Customer Reviews

Laurel and Hardy Classic Shorts (Volume 4)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

These four shorts are of good quality and are some of their funnier ones. I do not know from what source they have come from, but they are as good quality as the U.K. box set. This disc played on all three of my dvd players. Please note that this disc is a burned copy and not pressed like the Fox 3 disc box sets or TCM double feature (Fra Diavalo-Bonnie Scotland). I had bought "Pack up your Troubles" which is also a burned copy last year and it sometimes freezes up on my Toshiba dvd player. I would have given this disc 5 stars if it were a pressed copy. If you are a Laurel @ Hardy fan and you haven't bought the U.K. gift set, then I recommend you buy all 10 volumes. Especially if you only really like their short films.

Some of the very best of early Laurel and Hardy. Another Fine Mess is perhaps the best know, and maybe one of the five funniest shorts they ever did (and to this reviewer, it still missed opportunities to be even funnier!); Come Clean is a beginning to end gem, with a particularly energetic (and very sexy) Mae Busch, playing a schizophrenic woman living by her wits during the depression - she attempts suicide, but once saved by The Boys, decides *not* to have a beneficient outlook but a golddigging one. It's always great when Stan and Ollie are married, because this really doubles the laugh factor, as the wives are always well ahead of their times, with a stern hold on their hubbies.
Laughing Gravy takes place entirely at a rooming house (run by Charles Hall, in rare form). Stan and Ollie are boarders and so is their small dog, Laughing Gravy. Alot less action and alot quieter than Come Clean; unfortunately, not nearly as funny, though there is a very poignant scene near the end, when Stan must decide if Ollie's friendship should be sustained. To my knowledge, this long sequence, involving Hardy singing a cappella, is quite rare.
Any Old Part features Walter Long, the ultimate L & H nemesis, as a Hotel owner and club fighter; he comes up against them as his reluctant fiance asks for their help, and as an opponent in the ring. They enter the film as sailors, one of their few "legitimate" occupations, but by the end of the film Ollie is betting against Stan in a boxing match. Not a complete Classic, as it jumps from scene to scene with no real resolution to the situations. Did they rescue the girl? Can't tell. (The next decade, at the big studios, this (small) issue would get just a bit out of control).
But in those days of "surreal" comedy, plot took a distant back seat to the wonderful acting and technique of two comedy geniuses.