Cheap Lost Films of Laurel & Hardy Vol 03 (DVD) (Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy) (Leo McCarey) Price

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Customer Reviews of Lost Films of Laurel & Hardy Vol 03

I would think the great quality of the IMAGE releases and incredibly strong reception from us home viewers should be inspiration enough to start releasing some other Laurel and Hardy treasures.

As far as this DVD is concerned, it is great as are the rest in the series. I highly recommend them to all Laurel and Hardy fans.

Misleading, but still worthwhile
I think calling this DVD "Lost Films of Laurel & Hardy" is somewhat misleading, because only 3 out of the 6 shorts feature the boys as the pair that most fans are familiar with.

"Bromo and Juliet," for example, has Oliver Hardy, buried under a thick mustache, in a small role as a dinner guest of Jimmy Finlayson, and Stan Laurel as one of Jimmy's employees; the two never meet in the film. In another short, Hardy shows up for a few minutes as a taxi driver.

In addition, the picture quality is not always good, but that's to be expected in films so old. And as another reviewer mentioned, the same soundtrack is used over and over, which can get a little monotonous after awhile.

Depsite the fact that this DVD wasn't exactly what I expected, however, I still enjoyed it. It was interesting to see Laurel & Hardy in roles other than "the boys" and the rest of the casts (Charley Chase, Mae Busch, Vivian Oakland, to name a few) gave hilarious performances. I recommend it to fans of Laurel & Hardy (and other silent stars as well), but be aware that not all the films may be what you might have expected.

Classic Laurel & Hardy Silent Shorts, 2 dir. by Leo McCarey!
Volume 3 in this series continues to present silent shorts from the early days of Laurel & Hardy. The first two on this DVD have the distinction of being two of the three Laurel & Hardy comedies directed by the great Leo McCarey. "Liberty" (1929) is an absolute classic. The boys escape from prison whereupon they are picked up by friends in a car and change into civilian clothes. The simple premise for this classic comedy is that Stan and Ollie have on each other's pants, and they spend the rest of the time trying to change clothes, ending up on the high girders of a skyscraper. Obviously this is a very large tip of the hat to the work of Harold Lloyd, although the gags are all perfect for Laurel & Hardy. It is also a very risque film for its day, with the boys always being discovered lowering their pants in strange places. In "We Faw Down" the boys announce to their wives they are going to a show when they are really heading out for a poker game. When they hear the theater burned down, the wives are understandably distraught. But Stan & Ollie, having fallen into a mud puddle, have been taken by two pretty young flirts to the girl's apartment. Of course, as the boys are leaving the apartment without their trousers, their wives show up with shotguns. The film's climax is the best gag in "We Faw Down" and one of the funniest endings to a Laurel & Hardy two-reeler.

This DVD collection also invludes the very first on-screen pairing of Laurel & Hardy in 1919's "The Lucky Dog," although they are certainly not a team at this point. "Love 'Em and Weep" from 1927 is another one of the Hal Roach-Pathe comedies featuring James Finlayson in which Stan Laurel is the second comic lead and Oliver Hardy has a more minor role. All three are henpecked husbands whose lives are complicated by the return of Finlayson's old flame, Mae Busch. This particular story line is used by the boys to much better effect in their talkie "Chickens Come Home," so track it down after watching this silent version. This time around the bonus shorts reveal Oliver Hardy teamed up with other comics in a pair of 1926 two-reelers: "Along Came Auntie" with Glenn Tryon and "Bromo and Juliet" with Charley Chase. These are more interesting than the Stan Laurel shorts on the first two volumes because they provide cinematic proof that the boys were perfectly matched comedic partners.