The Silver Screen Oasis

JF, You're going to have to get a DVD rental service and put them on your list and regress to childhood and treat yourself. They are a perfect partnership and unlike some comedy you don't have to concentrate to get the gags. They're priceless.

I have netflix and never even thought about checking it for L&H movies... how dumb am I?

I did look on youtube and just started Fra Diavolo, so I am in heaven right now...Stan's hair is so funny...that's about all I remember from it except a scene where they are crossing a stream - I have no memory of what exactly happens at the stream but I remember I loved it....

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That's one I haven't seen, I've seen Bohemian Girl but a long time ago.

I recorded the recently broadcast Tit for Tat and showed it to my daughter, who loved it. Looks like we have a dedicated L&H fan here. I think when she was younger, she didn't appreciate the motif of the protagonists standing by watching each other do destructive things and retaliating, but now she understands the comic premise. I remember a point some years ago when she said of L&H "Hey, they got good!" Hoorah -- she gets it!

However, she didn't recognize Stan's "He who filters my name" joke until I pointed out the Shakespeare reference. She does know the quote, she just didn't make the connection.

I found an opportunity to use the "He who filters my name steals trash" line at Walmart today. I was very proud of myself.

NO one got it.

In my youth, I always gravitated toward the comedy section whenever I visited the video store, even before I became a true fan of vintage films. And I enjoyed those comedians of the '30s and '40s whose short subjects and features were given ample airtime on the various cable networks- e.g., The Three Stooges on TBS, Abbott and Costello on The Disney Channel.

When I was a teenager, AMC acquired the Laurel and Hardy short films and features (during those now-bygone days when the programming content reflected their brand). It was then that I became well acquainted with Stan and Ollie, though I remember being unimpressed overall with their brand of humor - their fey mannerisms and slow, stilted line delivery repelled me. Now, as an adult, it's those very traits that I find to be integral parts of their unique charm. Several people have alluded to how expertly they set the scene, building gradually toward moments of chaos. Their deliberate precision allows the viewer to become absorbed in their world. And it isn't just their personalities that are so brilliantly conceived - as with W. C. Fields, L&H used humor to depict human nature at its worst. You're left with the feeling that it's karma that these obliging yet dim souls should be sent to wreak havoc among the impatient, haughty, and rude world (and if Franklin Pangborn was the perfect partner for W. C. Fields, blustery Billy Gilbert was that to L&H).

As a segue, I'll just mention that I believe uniqueness to be that single trait that I find absent from today's comedians. Those comics of yesteryear seemed to spend so much more effort developing an overall, patented style. As a result, there will never be another Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, or Will Rogers, or Jack Benny, or W. C. Fields, or Groucho Marx, or even Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd. And as such these figures have become iconic.

srowley75 wrote: As a segue, I'll just mention that I believe uniqueness to be that single trait that I find absent from today's comedians. Those comics of yesteryear seemed to spend so much more effort developing an overall, patented style. As a result, there will never be another Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, or Will Rogers, or Jack Benny, or W. C. Fields, or Groucho Marx, or even Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd. And as such these figures have become iconic.

I fully agree with that assessment, Stephen. What we were seeing in these classic comics were archetypes, commedia dell'arte or otherwise, and that is one of the things that keeps us appreciating them. They stood for the character traits of all humanity. Too many of the current crop do not, and are merely in the moment. They may be funny, but they lack a commonality, and we quickly lose interest. I think most of today's performers are afraid of becoming typecast, and therefore they don't give us the universality that would in fact make them enduring.

I find Stan and Ollie's comedy is easy totune into and has a finessed timing towards one another's reactions. Part of their charm is that we know how they are going to react to one another and we can see the pitfalls before they get to them. Of all the silent comedian's comedies, I think they are the easiest for children to like. There is very little comedy today were all the family can understand the jokes, our equivalent I suppose are the Simpson's.

I watched Brats, You're Darn Tootin and Laughing Gravy with the kids tonight. They laughed out loud so much but so much of what they were laughing at was at the misfortune of others, usually Ollie. My daughter loved the fact that she knew what was coming, it was a mystery to my son who just loved the falls and generally discomfort that usually happens when Stan and Ollie are in the vicinity. I just loved watching it with them and sharing their laughter.

We got through the first bit of The Circus too before it got too late. My daughter loves Charlie, she has good taste. My son prefers the general mayhem of Laurel and Hardy, either is fine with me.

Oh those are all great to watch with the kids!

It's a bit disconcerting to realise that what the kids are laughing at is usually with Stan and Ollie, a trip, punch or knock, they find it hilarious. If someone made comedies like that today I'm sure someone somewhere would be up in arms but with Stan and Ollie it all seems so innocent.

I think today's sensibilities may color yesterday's slapstick a bit too much. The mayhem perpetrated by L&H is like the kind we saw in old cartoons. Nobody gets hurt. The fact that L&H can stand up and go about their business after being bopped, with no ill effects or ill-will, is part of their charm. We aren't supposed to believe for a minute that real violence is being done.

If children are sat in front of a television with no adult input at all, they may get some very skewed ideas about what's going on in the films. But if children are carefully reminded that what they are watching is not real, and should not be done by "real" people, there shouldn't be a problem. This is one of the reasons that the old way of showing these old films on TV was best: in my youth, every such program had a real, live, human being authority figure host, who always put what we saw into context, and told us that we should not imitate what we saw, because it was only a movie. There is virtually nothing like that any more -- it would be too expensive.

The kids certainly enjoyed L&H, especially the young one who's 4, he's never laughed so loud in his life, I don't think for a minute he thought that he should go around acting the way L&H act. You're Darn Tootin ends with Stan and Ollie kicking one another's shins, then entangling a passer by and then it has the famous trouser ripping sequence were everyone ends up without their pants on. You just don't get gags like that anymore. I must get him to watch Big Business. I guess watching them with the kids made me more aware of what generates the laughs and for my son, it was the hitting. My daughter appreciated more the building of the jokes, she could tell what was going to happen, she was in on what was happening.

Big Business is the best....

As I was reminded so I will remind everyone that Stan and Ollie are coming up on TCM on Monday Sept 20. "Way Out West" is gracing the screen at 3:15pm ET.

It does show a very effective way to get something from someone who won't give it to you.

The following night you will can find "A Chump At Oxford" followed by "Saps At Sea." Those may require a DVR or insomnia as they start at 3:45am ET.

Have fun.