard classic movie buffs and comedy geeks have been watching Laurel & Hardy since their films were run on TV back in the 1960's. Let me repeat: it's true, believe it or not, movies starring comedy kings Laurel & Hardy, The Three Stooges, W.C. Fields and Abbott & Costello were frequently seen on television. Even Charlie Chaplin silents were shown on TV back then!
Amazingly, one of the local movie palaces in my town, WAY back when, presented Robert Youngson's comedy compilations Laurel & Hardy's Laughing 20's and Four Clowns on the big screen, much to the unending delight of this writer - and a decade before VCRs changed home viewing in the late 1970's.
Quite a few of the short subjects on the new Blu-ray, Laurel & Hardy, Year One: The Restored 1927 Silents, were produced so early in their tenure at Hal Roach Studios that the teaming is clearly in its embryonic stages.
It includes their first appearance together - not as a team - in the 1921 short subject The Lucky Dog, produced by G.M. Anderson, the "A" in Essanay Studios and star of countless westerns known as "Broncho Billy."
In The Lucky Dog, written and directed by Jess Robbins, Hardy plays a bad guy, not too dissimilar from the menacing heavies he would portray as a stock company member in the Vitagraph slapstick comedies of wacky comics Jimmy Aubrey and Larry Semon.
While a selection of Stan & Babe talkies was released on Blu-ray in 2020 and a few of the L&H silents have found their way to such DVD releases as Kino Video's Slapstick Encyclopedia, this latest Blu-ray is the first sighting on this format of their early Hal Roach Studio films.
In addition to their debut appearance together in The Lucky Dog, the compilation features the first films in which Stan & Babe worked together in the casts at Hal Roach Studios. Both had been working as supporting players, with Hardy having memorable turns in such Charley Chase comedies as Isn't Life Terrible and Fluttering Hearts. Stan also acted as a writer and director, most notably on comedienne Mabel Normand's series during her brief stay at The Lot Of Fun in 1926-1927.
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy appear in these Hal Roach comedies as actors, not as a team, but they would increasingly work together and a partnership gradually emerged as the 1927-1928 season progressed.
L&H support Hal Roach Studios actor Glenn Tryon in 45 Minutes From Hollywood, part of the All-Star series they both appeared in. Babe appeared with former Fox Films star and uber-vamp Theda Bara in Madame Mystery, which was directed by Stan.
Also among the pre-teaming Hal Roach Studio films: With Love & Hisses, Duck Soup and Why Girls Love Sailors. In moments throughout, very early harbingers of the distinctive mannerisms L&H would soon employ as a comedy team can be seen.
What was the first Hal Roach Studios 2-reeler to officially or unofficially feature Stan & Babe as a team? That would be The Second Hundred Years, which debuted in theatres on October 8, 1927.
It's a hilarious prison break comedy in which the boys break out of the big house only to become staggeringly inept painters.
In particular on this set, The Second Hundred Years, The Battle of the Century and Do Detectives Think? come across as Laurel & Hardy films. Stan and Babe start functioning as a comedy team in these very funny short subjects.
The lineup on Laurel & Hardy, Year One: The Restored 1927 Silents is The Lucky Dog (1921), 45 Minutes from Hollywood (1926), Duck Soup (1927), Slipping Wives (1927), Love 'em and Weep (1927), Why Girls Love Sailors (1927), With Love and Hisses (1927), Sugar Daddies (1927), Sailors, Beware! (1927), The Second 100 Years (1927), Call of the Cuckoo (1927), Do Detectives Think? (1927), Putting Pants on Phillip (1927), The Battle of the Century (1927) and Flying Elephants (1928).
The Flicker Alley press release elaborates:Very few of the silent films of Laurel and Hardy's negatives survive, and the available elements scattered throughout the world are always mediocre or unwatchable. It took three years to gather all the surviving prints of these shorts, compare them shot by shot and give them the best digital restoration possible. Today, these invisible films look as young as they did 95 years ago.
A world premiere for all the Laurel and Hardy fans. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy first appeared on film together in 1921, after an initial period in their careers spent apart. The two would formally team up in 1927 and found success by following a simple comic formula that displayed the hilariously ambitious and anarchic qualities of their joint personality.
Laurel & Hardy: Year One, The Newly Restored 1927 Silents, as proudly presented by Flicker Alley and Blackhawk Films®, offers fans new and old the rare opportunity to observe the evolving partnership of the comedy team that would reach enormous popularity.
Featuring all new restorations sourced from best available materials contributed by archives and collectors around the world restored by Blackhawk Films® and Lobster Films in Paris, this comprehensive deluxe Blu-ray 2-Disc collection features thirteen extant films produced in 1927 and two additional films from before they were officially a team.
It includes new scores from some of the best silent film composers working today: Neil Brand, Antonio Coppola, Eric le Guen, and Donald Sosin. It is curated by film historians and Laurel and Hardy specialists; Randy Skretvedt, Dick Bann, Serge Bromberg, Eric Lange, and Ulrich Ruedel.
The Boys will be spotlighted in the matinee tomorrow morning at the 2023 San Francisco Silent Film Festival, so if you can't be there at the Castro Theatre to enjoy the show, this Blu-Ray set, Laurel & Hardy, Year One: The Restored 1927 Silents, is available for pre-order from Flicker Alley here.The official release date for the Blu-ray set is August 13.
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