Leave 'em Laughing

The final shot of this Laurel & Hardy two-reeler has been excerpted and used in several silent comedy compilations: Stan and Ollie laugh uproariously in their car as bemused cop Edgar Kennedy glares at them . . . while in the meantime, the car and all three occupants sink into a deep, dirty mud hole. That shot neatly captures the antic spirit of silent comedy. Leave 'Em Laughing itself is an early L&H comedy, made while they were still finding their style, but there are several funny moments en route to that memorably muddy finale.

The film consists of three sequences: 1) the boys in their apartment, contending with Stan's toothache and angry landlord Charlie Hall; 2) a trip to the dentist's office, where they are overcome with laughing gas; and 3) the finale, as they try to deal with traffic -- and Officer Kennedy -- while helpless with laughter. I like the third part best, myself, but perhaps that's because I'm discomfited by the tooth pain element of the earlier scenes. In watching the film again recently I notice gags in the first two sequences that are rather cartoon-y, and not in keeping with what the guys would do in their prime. For instance: early on, Stan has a handkerchief around his jaw, tied in two knots atop his head like rabbit ears, and at one point the pain he feels is indicated by the "ears" twisting themselves in circles. Similarly, in the dentist's waiting room, surprise is indicated through Stan's hat flying up into the air. This kind of shtick seems more typical of the Mack Sennett Studio, whereas the best comedians on the Hal Roach lot (L&H, Our Gang, Charley Chase, etc.) tended to favor a more naturalistic style with less straining for laughs. It's interesting to compare these gags to the later 'Magic Stan' bits, such as the hat-eating in Way Out West or the thumb-smoking in Block-Heads; those routines are certainly unreal, but they feel intrinsic to Stan's oddness and somehow perfectly natural, not standard shtick which any other comic could do, like the rabbit ear hankie or the flying hat bit.

At any rate, the finale is great fun. I once saw this film at a museum screening, and despite the lack of sound the boys' unstoppable laughter during the final sequence succeeded in getting the audience going, too. That could also be a matter of context: Stan and Ollie are creating a traffic jam, but instead of reacting fearfully they're laughing in the face of the unsmiling cop who doggedly tries to make them follow the rules. It's a rare sequence where Stan and Ollie are openly subversive and don't give a damn about the consequences, and it's downright liberating.

This was another Laurel & Hardy short I watched on Hulu as linked from IMDb. In this one, Stanley has a toothache that's bothering bed mate Ollie so he tries various ways to get rid of it to no results. So they go to the dentist but this one is not the best in health care since the patients keep running away! I'll stop there and just say that this was quite funny almost to the end but when the laughing gas effect comes in and they run into cop Edgar Kennedy, the scene is maybe milked a little too long but it at least leads to a hilarious ending. Oh, and Charlie Hall also has a good bit as the landlord. So on that note, Leave 'Em Laughing mostly lives up to its title.

In 2023 Flicker Alley released LAUREL & HARDY - YEAR ONE which included all the silent shorts that L & H made in 1927. Most of these shorts did not feature them as a team. But by the following year they were inseparable and the comedies they made together included one gem after another. Most people don't know that L & H began their careers during the silent era. When sound arrived, they were fortunate their voices matched their physical appearances and personalities perfectly so the transition actually helped to boost their popularity. However, this success placed their silent shorts into obscurity and they were essentially forgotten.

In 1993 the descendants of Hal Roach, the man who produced the Laurel & Hardy comedies, issued a 10 volume set on VHS of all the L&H silent shorts along with a few of their solo efforts. Six years later Image Entertainment reissued that VHS set on 10 DVDs. The shorts were in rough shape but at least they were in complete form. Aside from the many really bad public domain copies that still are out there in varying degrees of substandard quality, that's all we had available up to now. But in 2024, Flicker Alley is back with LAUREL & HARDY: YEAR TWO, which contains all the 10 shorts L & H made in 1928.

Now that L & H were being billed and promoted as a team, they no longer appeared as supporting players in the shorts of other Hal Roach comedians although they would appear as themselves in cameos from time to time. The first of the 10 shorts, LEAVE EM" LAUGHING, about the effects of laughing gas after a trip to the dentist was an instant classic and set the pattern for the other 9. The basic premise being that despite their best intentions or occasionally from deliberate acts by the boys (as they were affectionately known), the result was usually mayhem and destruction on an unprecedented scale.

The other 9 shorts are as follows. THE FINISHING TOUCH which shows how not to build a house. FROM SOUP TO NUTS where the boys destroy a swanky dinner party. YOU'RE DARN TOOTIN' has two horn players giving busking a bad name. THEIR PURPLE MOMENT introduces L & H's wives for the first time. SHOULD MARRIED MEN GO HOME? Focuses on more domestic "bliss". EARLY TO BED has Stan playing butler to Ollie's rich man. TWO TARS is a classic of reciprocal destruction while HABEAS CORPUS features the boys in a graveyard. Finally WE FAW DOWN has L & H clashing with their wives over a poker game.

As with the first set, LAUREL & HARDY: YEAR TWO comes loaded with extras. There are commentaries, special features, comedy fragments, and a fully restored version of A PAIR OF TIGHTS a female "Laurel & Hardy" comedy starring Anita Garvin & Marion Byron which has not been seen since it was excerpted for THE GOLDEN AGE OF COMEDY compilation in 1960. The accompanying scores by Neil Brand, Robert Israel, and others are fine as usual but it's really great to have the original Vitaphone music and sound effects tracks for the later shorts. Another fine job from Flicker Alley. I anxiously await 1929...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

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.

While not classic Laurel and Hardy, later films, short and feature, had stronger chemistry when fully formed and used their considerable talents better, 'Leave Em Laughing' is a lot of fun. Before, Laurel was much funnier and more interesting while Hardy in most of the previous outings had too little to do. 'Leave Em Laughing' is one of their first very good efforts, 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.

'Leave Em Laughing' does take a little too long to get going, coming to life when at the dentist.

Also found that the ending went on longer than it should have done.

Laurel however is very funny, and sometimes hilarious. It is wonderful seeing Hardy having more to do and he is on Laurel's level and actually even funnier. The chemistry is certainly much more here than in previous outings of theirs, namely because there's more of them together and it was starting to feel like a partnership. Support is nice.

A good deal of the humour, particularly when at the dentist and the effects of the laughing gas, is well timed, hugely energetic and very funny (hilarious at its best), with everything going at a lively pace and there is a lot of charm and good nature to keep one going. 'Leave Em Laughing' looks quite good still.

In summary, a lot of fun. 8/10 Bethany Cox

This movie certainly does justice to its title.

It takes a while for the movie to take shape and pace, after all, this is one of the earliest Laurel & Hardy movies, from the period when they obviously were still searching for the right style. However after the movie its slow ending the movie really starts to take pace and become interesting from the moment the two boys are at the dentist. The movie becomes a good old fashioned laugh fest from that point on.

The bits at the dentist were already great but the movie gets even better in the ending, when the boys are extremely high from the laughing gas they got exposed to at the dentist. They get into trouble with the police officer played by Edgar Kennedy, who tries to control the traffic but of course the seriously high boys keep messing things and traffic up with their car.

The movie consists out of some great slapstick moments and some hilarious comical situations. Also the very last scene is one to remember, also because of the fact that it's so totally random. It makes it all the more hilarious.

All in all this is a surprisingly good and entertaining Laurel & Hardy silent comedy short, especially when considering that this movie was from their begin-period.

8/10

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