Laurel And Hardy Comedies on DVD
Sons of the Desert, Way Out West, And Other Great L&H Films On Disc
Aug 3, 2008
Nearly every moviegoer recognizes at least some remnant of the comedy of Stan Laurel (1890-1965) and Oliver Hardy (1892-1957) -- whether it's their physical contrast (thin/fat) or a familiar catchphrase ("Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!"). Their motif of making a way together in a hostile world remains as fresh and funny as it was when they teamed 80 years ago.
Sadly, though, much of their work remains neglected on American DVDs. (Britain has a lavish DVD set devoted to nearly all of their pre-1941 work -- but it requires spending about $150 on both the set and an international DVD player. So that's another story.)
Here's a short guide to Laurel & Hardy U.S. DVDs, from the worst to the best.
Utopia - This is easily the most available and cheapest DVD, as it fell out of copyright decades ago. It's also the least representative of L&H's style. This was their final film (1951) and was intended as a mild satire on government, but Stan and Ollie's ill health during the filming (in particular, Stan looks almost skeletal) make it almost unbearable to watch. The dubbed-in foreign co-stars don't help, either.
Laurel & Hardy and Laurel & Hardy II - At present, Hallmark Entertainment owns the U.S. rights to most of L&H films. Thus far, they've issued only these two discs. The good news is that some of their best 1930's work is represented here (including Sons of the Desert, Way Out West, Blockheads, and their Oscar-winning short The Music Box). The bad news is that the discs' picture and audio quality is often below-average. (For example, Sons of the Desert is reprinted from a TV print of the film, complete with black-outs for commercial breaks.) It's a pity that Hallmark hasn't represented this great team better on DVD.
TCM Archives - The Laurel & Hardy Collection - This set's main draw is its two feature films. Bonnie Scotland (1935) concerns Stan and Ollie's misadventures in the Scottish army, drawn out by a boring romantic subplot. Better is The Devil's Brother (1933), a comic operetta in which vagrants Stan and Ollie are forced to work for an infamous bandit. The discs' best goodies are the extras, including some very funny cameos and a rare clip from their only color feature film.
Laurel & Hardy Collection, Vols. I and II - These half-dozen features represented the period where L&H lost the creative freedom of their early years and were at the mercy of a big studio (Twentieth Century-Fox). This results in comedy that is sometimes uneven and often completely alien to the L&H style. Yet if you can get past those kinks, you'll still find many laughs. Best of the lot are probably Vol. 1's Jitterbugs (1943, with L&H trying to thwart some con artists), and Vol. 2's The Bullfighters (1945, with Stan mistaken for a famous toreador).
March of the Wooden Soldiers - This 1934 holiday favorite finds child-like Stan and Ollie, appropriately, in a fairy-tale world, protecting Little Bo Peep from the villainy of her larcenous landlord, Silas Barnaby. The big finale, with Toyland being attacked by Barnaby's monsters, was once thought nightmarish but is downright benign in these Transformers days.
The Flying Deuces - This 1939 gem features Stan and Ollie joining the Foreign Legion to help Ollie forget a jilted romance. This is one of their funniest films, though it, too, is in the public domain and thus frequently has poor picture quality. The best version comes from Kino Video -- it costs a little more but has loads of extras, including a rare L&H color short, and their only TV appearance (in a 1954 segment of This Is Your Life).
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