The Lost Films of Laurel & Hardy: The Complete Collection, Vol. 4 (1929)

STUNNING!

I will not go into a synopsis of the material as that is readily available but will comment on the series itself having viewed them all.

This is a stunning collection of the early work of the `boys` and is presented from restored 35mm material much of which is taken from the original surviving negatives. Several of the titles in the series, have until fairly recently, been considered lost forever.

Each disc has detailed information on the titles and every film is presented with either the original vitaphone sound on disc (again recently discovered) synchronised with the picture or with a composite vitaphone soundtrack.

Even for those who don`t normally view `silent` movies these are astounding prints of what is now the historic formation of one the most inventive and forever lasting comedy teams ever to grace the silver screen.

Each disc deserves five stars for content, quality and value.

March 16, 2005

Solid compilation

I wish the films in this series had been put out in chronological order on the discs instead of having shorts from different years rammed together, but even for being assembled in a less than ideal fashion, this is fine material. The package also contains information about and synopses of the films presented, including information about films which were on the verge of decomposition or, like some of the films on this volume, which hadn't been heard with the proper soundtracks in decades.

Apparently a number of people dislike 'They Go Boom!,' but I love this short. That might be because it's been years since I've had the opportunity to see any of their sound shorts which are new to me, since AMC no longer shows them and I've been making do of a tape with five of their sound shorts on it for too many years now (when are we American fans going to get real DVD treatment of all of their sound shorts like the Brits have?!); still, I find this short hilarious. They often recycled elements of past shorts and movies; in this movie I recognised one of the gags in the later 'Busy Bodies,' the nail in the wall going right into a waterpipe, with predictable results. Elements of 'Bacon Grabbers' (another great short presented here) also resurface in 'The Music Box.' The other strongest work on here comes from 'Their Purple Moment' and 'On the Wrong Trek'; I love the L&H cameo appearance in the latter Charley Chase short!

'Should Sailors Marry?' is enjoyable and funny, but overall doesn't seem quite as strong as the rest of the shorts, and really only seems to have been included because Oliver Hardy appears as a doctor, a bit more than halfway through the piece. 'Unaccustomed As We Are' is funny, but should have stayed a talkie. This picture does not work as a silent film. At all. There are some bits of it that are great silent comedy, but they're cancelled out by the most intertitles in any L&H short. The humour in this piece derived from a combination of speech and slapstick, but there are just WAY too many intertitles explaining what's going on and what's being said to get as much humour out of it as there is in the original talking version. It's in the same vein as how some late silent pictures were later rereleased with sound dubbed onto them--it took away from how the story was being conveyed, and clearly UAWA was specifically built to be a sound comedy, not a silent comedy. February 13, 2005

Some solid laughs from the end of the silent era

This collection, featuring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, as well as other stars from the Hal Roach Studio, will be an essential addition to loyal fans of the comic duo, who will be easily convinced to buy this, as well as the other volumes in the series. For those with a broader interest in silent screen comedy, but who are not necessarily die-hard L&H fans, this collection is as good a representation of the best of the duo's silent and early sound output as any others in the series, but no better.

L&H may not have been the first silent comic team, but they were the first to illustrate the potential of two funny men who became funnier as the result of the ability to play off the personality of the other. However, "They Go Boom", which starts the volume, is a very weak early sound film, offering mostly crude physical humor based on accidentally inflicted pain and discomfort, combined with a weak dialogue. "Their Purple Moment", a silent from 1928, offers a stark contrast, and is the best of this volume. It is light, energetic, perfectly paced, and full of refined visual humor about two husbands trying to escape the wives and paint the town. In general, the best of their silent films, including this one, seem to be those with future great directors Leo McCarey and George Stevens (as photographer) in the credits. McCarey and Stevens also supervised "Bacon Grabbers", one of their last silent films. This one also has a number of clever scenes, as in the opening. They play "repo agents" and they've received their assignment. The difficulty they have just leaving their office with the papers to serve in their hands and their hats on their heads aptly illustrates the extent of their comic grace.

The other L&H film in this volume includes "Unaccustomed As We Are", a silent version of their first talkie; it is, however, too overloaded with dialogue titles to make a good silent film. The other two selections, starring Clyde Cook in one and Charlie Chase in the other, are forgettable. October 12, 2004

gems....

The lost films of laurel and hardy collection are my proudest possessions as far as dvds go,,,this is a must have for any fans laurel and hardy or fans of old time comedy,or silent films,these are just as good as their talkies,which is rare for that time period......... July 23, 2004

Lost Films of Laurel & Hardy 4

This item has no spoken dialogue. Disappointed.... July 4, 2002

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