Laurel and Hardy: Year One (1927)

4 Stars (out of 4)

A Fine Mess

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Following their set Laurel or Hardy, which collected early, solo films of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, Flicker Alley's Laurel and Hardy: Year One is a remarkable set of fifteen beautifully restored two-reelers showcasing the legendary team's first films together. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they did not automatically have their particular chemistry established just yet. They started playing various roles, sometimes supporters, not always onscreen together, and with interactions that had nothing to do with their subsequent comedy. In The Lucky Dog (1921), their first film together, Ollie plays a bandit who holds up Stan. The pair are hardly even onscreen in 45 Minutes from Hollywood (1926).

But Duck Soup (1927) is something else. In it, they seem to have landed, fully-formed, as their onscreen selves. They play a couple of tramps who, attempting to hide from forest rangers, wind up in a newly empty mansion, whose owner has gone on vacation. A couple stops by looking to rent the place, so Ollie pretends to be the owner, while Stan is forced to dress up as a maid. It's great stuff, yet peculiar that no one seemed to notice at that point how good the team were. They went through several more trial-and-error films, starting to find their footing in With Love and Hisses and Sailors, Beware!.

The Second 100 Years — in which they play prisoners who escape by disguising themselves as painters — is considered the first official Laurel & Hardy film. Do Detectives Think? gets even closer, finding the characters' trademark outfits and looks. The last two films in the set are the real thing, both directed by Clyde Bruckman (who had co-directed Buster Keaton's masterpiece The General), supervised by Leo McCarey (a future Oscar winner for Best Director) and shot by George Stevens (another future Oscar winner). Putting Pants on Phillip has Stan playing Ollie's nephew, arriving from Scotland wearing a kilt, and immediately beginning to chase every woman he sees. The Battle of the Century is the pièce de résistance, containing one of the greatest pie fights ever filmed.

The films include: The Lucky Dog (1921), 45 Minutes from Hollywood (1926), Duck Soup, Slipping Wives!, Love 'em and Weep, Why Girls Love Sailors, With Love and Hisses, Sailors, Beware!, Do Detectives Think?, Sugar Daddies, The Second 100 Years, Call of the Cuckoo, Putting Pants on Phillip, The Battle of the Century (all 1927), and Flying Elephants (1928). The two-disc Blu-ray set includes commentary tracks for each film (sometimes more than one), a documentary, a video essay, a slide show presentation of the lost film Hats Off! (1927), image galleries, alternate music scores on selected films, and a 36-page liner notes booklet. This set is Highly Recommended.