After watching the new "Stan and Ollie" movie, I started to watch a few of the old Laurel and Hardy shorts. This is my favorite. Since so much of it was shot outside, it's also a good travelogue. And even though this is only the first or second official L&H movie they made (fans and scholars disagree), and things aren't quite gelled with the duo (Ollie is a successful known man-about-town and Stan is an insane woman-chaser), it's fast paced, very funny and even risque. I had no idea that this particular short, "Putting Pants on Philip," was Stan Laurel's favorite of the 107 films they made together until I read a bit more about it!
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If you crave more:
-- Kino Video's "Slapstick Symposium" DVDs appear to be cheap on Amazon just now. There are two collections of pre-L&H Stan Laurel (manic and often surreal) and Oliver Hardy (reliably funny in other comics' films). They also have two collections of silent Charley Chase, well worth discovering (you may remember him as the cheerfully obnoxious conventioneer in "Sons of the Desert").
-- "The Essential Laurel and Hardy" is exactly that, with all the sound shorts and most of the Hal Roach features. "Bonnie Scotland" and "Far Diavolo" were released by Time Warner, and "March of the Wooden Soldiers" is available from several sources (often with the original "Babes in Toyland" title and some musical sequences not present in the TV showings of our youth).
-- Because of rights the L&H silents are out of print in America, but if you have a region-free player there are foreign releases. Also, the compilation films "Golden Age of Comedy" and "When Comedy Was King" are both readily available with generous L&H clips.
So great!!
Thanks for this, Mike!!
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