In 2023 Flicker Alley released LAUREL & HARDY – YEAR ONE which featured all the silent shorts that L&H made in 1927. Most of them did not feature them as a team. By the following year they were inseparable and the comedies they made together featured one gem after another. Most people don’t know that L&H began their careers during the silent era. When sound arrived, they were fortunate that their voices perfectly matched their physical appearances and their personalities so the transition actually helped them become more popular.. However this success allowed their silent shorts to be completely forgotten.
In 1993 the descendants of Hal Roach, the man who produced the Laurel & Hardy comedies, issued a 10 volume set on VHS of all the L&H silent shorts along with a few of their solo efforts. 6 years later Image Entertainment issued that VHS set on 10 separate DVDs. The shorts were in rough shape but at least they were available in complete form. Aside from the many really bad public domain coptes that are still out there in various degrees of poor quality, that’s all that were available. Now for 2024, Flicker Alley is back with LAUREL & HARDY: YEAR TWO. This set contains all 10 shorts that L&H made in 1928.
Now that they were being billed and promoted as a team, they no longer appeared as supporting players in the shorts of other Hal Roach comedians although they would appear as themselves in cameos from time to time. The first of the 10 shorts, LEAVE EM” LAUGHING, about the effects of laughing gas after a trip to the dentist was an instant classic and set the pattern for the other 9. The basic premise being that despite their best intentions or occasionally from deliberate acts by the boys (as they were affectionately known), the result was mayhem and destruction on an unprecedented scale.
The other 9 shorts are as follows. THE FINISHING TOUCH shows how not to build a house. FROM SOUP TO NUTS destroys a swanky dinner party. YOU’RE DARN TOOTIN’ has two horn players give busking a bad name. THEIR PURPLE MOMENT introduces L&H’s wives for the first time. SHOULD MARRIED MEN GO HOME? features more domestic”bliss”. EARLY TO BED has Stan playing butler to Ollie’s rich man TWO TARS is a classic of reciprocal destruction while HABEAS CORPUS features the boys in a graveyard. Finally WE FAW DOWN has L&H clashing with their wives over a poker game.
As with the first set, LAUREL & HARDY: YEAR TWO comes loaded with extras.There are commentaries, special features, comedy fragments, and a fully restored version of A PAIR OF TIGHTS a female “Laurel & Hardy” comedy starring Anira Garvin & Marion Byron which has not been seen since it was excerpted for THE GOLDEN AGE OF COMEDY compilation in 1960. The accompanying scores by Neil Brand, Robert Israel, and others are fine as usual but it’s really great to have the original Vitaphone music and sound effects tracks for the later shorts. Another fine job from Flicker Alley. Now on to the last year…1929.
The Capsule Critic 