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By PAUL BRENNER
The Boys -- although it is a
bit creepy calling two comics pushing fifty by the
mid-1930's "boys" -- are back in the second
installment of Lions Gate Entertainment and
Hallmark Entertainment's "digitally restored"
Laurel and Hardy films. To call these films
digitally restored may be a bit much (souped-up
may be a better term), but the presentations are
definitely better than has been seen on video
before and the film selections -- "Way Out West"
and "Block-Heads" -- are two of Laurel and Hardy's
best features.
"Block-Heads" from 1938 is perhaps Laurel and
Hardy's last great feature. At that point in
Laurel and Hardy's rocky relationship with their
studio potentate, Hal Roach, Roach was fed-up with
his Laurel and Hardy films, which, he felt, were
old-fashioned. Roach wanted to sit at the
grownup's table and get into the (at the time)
popular genres of screwball comedies ("Topper")
and literary adaptations ("Of Mice and Men"). As
such, he didn't want to deal with a comedy series
he now considered small potatoes and a rabid comic
perfectionist (Mr. Laurel) who was saddled with a
rocky and at time lurid off camera life. As a
result, after the completion of "Block-Heads,"
Roach fired Laurel and attempted to hookup Oliver
Hardy with the faded silent comic Harry Langdon
(now working as a gag writer for Roach Studios and
one of the writers on "Block-Heads") as a new
comedy team for the film "Zenobia." The failure of
"Zenobia" sent Roach back to Laurel and to re-team
with Hardy for two final Roach films -- "Saps At
Sea" and "A Chump At Oxford" -- before Laurel and
Hardy moved on to their spectacular crash-and-burn
years at MGM and Twentieth Century Fox.
For all that, "Block-Heads" is amazing for it's
easy-going tone and the flimsy plot, used merely
as an excuse for some fine comic set pieces.
Essentially an expansion of "Unaccustomed As We
Are" (Laurel and Hardy's first sound film),
"Block-Heads" begins with a World War I montage as
Laurel is ordered to guard a trench until he is
told not to. Twenty years after the end of World
War I, Laurel is still guarding the trench. Hardy
is now happily married and reads about Laurel in
the newspaper. He rushes over to the soldier's
home to see him and spotting Laurel, sitting in a
wheelchair with his leg tucked under him and
reading a newspaper, Hardy assumes his old pal is
now an amputee and helpfully carries him in his
arms to his car (even after the point where it is
obvious Laurel has two legs). After Laurel assists
Hardy is wrecking Hardy's new car and huffing and
puffing up thirteen flights of stairs to get to
Hardy's apartment, we are now clearly in Laurel
and Hardy land. Once inside the apartment there
need be no elaborate explanation as to why Hardy's
wife suddenly becomes a banshee. All it takes is
the presence of Laurel to cause Hardy's domestic
tranquility to crash and burn.
The highlight of the DVD, however, is Laurel and
Hardy's western romp from 1937, "Way Out West."
"Way Out West" is arguably along with "Sons of the
Desert," Laurel and Hardy's finest film. Once
again, Laurel's (and Hardy's) tortuous off-screen
lives are not reflected in the perfection and joy
of their performances in the film. The plot, once
again, is simple, serving as a foundation for
their routines. Laurel and Hardy play two
prospectors who are delivering the deed to a dead
friend's goldmine to his daughter, whom they have
never seen. Here, Laurel and Hardy are at the top
of their games, not merely in the ease of Hardy's
rapport with the camera or Laurel's extended
reaction shots but in conveying their joy in
performing with each other. When Laurel and Hardy
freely burst into dance upon hearing The Avalon
Boys play "At the Ball, That's All" in front of
James Finlayson's saloon, it is dizzying comedy of
an ethereal, existential order. And it is more of
the same when, later on in the film, Laurel and
Hardy sing "Trail of the Lonesome Pine" bar side.
Film comedy is rarely as euphoric as it is in "Way
Out West."
Also included in the collection is "Chickens Come
Home to Roost." This is not a film about Malcolm X
and the Kennedy assassination. Rather it is a
labored short from 1931, where Laurel and Hardy
are employed as "Dealers in High Grade
Fertilizer." Of course, with such a lofty
position, Hardy wants to curry favor and run for
mayor. However, Mae Busch appears as an old flame
from Hardy's wild days ("That was in my gilded
youth -- my primrose days before I was married")
and complications ensue. |
