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The first "official" Laurel and Hardy movie is not like the ones with which we're more familiar. In this case, Laurel is a man from Scotland and Hardy is his uncle greeting him in the US. To be certain, Stan wears a kilt and tam, while Hardy wears a porkpie hat (like Buster Keaton wore). A couple of the scenes in "Putting Pants on Philip" were probably risqué for the time (a couple of them predict Marilyn Monroe's most famous stunt).

Basically, Stan and Ollie were just beginning as a team, so they hadn't yet figured out a style. Nevertheless, the end gag is funny enough. Mostly worth seeing as a historical note.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy had been circling each other at the Roach lot for two or three years by the time this, the first official Laurel & Hardy movie was made. In fact, their first movie together had been in 1919, when Hardy played a bit in Laurel's starring vehicle LUCKY DOG. They don't even act like a team here, being in constant opposition to each other, and Stan's character as a naive Scotchman is nothing at all like the Mr. Laurel we know and love.

Mr. Hardy, on the other hand, is clearly himself. If you look at his earliest surviving shorts from 1914 and 1915, you can see bits and pieces of his slow, pompous character as he begins to put it together.

It's a Laurel & Hardy short, and it's funny, even if it's not Stan and Ollie yet. Even so, Hal Roach and his team knew they were onto something.

This is a very well-crafted short, but I've always been mystified as to why anyone, much less Stan Laurel, would consider this to be the first true Laurel & Hardy film. The first film they appeared in was a comedy starring Laurel with Hardy in support, "The Lucky Dog" from 1921. The second film they made together at the Hal Roach studio, "Duck Soup" (not to be confused with the Marx Brothers film of the same name, nor the Edgar Kennedy short), actually has humor more typical of their mature work.

If you can get past the unusual characterizations in "Philip" (Stan is a kilted, woman-crazy Scot and Hardy is his American uncle, fearful of being embarrassed lest someone find out he's related to this eccentric young man), the film offers some solid laughs. It's beautifully paced and edited; do try to see this in a theater with an audience, where it really comes to life.

The credited director is Clyde Bruckman, known best as a gag writer for Buster Keaton (and later Harold Lloyd, and still later, The Three Stooges). He only made 20 films as a director, but they include Keaton's "The General," Laurel & Hardy's "The Battle of the Century," Harold Lloyd's "Movie Crazy" and W.C. Fields' "The Man on the Flying Trapeze," each of these titles being among the best films their respective stars ever made. Producer Hal Roach was particularly fond of "Putting Pants on Philip," incidentally.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were comedic geniuses, individually and together, and their partnership was deservedly iconic and one of the best there was. They left behind a large body of work, a vast majority of it being entertaining to classic comedy, at their best they were hilarious and their best efforts were great examples of how to do comedy without being juvenile or distasteful.

'Putting Pants on Phillip' is nowhere near classic Laurel and Hardy, later films, short and feature, had stronger chemistry when fully formed and used their considerable talents better. At this point, Laurel was much funnier and more interesting while Hardy in most of the previous outings had too little to do. 'Putting Pants on Phillip' is still worth watching and is an improvement on some of their previous short films, to me it's easily one of their best at this point of their careers and one of the first to feel like a Laurel and Hardy short rather than a short featuring them.

Personally would have liked more sly wit that made their later entries better, though the slapstick does entertain and is timed well if a bit too far on the simplicity.

The story is a bit busy at times and both slight and formulaic.

Laurel however is very funny, and sometimes hilarious. Hardy is at least not wasted, and he does give one of his funniest and most interesting appearances of his pairings with Laurel up to this point and has much more to do in comparison to their previous outings. The chemistry is certainly much more here than in previous outings of theirs, namely because there's more of them together, if still evolving. Support is nice.

A good deal of the humour is well timed, hugely energetic and very funny, with everything going at a lively pace, and there is a lot of charm and good nature to keep one going, as well as a surprising bizarre one that doesn't feel too much. 'Putting Pants on Phillip' looks quite good still.

To conclude, decent and far from pants. 7/10 Bethany Cox

I'll not question the authoritative voice of Stan Laurel who says he considers this the first official Laurel and Hardy film. They were both separate players signed to Hal Roach contracts when Roach decided to team them. The idea was genius, but the separate contracts would cause some problems for the team and for Roach about a dozen years later.

But for now Putting The Pants On Philip has a bit of an unusual situation for the guys. Hardy is an older middle aged man and Laurel his nephew come over from Scotland. Being a true Scot Stan wears proudly the tartan kilts of his clan and he has a libido in this that Harpo Marx would envy. Keep him away chasing girls says his mother to her brother Ollie.

But a Scot in kilts is catnip to those flapper girls of the 20s and Ollie sees his duty, he has to get the nephew into pants so he won't be so conspicuous.

Most of the humor revolves around the mystery of whether the Scot wears undergarments with his kilt. In Laurel's case he does and he doesn't.

The last bit was something I think Stan might have heard about involving that famous story of Sir Walter Raleigh and his cape. Ollie climaxes the film with an unexpected surprise there. One of the great sight gags that so typified Stan and Ollie's work.

This is one of L&H's shorts most frequently cited as the first "real" L&H teaming and perhaps one of their best silent features. J. Piedmont Mumblethunder (Ollie) is a millionaire who has come to the docks to greet his nephew Philip, whom he's never seen. At first Ollie is laughing it up with everyone when this strange little man unboards and draws a great deal of attention to himself by the way he's behaving during his medical exam, but is quite humiliated when it turns out that this is the fellow he's supposed to be greeting. He has been told that Philip is a good boy, but he has one weakness--women. Mumblethunder and Philip set off to go home, but their journey there is continually interrupted by Philip breaking into a little dance every time he sees a woman, then chasing after the woman. Huge crowds gather each time this happens, not so much because he's chasing skirts, but because Philip himself is also wearing a skirt (a kilt). Finally Mumblethunder manages to drag Philip into a tailor's shop to be measured for a proper pair of pants, but Philip escapes from there as well to chase more skirts. There are lots of laughs all around. It's also nice to see a short like this because the boys aren't exactly the characters we know and love. Ollie is pretty much his usual character, but it's such a joy to see Stan acting so differently from his usual man-child character. It shows he wasn't a one-trick pony and excelled in other types of roles when he got the chance. With a run time of 19 minutes its short and sweet, providing classic one liners which still have me in stitches.

I really can't fault this movie too much for being a rather sub-par Laurel and Hardy short. After all, the team still wasn't exactly a team. Despite starring in quite a few films together in 1927, they were still a brand new pairing and the chemistry we all have come to expect still hadn't developed completely. In light of this, it's not surprising then that Ollie and Stan are playing such unusual roles.

In this case, they are NOT friends nor do they know each other when the film begins--a highly unusual situation for any of their films. Plus, Ollie appears to be a successful man--a big departure from his usual role and Stanley a nephew visiting from Scotland. Talk about a different Laurel and Hardy plot!! The rest of the film concerns the hilarity (?) that occurs when Ollie takes his kilted nephew through the city. Again and again, huge crowds gather to laugh at the sight of a guy in a kilt. While as an American I do find the idea of a man in essentially a skirt funny, it certainly was not as funny as the film tried to make it seem and was certainly not enough to sustain an entire comedy short! Now there were some funny moments here and there, but laughing at a kilt and laughing as Stanley chased women (much like Harpo Marx in later films) just isn't that thrilling. As a result of this and the bizarre chemistry, I think this one earns a 6. For devoted fans of the team like myself, it's a must--for most others its a film best not seen until you see their better films, as this one might give you the mistaken impression that their films weren't that funny.

Stan Laurel regarded PUTTING PANTS ON PHILIP as the first ‘true' L&H film. THE SECOND HUNDRED YEARS was the first 'official' L&H film, but this was the one where Stan completely resigned himself not only to performing (he had signed on with the Hal Roach Studios as a director and 'gag-man', before certain situations - among them Oliver Hardy's accident with a leg of lamb leading to Stan having to replace him; and the extra money that performing would provide for himself and his new wife, Lois - brought about his historic return to performing, as well as writing, directing, editing and involvement in other areas of production), but also realised the fact that he was part of a team that worked well together. This, therefore, is an historic and very important film in the history of comedy.

It is also a surprisingly funny little silent film; rather different from what Laurel & Hardy would become known for and from what they are more immediately associated with today. The characters of 'Stan & Ollie do not appear - Scottish Stan Laurel plays the nephew of Oliver Hardy, a respectable man about town who is reluctant to be seen with this strange-looking fellow with a kilt and the habit of chasing pretty girls. There are some very funny moments in this well-made, charming little movie, and the performances of these two Kings of Comedy are spot-on - watch Stan's little 'scissor-kick' and smile that says, "Well waddaya know?" when he sees girls, or the hair-ruffling scene at the airport, for instance. Hilarious.

Watch this film if you can, with backing music from The Beau Hunks Orchestra (available on the VVL video releases) which enhances the 1920s feel and is very, very pleasant to listen to. It's a brilliant and underrated little film, which is why I said it was 'surprisingly' funny.

Before they settled into their "Stan" and "Ollie" characters, the newly-formed team of Laurel & Hardy played for one last time, characters different from their usual personas. Here, Hardy is the Honorable Piedmont Mumblethunder (despite many sources, including this one, claiming a J before Piedmont, no such initial was in the intertitle) waiting for his Scottish nephew Phillip to arrive. Stan is that nephew wearing the kilt his country is known for. He also likes the ladies as he chases one when he sees her nearly throughout the film. Anyway, Hardy with Laurel walking alongside him attracts a massive crowd and when several sidewalk grates blow air under Laurel, well, think of Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch and you get the idea! I'll just now say this is one of the funniest of the L & H silents from this early period of their careers together, that's for sure! So that's a high recommendation of Putting Pants on Phillip. P. S. I also watched another version with commentary by Randy Skretvedt, author of "Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies", providing info on the supporting cast, the studio backlots, and the fact that despite Clyde Bruckman being credited as director, Randy says both Stan and supervising director Leo McCarey claimed Leo was the one calling the shots.

This is a Laurel & Hardy comedy short with some great and funny moments but overall the movie relies a bit too much on just one comical premise.

The comical premise this movie mostly relies on is very simple; Stan Laurel not wearing any pants. Laurel plays a Scottish naive young person who arrives in America in full kilt. For some reason he gets the center of attention because of this and his uncle played by Oliver Hardy thinks because of this that its time to put some pants on Philip.

Its humor is well executed but the main premise also gets a bit tiresome after a while. Although the movie definitely still has its comical great moments, it at the same time is also far from the best of the many Laurel & Hardy comedy shorts that are still around. The movie is simply too simple to be considered one of the greatest, although it definitely is most fine executed all, for most part.

Great good clean fun, just nothing too remarkable or memorable all.

7/10

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Made before Laurel and Hardy became a solid team with the characteristics we know and love, Putting Pants on Phillip is a one-trick pony, but the Boys play it for all, maybe more, than it's worth. Shirt chasing Laurel must be taken out of his own skirt, or properly his kilt, to fit into American society. Of course, Laurel resists, and Hardy is adamant, and along the way we get our share of lantern grins, camera looks, cries, and maybe the first time Oliver Hardy meets the six foot puddle. There's a great reaction shot after Laurel inadvertently loses his drawers before walking over an air grate; a quick cut shows the women in the crowd fainting at the sight of the pants-less Laurel. After his inseam measurement is taken, a half disrobed and completely disheveled Laurel appears, as broken as any Griffith heroine.

Although the slight premise limits what it can do, this earlier Laurel and Hardy comedy has some very funny moments. The whole feature depends on just a couple of very simple comedy ideas, but Stan and Ollie are able to get good laughs out of lesser material than that. The goofy nature of the material would probably have led to a flop with most other performers, so this feature really depends on its stars to make it work.

Laurel plays a young Scot coming to the USA, wearing a kilt and bringing an overly enthusiastic eye for women, while Hardy plays his unfortunate uncle who has to keep an eye on him. Laurel successfully fits his style in with the premise, blending his familiar screen persona with that of a red-blooded Scot. Hardy has to play the straight man for much of the movie, but his expressions in the part work well, and he also gets a couple of chances to take the spotlight for himself.

The comedy writing in this one is, honestly, not that great. After a while, it just keeps coming back to the same couple of gags, and only the lively presence and fine comic timing of the two stars makes it work. But it still offers some good laughs that make it worth seeing.

Putting Pants on Philip (1927)

*** (out of 4)

This silent film was the second teaming of Laurel and Hardy and according to Laurel this was the film that let him know that the duo was born and would be able to make magic together. In the film Hardy plays an American who is highly respected and dignified in his town. He receive a letter telling him to pick up his nephew (Laurel) at the dock and when he gets there he's shocked to see him dressed in a kilt. Not only is he dressed in a kilt but he also doesn't know how to act when he sees pretty women. This is a pretty good short and certainly a lot better than the duo's first movie. The movie has plenty of funny scenes but the highlight has to be Laurel's silly jump whenever he spots someone he's attracted to. He does this jump at least ten times in the film and I laughed at each and every one of them. The two's comic timing together is also worth noting as it's obvious the two are learning to work next to one another. Other funny moments include a pre-Marylin Monroe sequence where Laurel walks over some vents, which raises his kilt up for everyone to see what's underneath.