Overview: Stan and Ollie look and sound better than ever! New 2K and 4K digital restorations from original 35mm nitrate, Laurel and Hardy’s classic comedies are here in the best quality since their first release!

Two features and 17 shorts, including the legendary pie-fight silent film The Battle of the Century, making its video debut and nearly complete for the first time in over 90 years!

Feature Films: Sons of the Desert and Way Out West Classic Short Subjects: Berth Marks, The Battle of the Century (with new music track by Donald Sosin), Brats, Busy Bodies, The Chimp, Come Clean, County Hospital, Helpmates, Hog Wild, Me and My Pal, Midnight Patrol, The Music Box, One Good Turn, Scram!, Their First Mistake, Towed in a Hole, and Twice Two.

Blu-ray Verdict: Featuring restorations by Jeff Joseph/SabuCat in conjunction with the UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Library of Congress and using careful photochemical and digital techniques, these classic films are restored to pristine condition.

Trust me when I say that in these stunning new transfers, they look and sound as beautiful as they did when they were first released!

The first one up is Sons of the Desert, which for my money, has got to be one of the funniest movies ever made by Hollywood. The cutaway to Oliver Hardy’s reaction as Stan Laurel confesses the whole complicated scheme to their wives is quite possibly the single funniest shot in the history of the motion picture. If you’ve never seen a Laurel & Hardy feature, this is the one to see. Stan Laurel was a comic genius. Oliver Hardy was probably the funniest man to ever step in front of a movie camera. This film epitomizes classic comedy.

The story has the boys as two members of the Sons of the Desert, who are preparing for their national convention. This gets the two into difficulty with their wives, and from there things build up into the kinds of predicaments that are familiar from their shorter features. What’s rather impressive is how well they keep things going for so long. There’s nothing that’s forced or pointless, and the pacing is generally just right. As the wives, Mae Busch and Dorothy Christy have relatively easy roles, but they (and also Charley Chase) have a few good moments.

The only other feature-length film here is the brilliant Way Out West in which both Laurel & Hardy’s delivery is impeccable and the routines and gags are only made better by their talent. James Finalyson (as Mickey Finn) is excellent and for me is easily the king of that double take/squint thing that he does so very well.

It’s one of their most classic of films and which contains three of their most loved gags. Here they’re singing The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, a song that became a hit again in the Seventies in the UK. Then they’re dancing to At the Ball, That’s All, and oh what a sight that is to behold. Then there’s the gag with Stan making fire with his thumb!

The two friends arrive into a small town called Brushwood Gulch. They’re there to deliver an inherited deed for a goldmine to a young woman. A bar owner (played by their arch enemy Finlayson) and his wife are trying to steal the deed. Totally chaos begins to take shape and once rolling never stops!

To my mind, no other comedy team in the history of show business had the perfect comic timing of Stan and Oliver, not even the inimitable teams of Abbott and Costello or Martin and Lewis.

Stan and Oliver had appeared separately in several films before they were teamed. Although they were both multi-talented (Oliver was one of the best singers around) and individually funny, together they broke all the comedic barriers. No such chemistry has existed between two entertainers before or since. Mel Brooks said it best when he stated, Dying is easy. Comedy, that’s difficult.

The slew of restored Classic Short Films are: Berth Marks, The Battle of the Century (with new music track by Donald Sosin), Brats, Busy Bodies, The Chimp, Come Clean, County Hospital, Helpmates, Hog Wild, Me and My Pal, Midnight Patrol, The Music Box, One Good Turn, Scram!, Their First Mistake, Towed in a Hole, and Twice Two.

Bonus Features:
Battle of the Century (1928) virtually complete and restored!
Commentaries by Randy Skretvedt and Richard W. Bann
Never before seen video interviews as well as audio interviews with L&H co-workers
Over 2500 stills, posters, scripts
Alternate Soundtracks
Music Tracks
Ship’s Reporter Oliver Hardy Interview (restored)
That’s That (restored/first time on video)
Tree in a Test Tube (restored from 16mm Kodachrome)
L&H off-camera pix from Hardy’s collection
Restored Trailers
Optional English subtitles

Me and My Pal Comparison - Laurel & Hardy Fully Remastered by SabuCat [Official Video]

Official Purchase Link