Cheap Laurel & Hardy (DVD) (Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy) (William A. Seiter) Price

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Customer Reviews of Laurel & Hardy

Hopefully, this DVD will be the first in an eventual complete series of Stan and Ollie that will rectify this failing. More hopefully, this DVD will contain those restored editions circulating in Europe and recent limited theatrical U.S. release.

So, what we have before us at long last is a collection containing one of the greatest full-length comedies ever made (SON'S OF THE DESERT), perhaps THE greatest short comedy feature of all time (the Academy Award winning THE MUSIC BOX), two solid "B" shorts (BUSY BODIES & COUNTY HOSPITAL), and the interesting, if not classic, ANOTHER FINE MESS.

To focus on just one, few films are so etched into the common psyche as MUSIC BOX. Anyone who has ever seen it -- even as a small child -- remembers assending the Steps of Sisyphus, and the "mechanical blunderbus" piano with a seeming mind of its own. One of their many surrealist masterpieces (it's not by chance that Dali once credited the Boy's BELOW ZERO as his favorite film) every scene shimmers with a kind of internal Magical Reality. How can that flimsy awning support a giant piano with massive block-and-tackle? Is the horse Susie actually consciously planning Ollie's indignities? Yet, the world of 1127 Walnut Ave. -- the ever receding house "on the stoop" -- is as real and inevitable as gravity.

Now, with a world of over 100 additional L&H films to choose from, can we at least hope for a volume two?

This is NOT the great restoration DVD sold in Europe!
First let me say that these films are the BEST that Laurel & Hardy ever did, they are ***** films! I was excited to get this DVD, finally we were going to see the great restoration work that was done in Europe and sold on DVD there.

I have seen their DVDs, and this is NOT the restored version!

Problem 1) Over compression causes digital artifacting that makes SONS OF THE DESERT look like VHS at times. The transfer is the old grainy U.S. TV tape.

Problem 2) THE MUSIC BOX is compressed from a damaged video tape, there are wrinkles that appear as the boys are unloading the piano.

Problem 3) COUNTY HOSPITAL is a grainy copy from the Film Classics re-issue negative. The European DVD is authored from the original MGM issue negative. Leo the lion roars a greating to you to let you know that Europeans are about to see a fine transfer. In the U.S., our DVD only has the soundtrack of the roars over the grainy re-issue titles.

Problem 4) BUSY BODIES, while it does have the nice original MGM titles, is grainier than the European restored release.

On a slightly positive note, ANOTHER FINE MESS did not undergo restoration in Europe, so their version looks as grainy as ours. It does have the original title section with the two girls reciting the credits.

There is a fair documetary that used grainy clips from other shorts not on this collection (giving us a preview of how bad the future DVDs might be) and some nice stills showing you some locations as they look today.

Hopefully Artisan & Hallmark will re-master this DVD so that those without access to the European DVDs can enjoy these five classic movies the way they were meant to be seen: sharp without artifacting, on two discs.

"Hard boiled eggs and nuts!"
I don't know why the people who have this DVD are complaining about the transfers being bad, that's rubbish. Their all hard boiled eggs and nuts!