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This is the first short in which Laurel and Hardy worked together as a team. They were not called 'Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy' but have fictitious names. And Hardy has a two day growth of stubble. Nevertheless, this one is loaded with some very funny sight gags (this being the silent era) and ranks among their funniest films.

Forest Rangers are recruiting volunteers and have been given permission to press into service vagrants found in the LA area. Our heroes fall into that category in this short and do all they can to avoid the Rangers. They come upon an unoccupied mansion and hide inside - until a couple who rented it show up at the front door. Things begin to unravel for the boys in predictable fashion, making it one of their best. It played at Capitolfest, Rome NY, 8/14/21.

******** 8/10 - Website no longer prints my star rating.

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.

'Duck Soup' is the third short film of theirs after 'The Lucky Dog' and '45 Minutes from Hollywood', but to me it's the first one that uses their talents properly and where they fully work together as a partnership. It may not be among their best work, their later work was funnier, more focused and have more of a sly edge instead of being slapstick-heavy, and am another person who'd put 'Another Fine Mess' above it, but it's definitely well worth the look and the first outing of theirs that was above decent level.

Will agree that there could have been less of a slapstick approach and more of a wit and sly edge and the early stages to me felt on the rushed side.

Story is slight and at times a bit too busy, but 'Duck Soup' does far more right than it does wrong. A lot is right and there is actually not much wrong.

On the other hand, Laurel and Hardy are both solid and make a great double act. The iconic partnership was still fully forming but they do work well together and their comic timing is expertly, Laurel in particular is great. They are well served by the material, which is not hilarious as such but beautifully timed and often very funny.

Not once is 'Duck Soup' dull, it all goes at a snappy pace and is always engaging and charming. While not amazing visually, it still looks quite good and hardly the work of an amateur.

Concluding, good. 7/10 Bethany Cox

This is not the funniest Laurel & Hardy comedy short but still it's a great movie due to the way the movie is constructed.

This was not the first movie with starring both Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in it (they both appeared before in the movies " 45 Minutes from Hollywood" and " A Lucky dog".) but it was the first movie of the two appearing as a comical duo. Therefor this movie already is a bit of a must-see. It's an historical significant movie, that marked one of the very first step of silent-movie history.

No, it certainly ain't an hilarious movie but it rather is a very well constructed movie, with an excellent story and extremely good timing and pace. The editing was truly superb and kept the pace high, as well as the movie itself consistent. It all helps to make "Duck Soup" a very pleasant and amusing movie to watch.

Stan Laurel is already great in his role but Oliver Hardy still obviously had to grown into his role. The beginning is there but he's not quite perfect yet. The subtle little things that made his character so great are still missing in this movie. Luckily the boys already have some great chemistry together in this movie.

Not an hilarious movie but a very well constructed and amusing one, with Laurel & Hardy for the very first time together as a comical duo.

10/10

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Laurel and Hardy's 1927 short film Duck Soup was originally thought to be lost by film scholars, critics, and the industry. The only pieces of the short that were rumored or assumed to exist were stills or very short clips, but miraculously, the film was found in a Belgium archive in 1974. However, not before the short was remade into Another Free Ride in 1930 and ideas salvaged for Pack Up Your Troubles in 1931, both Laurel and Hardy shorts.

Watching Duck Soup is nothing shy of a privilege, as it was almost never meant to be. Yet, like with all lost films, I quietly hope most of the famous lost films will not be lost forever and that we will eventually get to see the famous works as they were originally intended.

Duck Soup concerns Laurel and Hardy as two impoverished men, who are about to be recruited by forest rangers as volunteer firefighters. In a sublime chase, in true silent movie fashion, the two manage to escape them on a bike and take refuge in a mansion, while the owner and his servants have go away on business. Hardy impersonates the owner and offers to rent the home to an older English couple, with Laurel posing as the mansion's maid. This can only go on for so long, as they are the targets of two very temperamental groups of people.

Aside from the hilarious chase scene, Duck Soup wins one over mainly because of its simplicity and the fact that it begins and conducts itself by following the building blocks of comedy, which usually starts from the lead character(s) doing something they don't want to do. In this case, Laurel and Hardy don't want to fight wildfires, so they stumble into a decidedly more lavish option of taking refuge in a mansion to only disastrous results. To add to that, the film is consistently active, bearing the fantastic physical comedy and rabble-rousing entertainment necessary for a short like this to work, only proving why Laurel and Hardy became two enormous comedic names.

Starring: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Directed by: Fred L. Guiol.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy appeared in lengthy scenes together for the first time in March 1927's "Duck Soup" (not to be confused with the Marx Brothers' 1933 film of the same name). Even though they appear on a park bench and go about escaping from the forestry rangers conscripting the unemployed to fight nearby fires, Stan and Laurel dress like tramps, with Hardy unshaven and wearing a monocle and a top hat. This was the first movie, however, that McCarey saw the potential of the two as a comedy team. Despite finding themselves in the same locations and situations, the two act more as individuals then they do playing off one another in "Duck Soup"-lingo for "Easy as pie" and "As good as done."

After "Duck Soup," Laurel and Hardy appeared in their next seven movies together, but each playing different characters from the other, even though they did interact.