“A GORGEOUS NICE MESS”

By Raymond Benson and Doug Gerbino

Nobody wants the legacy of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy to disappear. Young people may have heard of the comic duo, but few have seen them these days. This is understandably disturbing to cinephiles or those of us of an older generation who have admired since childhood the genius on display when the pair performed in front of the camera. While RHI Entertainment issued a fabulous DVD set in 2011 (10 disks in the U.S.) that contained most of Laurel and Hardy’s output for Hal Roach after sound kicked in, a new Blu-ray treasure chest has just been released by MVDvisual that contains stunning restorations in high definition of a respectable number of titles.

Laurel and Hardy—The Definitive Restorations could be a holy grail for members of Sons of the Desert, the International Laurel and Hardy Society that is devoted to keeping the lives and works of Stan and Ollie before the public “and have a good time doing it.” It is also a must for anyone who has even a passing interest in the history of film comedy or film in general.

The four-disk set contains two of the duo’s most revered feature films—Sons of the Desert (1933) and Way Out West (1937) along with seventeen classic shorts released between 1927 and 1933. Two of the shorts, Berth Marks (1929) and Brats (1930) are presented twice, each with two different soundtracks—one with the original Vitaphone track and the other with the re-issued 1936 version.

Sons of the Desert might be the definitive Laurel and Hardy movie. In it, both boys must deceive their suspicious wives about attending the Shriners-like “Sons of the Desert” convention in Chicago. Of course, one lie turns into a hundred and they keep digging their holes deeper. Way Out West is a western, naturally, with the boys attempting to deliver a gold mine deed to the rightful owner, only to be hoodwinked by the villains. The picture contains the celebrated dance routine Stan and Ollie performs while the Avalon Boys sing “At the Ball, That’s All.”

All of the shorts are marvelous. The Oscar-winning The Music Box (1932) is there, plus favorites such as the two with different soundtracks, and Hog Wild (1930), Come Clean (1931), County Hospital (1932), and Busy Bodies (1933). But the shining star of the set is the long “lost” but recently found silent gem, The Battle of the Century (1927), which contains the pie fight to end all pie fights. This is a seminal work in the Laurel and Hardy canon, and it had seemed that since 1957 only three minutes of footage of the approximately twenty-minute film was thought to exist. In 1980, Leonard Maltin found the bulk of reel one in the archive of the Museum of Modern Art (what, they didn’t know they had it?). In 2015, film historian John Mirsalis discovered the complete reel two. There are still two to three minutes missing—the new set makes up for it by including stills and intertitles—but with The Definitive Restorations we now have an almost complete version on home video. The film comes with a new music track by Donald Sosin. Look for a young Lou Costello as an extra in the crowd ringside during the early boxing match sequence! In short, the inclusion of The Battle of the Century is worth the price of admission.

The restorations by Jeff Joseph/SabuCat in conjunction with the UCLA Film and Television Archive and Library of Congress are simply beautiful. The contributions by film historians, archivists, and Laurel and Hardy scholars Randy Skretvedt and Richard W. Bann can’t be understated. Bann commented to the reviewers, “I saved the nitrate film from being disposed of and gave it to UCLA. We did our own commercial restoration and preservation for the Eastern hemisphere (though 35mm fine grains were provided at cost to the Western Hemisphere copyright proprietor, which generated what you see on TCM and in the Essential Laurel and Hardy DVD box set). Once I steered the nitrate to UCLA, Jeff Joseph donated money and oversaw the institutional restoration and preservation, as well as the digital upgrade, something we did not do for Munich originally, owing to time and cost considerations, as well as because the technology was less advanced during the 1985-2002 period. I supplied the still photos for the extras, except for those which came from Oliver Hardy’s collection. I consulted on the matter of rights clearances. I loaned studio documents, pressbooks, etc., to be scanned for inclusion with the extras, and I loaned the Kodachrome print of The Tree in a Test Tube.”

The nearly nine hours of supplements are just as spectacular as the films themselves. Skretvedt and Bann share the commentary duties (Bann is on The Battle of the Century and The Music Box, while Skretvedt does the rest). The combined knowledge of these two film aficionados about the history of Laurel and Hardy and Hal Roach Studios makes the set a must-have for devotees of the boys. In addition, there are 2,500 rare photos, posters, and studio files; film and audio interviews with many of the duo’s co-workers and Sons of the Desert society attendants of the 60s; a 50s-era interview with Hardy aboard the ship sailing from England during the period depicted in the recent biopic, Stan and Ollie (and it’s amazing how much the aging Hardy resembles the made-up John C. Reilly!); a restoration from 16mm Kodachrome of the rare 1942 color short produced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, The Tree in a Test Tube; and trailers. The interviews, mostly conducted by Skretvedt in the early 1980s, are of varying audio and visual quality. Unfortunately, when asked what the chances are of locating a print of the ultra-rare lost 1927 silent film, Hat’s Off, Bann answered, “In the words of Oliver Hardy, ‘Null and void!’ We will cover all bets for finding Hat’s Off giving 100 to 1 odds.”

This isn’t just “another nice mess” they’ve got you into, it’s a gorgeous nice mess. Laurel and Hardy—the Definitive Restorations is highly and most enthusiastically recommended.

For information about the Sons of the Desert, visit www.sonsofthedesertinfo.com. The society was founded in 1965 by John McCabe, who wrote the first true biography of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in 1961. McCabe wanted to start an organization dedicated to the love of the duo along the lines of The Baker Street Irregulars (honoring Sherlock Holmes). McCabe had Laurel’s blessing, as long as no one referred to the society as a “fan club.” “Fan” is short for “fanatic,” and he didn’t want that. The society has been going strong with worldwide chapters—called “tents”—ever since.

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