Freiheit

Laurel and Hardy escape from jail and end up wearing each other's trousers. The hilarious sequence of failed attempts to change back was intended for their previous film "We Faw Down" but was removed when that film proved too long. They finally manage to change trousers, first with Stan then Ollie having a live crab within the seat of the pants, and end up on a high building in real Harold Lloyd territory. Perhaps not as well paced as the best of Lloyd but still extremely funny. Up among the best of their silent two reelers.

"Liberty" was one of Laurel and Hardy's last silent films, and clearly one of their best. Only two years into their long screen partnership, this talented duo had mastered silent comedy art by 1929, and, with this film, rendered a beautifully constructed, excellently paced, skillfully photographed short, packed throughout with incident and wit. Much credit should go to director Leo McCarey (who would later helm classics like "Duck Soup" and "Going My Way") and cameraman George Stevens (who would later direct "Woman of the Year", "Shane", and "Giant"). Part of the brilliance of this film is in the presentation of it's climax, atop an unfinished skyscraper. Yes, Laurel and Hardy were really scrambling around 10 stories over the streets of Culver City, California; but they were doing so on a wooden mock-up assembled on the roof of an already existing structure.

Laurel and Hardy didn't go in for acrobatics much. Unlike the athletic antics of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, their comedy was based more around mannerisms, reactions and silly situations. Liberty however sees them out of their depth in Harold Lloyd/Safety Last! territory, stuck high above the city in the shell of a half-built skyscraper. The pants mix-up and skyscraper escapade that make up the bulk of Liberty were originally shot for the earlier short "We Faw Down", but was cut from that film for reasons of length. Judging the material too good to throw away, the studio commissioned this new story to showcase it.

The setting for Liberty may be inspired by Harold Lloyd, but the style of comedy is purely Laurel and Hardy's own. They were the perfect double act. Neither of them could have done too well on his own but together they are worth more than the sum of their parts. Stan's clownish clumsiness brings out the best on Oli, Hardy being so good at indignity and injured pomposity. Meanwhile Oli's continual berating of Stan brings out Laurel's nervous, put-upon displays. A lot of the humour in Liberty derives from the mismatch between the duo's ineptitude and the precarious place they find themselves in. Despite the building site location there aren't really many props or other characters for them to interact with, and you really get to see how much mileage there is in their surprised reactions and ungainly movements.

Liberty was directed by Leo McCarey, a very fine slapstick director who would soon be graduating onto full-length features. Often the most important thing he does is simply allow the players time and space to perform, and Liberty features some unusually long, static takes to allow Stan and Oli to do their thing. However he does know exactly when and how to change the shot, such as the quick close-up of the crab followed by Hardy's stunned reaction. And one very effective thing about Liberty is that the editing does get quicker the longer they are up on the skyscraper. The looming cityscape becomes ever more visible and those straight-down shots of the ground become increasingly frequent. It gives us a real feeling of danger and sets up some genuine tension. Just as in Safety Last! six years earlier, the constant will-they-won't-they situation simply makes Liberty all the more intensely funny.

Laurel and Hardy are prison escapees, desperately trying to change out of their convict-attire to much less noticeable street clothes. In their frantic dressing, they realize they are wearing each others pants and, in their distracted haze, are chased by a policeman into a construction site, where they flee police-sight by riding an elevator to the top of an unfinished building. Twenty stories into the air, Laurel and Hardy are now stranded on the pillars of the building, frantically trying to switch trousers while avoiding the large drop to their death.

Such is the premise for Leo McCarey's comedy short Liberty, which adheres to the silent comedy principles of "thrill-comedies," which are comedies that bear a great deal of suspenseful elements intended on making the audiences laugh one minute before gasping the next. One of the most famous examples - one I also happened to review too - was Harold Lloyd's Never Weaken, from 1921, which Liberty seems to borrow quite a bit from. However, unlike the darker undertones Never Weaken provided, Liberty is much more carefree and comedic, as well as manic.

Its manic qualities are precisely what kept Laurel and Hardy in the business for so long, with Liberty coming later in the game for their silent shorts. If not for the incredible stunts of the short, which Laurel and Hardy performed at their own risk, the music and overall writing/directing pace unleashed by McCarey and H.M. Walker (who would later direct the Marx Brothers' superb comedic masterwork Duck Soup) make Liberty enough to be immersing on terms outside its contributions to a genre so significant in the early days of film.

Starring: Stan Laurel and Olive Hardy. Directed by: Leo McCarey.

Laurel and Hardy were at their creative best during the filming of this short Liberty one of their last silent features. Of course they had a lot of help with both Hal Roach producing and the direction done by Hollywood immortal Leo McCarey.

What I was a marveling at was that it was done with a bare minimum of subtitles. In this 18 minute running time I'm not sure that more than seven were used. It was all done with the situations and the body language of the team.

Also this was one simple gag situation taken to ridiculous lengths. Stan and Ollie area a pair of escaped convicts who actually make a good escape, but in their change from prison clothes to civilian attire they get each other's pants. The whole film is their search for a place to just change to each other's pants.

Laurel and Hardy regular James Finlayson is a music store proprietor, Tom Kennedy is his usual dumb as a post character in this case a prison guard. And Hollywood immortal Jean Harlow is seen getting out of a taxi cab. Her beauty is unmistakable.

The last half of this has them out on a construction site doing some high aerial work and poaching in Harold Lloyd's territory. Liberty is one of their best silent short subjects.