Laurel & Hardy Collection – Alone & Together – a collection of both Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in their individual careers
Laurel & Hardy Collection – Alone & Together
Product Description
Stanley Laurel and Oliver Hardy formed the most popular and longest running comedy team of all time. Long before they teamed up, both were successful movie comedians in the own right. This collection of Laurel and Hardy features them on their own in comedy classics as well as teamed together.
Oliver Hardy frequently played ‘heavies’ in support of bigger comedy stars, such as Charley Chase, Larry Semon, Chaplin imitator Billie West, and Glenn Tyron, but he also starred in his own films, long before he had even met Stan Laurel.
Stan Laurel came to America with Fred Karno’s comedy troupe along with Charlie Chaplin, and like Chaplin, stayed on to venture into movie comedies. He spent much of the ‘Teens and the 1920s in search of a successful comedy formula.
For the complete Stan and Ollie fan!
Disc 1:
TREE IN A TEST TUBE (5 minutes) In this rare excerpt from a government sponsored film, Laurel and Hardy show off their pantomime abilities while demonstrating the many uses of wood. See Laurel and Hardy in color!
OLIVER HARDY INTERVIEW (3 minutes) Back from filming Laurel and Hardy’s last film together, UTOPIA, Hardy explains the origin of his nickname “Babe” and talks about his work before teaming with Laurel.
ONE TOO MANY (17 minutes) Made in 1916, this comedy stars Oliver “Babe” Hardy. In the role of “Plump,” he has to find a wife and child right away to fool a visiting uncle. Overzealous assistance results in a ‘baby boom.’
THE BATTLE ROYAL (9 minutes) A 1916 spoof in the Hatfield-McCoy feud mode, Oliver Hardy is part of a hillbilly family warring against another clan. Then government revenue agents arrive and both families unite to run off their common foe.
THE PAPERHANGER’S HELPER (9 minutes) Oliver Hardy plays the bullying boss of movie comic hopeful Bobby Ray in his first film, made in 1925. Ray’s star never rose and his career remained mostly behind the camera, but watch Hardy’s development of a character who would later boss around Stan Laurel.
Disc 2:
THE WIZARD OF OZ (83 minutes) Before he teamed with Stan Laurel, “Babe” Hardy worked with popular movie comedian Larry Semon on many films, including Semon’s own peculiar 1925 version of THE WIZARD OF OZ. Semon stars as the Scarecrow, along with directing the film. See Ollie as the Tin Woodsman!
When Dorothy (played by Dorothy Dwan) discovers that that she is the next heir to the throne in the Kingdom of Oz, she must journey to Oz to be appropriately crowned as princess of Oz. In her journey, she enlists the assistance of the Wizard (played by Charles Murray), the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman, and the Cowardly Lion (played by G. Howe Black), Dorothy must defeat Prime Minister Kruel, the evil ruler of Oz, who is attempting to deny Dorothy her rightful throne.
Unfortunately, the distributor went bankrupt and Semon lost a fortune. However, this version of THE WIZARD OF OZ made it to TV before the better known version was made-first broadcast on experimental television in 1931!
Disc 3:
ROUGHEST AFRICA (22 minutes) Dr. Livingstone, I presume? No, it’s an entirely different Stanley as Laurel plays Professor Stanislaus Laurello, an intrepid African explorer who goes into the jungle and encounters exotic wildlife. Made in 1923, it features Stan battling the beasts of the wild in a manner that owes more to Buster Keaton than to his later Stan character.
PIE-EYED (18 minutes) This 1925 film stars Stan Laurel as a drunken customer at the swanky Firewater Club. Still searching for a successful comedy formula to make a hit with audiences, Laurel tries out a drunken act rather commonplace in this era, yet this characterization has many elements of his later Stan character.
SHORT KILTS (20 minutes) Laurel touches on his British roots with this 1924 spoof of Scottish life. The kilt is as much a source of gags as it would be later in the great comedy PUTTING PANTS ON PHILLIP. Popular kid comic Mickey Daniels also stars, along with James Finlayson, who is best remembered as being the frequent on-screen nemesis of Stan and Ollie.
Disc 4:
ORANGES AND LEMONS (32 minutes) With California as a locale for film production, it is natural that producers would squeeze out a comedy filmed at a local citrus grove. Stan Laurel stars as a hapless fruit picker in a characterization similar to yet more impish and agile than his later dimwitted Stan character.
HUSTLING FOR HEALTH (15 minutes) An early Stan Laurel film, made in 1919. Although a veteran of a dozen films, Laurel is shown still struggling with the new medium and his work here is unpolished compared to later works. Laurel had considerable trouble finding a character who would be popular with audiences.
YES YES NANETTE (10 minutes) James Finlayson, best known for his roles supporting Laurel and Hardy, stars in this 1925 short as a husband of Nanette. Her former sweetheart, “Babe” Hardy, has his own ideas. Co-directed by Stan Laurel. So it is Laurel and Hardy, yet not quite the Laurel and Hardy.
THE SHOW (20 minutes) Oliver Hardy is the crooked theater manager bullying stagehand Larry Semon in this 1922 farce that ends with a Keystone Cops style chase. Semon, the pasty-faced but popular movie comedian the early twenties, frequently called upon Hardy as a comedy foil in his films.
Disc 5:
ALONG CAME AUNTIE (24 minutes) A Laurel and Hardy film? They don’t appear on the screen together, but Stan Laurel co-wrote this 1926 film which co-stars Oliver Hardy. Glen Tryon was the leading man, making his bid to become a comedy star. Also in the film is Vivien Oakland, who would be a frequent co-star with Stan and Ollie in later years.
HE’S IN AGAIN (24 minutes) During Charlie Chaplin’s reign as the supreme genius of movie comedy in the ‘Teens, there were many Chaplin imitators appearing on movie screens. One of the most successful of these was Billie West. In this 1918 Chaplin knock-off film, Billie West’s tramp character sneaks into a nightclub and runs afoul of the burly waiter played by– guess who?-Oliver Hardy.
BROMO AND JULIET (20 minutes) Hardy plays the heavy again, this time as a burly taxi driver/bootlegger. The star of this 1926 film, however, is the immortal Charley Chase as a wannabe Shakespearean actor trying to get a drunken cast member to the theater on time. Prohibition humor!
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