16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excelent 35mm transfers on unofficial volume 10., January 31, 2003
This review is from: Laurel & Hardy and Friends (DVD)
Nice 35mm transfers of public domain comedies.
The title to the disc is misleading, there is only one Laurel & Hardy short on it. It should be called The Little Rascals and Friends as there are three Little Rascals (aka Our Gang) shorts. Laurel & Hardy do make a brief cameo on the last short.
This disc features the only sound Laurel & Hardy short to date to come out on DVD: "Be Big" has fallen into the public domain.
This disc was released without a volume number while the silent shorts were being issued. When Volume 9 of the silent DVD set came out there was an announcement inside it that called this disc Volume 10.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Still waiting for Volume 10, August 31, 2005
This review is from: Laurel & Hardy and Friends (DVD)
Those of us who had Laserdisc players a decade ago remember Image Entertainment's "Nostalgia Archive" release of "The lost films of Laurel & Hardy" which ran for 4 volumes. Problem with the title was at the time the only films in the Laurel & Hardy cannon were truely lost were "Hats Off", "Rouge Song", and the second full reel of "Battle of the Century". At the time two lost films had been recently rediscovered, "Duck Soup" and "Why Girls Love Sailors". None of these films were on the L&H laserdiscs. Instead they had L&H silent shorts that had been available from Blackhawk even before the sound films. Images excuse for calling them lost was that none of the silent films had yet shown up on home video [ Blackhawk still only distributed them on film, Super 8 for home projectors ]and had not been seen on television for years. For $30 one would buy this misleadingly titled disk and get two silent shorts. Some time after the second volume Image began to release another series on Laserdisc called "Laurel & Hardy and Friends". for $40 you got two L&H silent shorts and other films from Hal Roach Studios, although on some occasions the L&H films were "Talkies" and some non Hal Roach comedy shorts were thrown in. Soon the "Lost Films..." series was discontinued while the "....And friends" series would go on for eight volumes. It wasn't long before the disks only had one L&H film while the rest was filled up with films like "Fiesta", a forgettable Hal Roach full color musical. The series did allow for the re-release of newly discovered masters of shorts already released on the "Lost Films..." disks, or L&H cameos in films like "On the wrong trek", but it seemed like Image was trying to milk every cent out of us by dragging the series out with one true L&H film per disk and lots of "friends" films filling up the rest of the disk. By the time the ".....Friends" series reached #8, most stores were replacing Laserdiscs with DVDs. Vol. #8 was picked up by very few stores and the series was discontinued.
Flash forward about five years and you have the release of "The Lost Films of Laurel & Hardy: the complete collection" running for a planned 10 volumes. Once again Image was getting money out of me because instead of taking off where the final laserdisc left off they have mixed the films up so that you have to buy films you already own jut to get one that had not been released yet. And once again the series was padded out with a lot of non-L&H films.
Which brings us to this curious DVD called "Laurel & Hardy and Friends" with no volume number. However, when the DVD is played the title "Lost Films of Laurel & Hardy Vol. 10" shows up.
This is not the tenth volume the series, although from a legal standpoint it could be called that. But it was released long before volumes 7, 8, and 9 were [ by about a year ] and it's only two L&H films are "Be Big" and a cameo in "Stolen Jools", both of which had been available on VHS for years.
It is clear what has happened. "Hats off" and the second reel of "Battle of the Century" are still missing. So is the film "Rouge Song". Image had begun to release the films hoping that before volume #10 came out copies would be rediscovered. But just in case that never happened, here is a substitute volume #10. You can also tell that they held off on releasing the short version of "Battle of the century" until volume #9, just in case a full version was rediscovered. If some time in the future "Hats Off" is rediscovered then I am sure that there will be a volume #10. But until that happens, here is what is suppose to be on that disc:
Hats Off - Laurel & Hardy
Battle of the Century [ uncut ] - Laurel & Hardy
Now I'll tell one - Charlie Chase [ L&H both in this film ]
The Rent Collector -- Larry Semon [ possible L&H film ]
On the Loose -- Thelma Todd & Zasu Pitts [ L&H cameo ]
The Tree in a Test Tube [ educational short with L&H ]
The Rouge Song -- Lawrence Tibbett MGM color musical with L&H as the comedy relief.
And as an Easter egg: "That's that", a gag reel of L&H out takes
Until that happens [ and we can only hope it does ] what we have are a bunch of public domain films as Vol. #10 The one true L&H film on this disc, "Be Big", has been available on home video for years as a public domain print. The same can be said for everything else on this disc. However, the disc does have one thing in it's favor. The Our Gang short "Bear Shooters" is from a pristine print and is far better than the version found on the official release of the Our Gang/Little Rascals Hal Roach sound series. Just about the only reason why any L&H fans would want this is for L&H's brief cameo in "Stolen Jools" on DVD for the first time.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Great Friends, Feeble Doings, January 20, 2008
This review is from: Laurel & Hardy and Friends (DVD)
There are so few collections of the Hal Roach comedies in the U.S. market that one hates to complain about a collection culled from the golden era of the "Lot of Fun," but when there's so much first-rate material sitting in vaults and a collection like this one is what we have to make do with, it sets the teeth to grinding.
There are a couple of gems here, both of them "Our Gang" subjects: "Our Gang Follies of 1938" and "School's Out," each a representative and funny outing for different groupings of the Gang. "Follies" manages to be a funny vaudeville review and MGM musical satire simultaneously, with a big assist from Henry "Barnaby" Brandon, and is a wonderful plus to this collection.
Otherwise, there's Laurel & Hardy's fizzled "Be Big," the Gang's much lesser "Bear Shooters," yet another round of "The Stolen Jools" (does every DVD label on the planet have to issue this one?), and, I'm sorry to say, "Whispering Whoopee." There is so little Charley Chase material available that I hate to disparage any little crumb we get, but in spite of the efforts of Charley, Thelma Todd, Anita Garvin, and good old Del Henderson, "Whoopee" just doesn't amount to much.
Print quality on all subjects except "Whispering Whoopee" is excellent, having been mastered 35mm material, some of it from nitrate camera negatives.
This title was the 10th and the last (to date) of the Hal Roach Studios "Lost Films of Laurel and Hardy" series. There are many better collections among the previous nine disks. In fact, there are better packages for the weak Fox and MGM comedies that finished the boys' movie career. When is somebody (stateside) going to wake up to the gold mine of comedy in the Roach Studios vaults?
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
