Customer Reviews

Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy: An Affectionate Biography

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In this first book that looks at the work of one of the movies'most beloved comedy teams.Prof(Now Dr.)John McCabe gives some insight into Laurel And Hardy's film work.As he explains the evolution of Stan Laurel's approach to comedy and methiods to creating and performing comedy skits.The Prof. also looks at the boyhood days of Oliver Norvell(Babe)Hardy and his unconventional approach to performing comedy and the development of his singing talent.

The book also looks at the team's vintage years at The Hal Roach Studios and their forgetable film series at Fox and MGM During the war years.It also recalls the team's successful performances at The Music Halls and Cabrets of Europe and Stan Laurel creating funny comedy skits and seeing the team's rebirth during the early days of tv.As he became an idol to many kids of the tv generation(Myself included).While the book doesn't go into great depth about the complete creation of the team's film work.It does show us all how L&H worked at creating and presenting their classic comedic characters and their approach to spoofing man's foilbels.And it shows us Prof.McCabe's love and admiration for both men and for their wives:Ida Laurel(Stan's fourth wife) and Lucille Hardy(Babe's third wife)and their love for their work and for life.If you ever wanted a book that shows a positive look into the physce of two funny and charming people? This is The One movie bio to have.Bravo Jack.Kevin S.Butler.

This was the first book about everyone's favourite comedy couple. I recently read it for the fourth or fifth time and felt inspired to recommend it at Amazon. McCabe interviewed both comics and knew Laurel for years. As an overview and appreciation of the Laurel and Hardy career this is still the best book to start with. Those more seriously interested will find a number of excellent books on the subject written in more recent years. I recommend 'Mr Laurel and Mr Hardy' enthusiastically to all fans.

Laurel & Hardy fans will love this book. I certainly did. The warmth and affection that John McCabe had for both Stan and Ollie comes through on every page. While the focus is more on Laurel, Hardy comes off well in the chapters devoted to him.
I wish there had been more pictures, but the text more than made up for it. Don't be surprised if you find yourself whistling the "cukoo song" while reading this book. The "boys" are gone, but the laughter they created is still with us, unlike the current crop of "comedians".

I wish they'd put Stan and Ollie back on TV to show another generation how wonderful these two are. There's no doubt that they remain as funny today as they did back in their prime. I'm a big fan and have many of their DVD's. I wanted to know about the duo and this book informed me greatly.

Mr Laurel and Mr Hardy is a riveting biography of the two men. It took me only a few hours to get through. It concentrates mostly on Stanley who was the creative genius behind the pair, but this only heightens interest in the chapter on Ollie, which is written in interview form. I liked the way the book started with Laurel failing miserably on his first attempt at performing, with his Dad in attendance. His perseverence was incredible as he subbed for Chaplin during the early days before hard work and the luck to be partnered with Mr Hardy, finally garnered him some success.

The book, written after many interviews with Stan, has got a very appealing narrative. We get insights into the making of their films, answering questions about how the pair came together and how most of their routines got started. It's very enlightening.

What I found most surprising was the undercurrent of emotion throughout. Its author obviously had a wonderful adoration for the pair and Stan, while speaking to him is very nostalgic about the past. I love the parts where Stan met Chaplin after many years, after they both had made it. And where, years after their filmic success, when they were touring Europe, the church bells in Cobh played out their theme tune.

If you have any interest in Laurel and Hardy, you must get this book.

Nice guys finish second, according to John McCabe. That's more of a break than Leo Durocher would give them.

The abiding theme of this slender but meaty dual biography is the gentlemanliness of the two clowns, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Written in 1961 and updated in 1966, it may be one of the last Hollywood books that neither kisses nor tells.

Second, of course, to Chaplin. At least in McCabe's view.

I do not share the adulation of Chaplin, since much of his humor - the funny walk, the wiggly nose - was shtick.

Shtick is funny, if you're in on the joke, otherwise merely mystifying. What Laurel and Hardy did --- Buster Keaton, too - was funny because of personality, not mannerism. Laurel and Hardy had a routine - two airheaded and luckless friends - but it was based on realistic, if exaggerated personality, not shtick.

McCabe is good, if relentless, in making this point, but I think he misses an important aspect of Laurel and Hardy's worldwide popularly in the silent era - their earnestness. Their heyday coincided with the peak of Dale Carnegie, although Texas Guinan, among others, was sowing seeds of doubt about that. The tension this created possibly made the Laurel & Hardy scenes funnier then than now - and they are plenty funny now.

At any rate, it needs more explaining than McCabe gives to understand why mobs of (allegedly) stolid Englishmen would rip the doors off automobiles to get at Laurel, which they did. Even in America, fandom was more restrained.

From time to time, McCabe, a professor of theater, gets all cosmic, asking, for example: "Was the day vaudeville died the dawning of the death-day of the great comedian?" Probably not, but McCabe is on firmer ground when he compares the duo to a Tin Lizzie (the Roach studio kept about 20 Model T's, in various stages of decrepitude, handy for use by the boys): "The Tin Lizzie, Stan, and Ollie made a companionable trio; they were all simple, uncomplicated, out of date in a swiftly moving world, and durable."

There were definitely some insightful pages inside the book, but I would say that this book could barely be called a biography of the men. It's more like a detailed description of the plot of all their movies. There is, some biographical information in it, along with a couple interviews that were fantastic. But biography? No.

McCabe knows Laurel & Hardy both well. He spent a lot of time with both of them interviewing and preparing the book. This is not a biography (although McCabe would write biographies of both men), it is a look at what inspired the creative genius behind the funniest comedy team in film history. McCabe studies the backgrounds of both men and how that influenced them both. He looks at how they began and tells what comedians influenced them as they matured. He tells of how they developed their wonderful films and how the process went of developing an idea. McCabe knows this all secondhand from Stan and Ollie, but it still seems fresh.

This is an excellent "first book" for anyone interested in the comedic brilliance of The Boys. It provides biographical info and a decent filmography. A good introduction to a great pair of clowns.

This is a very informative book that all fans need to read. I live in Hardy,s birth place and work at the mueuem here. It helped me a lot. Thanks Judy Rushing