Customer Reviews

Laurel & Hardy: From Soup to Nuts [VHS]

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This silent, short film, only 18-minutes, is funny. Laurel and Hardy's silent, "Big Business" is even funnier. I recommend Laurel & Hardy's longer, talking pictures before "Soup to Nuts"; but not before "Big Business". This is worth the effort for the Laurel & Hardy fan, if you can get it cheap, because it is so short. Available on DVD with other shorts in, "The Lost Films of Laurel & Hardy, volume-8".

Other good silent films are: Harold Lloyd's, "Safety Last", "Kid Brother", and "The Freshman"; Charlie Chaplain's, "Circus", "City Lights", and "Gold Rush".

This film finds the boys as servents at a fancy dinner party. But their employers discover that there is nothing on earth that
the boys can`t screw up in classic Laurel & Hardy fashion. There are some good gags in this film and L&H pull them off with
perfect timing. This one is a laugh a minute.

I think this is my absolute favorite of L&H's silent shorts. I like it even more than the classic 'Big Business.' Basically Stan and Ollie are called upon to cater a posh party, hosted by nouveau riche couple Mr. and Mrs. Culpepper (Anita Garvin and Tiny Sanford). Mrs. Culpepper in particular doesn't know how to handle her new wealth, and frequently does embarrassing things and makes embarrassing mistakes giving away the fact that she was not born into wealth and indeed is unused to living this kind of lifestyle. However, even Mrs. Culpepper's constant faux pas don't send this party towards a collision course with disaster the way Stan and Ollie do after they arrive. Among the highlights of hilarity are Ollie's repeated face-first falls into a cake and Stan's literal obedience of the order to serve the salad undressed.

This short was so great and classic that it was later remade practically in its entirety as an early scene in their 1940 feature 'A Chump at Oxford,' only Stan was dressed in drag in the remake. This short was also directed by the great Edgar Kennedy, who frequently played a foil to the boys in the silent and early sound era. I'll admit it took me some time to fully warm up to L&H's silents, since I was so used to being able to hear their voices and how uncannily they matched their screen characters and everything going on onscreen, but this short is one that is very very funny, irregardless of the fact that you can't hear their voices. I'd recommend it as an ideal first L&H silent for people who are only familiar with their sound work.

From Soup to Nuts is a great watch. The entire family, especially the 11 year old, absolutely loved it. My husband is a huge Laurel and Hardy fan - now our childred are. Thanks for making family night a great one.