Laurel & Hardy: Year Two (1928)

4 Stars (out of 4)

Another Fine Mess

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Whereas Flicker Alley's excellent Laurel & Hardy: Year One set showed the legendary comedy duo still finding their footing, the essential Laurel & Hardy: Year Two sees them virtually fully-formed and creating their first masterpieces. The ten shorts begin with Leave 'em Laughing, which involves a trip to the dentist and some nitrous oxide (always a good source of comedy). The Finishing Touch has Stan and Ollie as builders who are working under a deadline to finish a house. (The result is similar to Buster Keaton's One Week.) From Soup to Nuts casts the pair as waiters working their first upper-crust dinner party; part of the multiple-level joke structure is that the hosts of the party are newly wealthy and also inexperienced when it comes to ritzy behavior. Most of the jokes involve food going where it's not supposed to go and lots of pratfalls, but this one's still a keeper. In You're Darn Tootin' Stan & Ollie play musicians who are fired from a band and become street buskers, which somehow leads to a multiple-person scuffle and lots of torn clothing. In Their Purple Moment, they pride themselves in stealing part of their paycheck from their wives. Stan and Ollie decide to take a pair of women out to a fancy restaurant using Stan's stash, but after spending a great deal, Stan finds that his wife has discovered it and his cash is gone. This one climaxes in a pie fight!

Should Married Men Go Home? is a little flat, with the boys going golfing, irritating a grumpy Edgar Kennedy, and causing a mud fight. Early to Bed is a brilliant one, wherein Ollie inherits a fortune and hires Stan as his butler, but proceeds to abuse him to no end, even playing mean pranks on him. Finally, Stan retaliates. This one has a climax in a water fountain that is a bit of genius. Two Tars is one of their best, wherein the boys play sailors on leave. They rent a car and pick up a couple of girls, and eventually cause a massive traffic jam, which results in mass destruction. Habeas Corpus is one of the most flat-out hilarious in the set; the boys play penniless waifs who are hired to break into a graveyard and steal a body for illicit medical research. In one scene, Ollie painfully shimmies up a pole to find out where they are, only to find a sign at the top, reading "WET PAINT." Finally, We Faw Down is a strange one, and one that has dated badly due to its rude portrayal and treatment of women. Curiously, this one was directed by Leo McCarey, an assistant on many of the previous films, a future Oscar-winner, and a director of many thoughtful films.

Each short has been meticulously remastered by Blackhawk Films, and each has its own commentary track by historians and authors Randy Skretvedt and Richard W. Bann. Many of the shorts have multiple options for music scores, ranging from vintage music to various types of new music; composers include Andreas Benz, Neil Brand, Robert Israel, and Jean-François Zygel. The massive collection of extras includes a video essay by historian John Bengtson, a fragment of a Charlie Chase film that features Laurel and Hardy, one of Laurel's final solo films, Eve's Love Letters (1927); surviving fragments of an incomplete film, Galloping Ghosts (1928); and A Pair of Tights (1929), starring Anita Garvin and Marion Byron, who were teamed up to be a female version of Laurel & Hardy. We also get home movies and behind-the-scenes footage at Hal Roach Studios, a 1959 interview with Laurel, an image gallery, and a thick liner notes booklet with tons of information. This set is Highly Recommended and is one of the best Blu-ray releases of 2024.