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.
