Slapstick of Another Kind

The great Stan Laurel was 37 years old when he definitively teamed up with Oliver Hardy in 1927. So what had he done up till then? The Stan Laurel Collection valuably fills in a gap, with 17 comedy shorts Laurel made for producer Hal Roach between 1923 and 1925. Laurel was already a veteran vaudevillian, with many previous stabs at film work, when he embarked on this series for Roach. The comic personality on display will not be instantly familiar to Laurel and Hardy fans. In a frantic piece like Oranges and Lemons, Laurel is much closer to the acrobatic mischief of Chaplin than to the slow-burning simpleton he perfected opposite Hardy. Laurel was a busy gag-writer and worked on story and direction as well, and it says something about his imagination that these shorts range all over the planet for their settings: Frozen Hearts parodies Russian melodrama (and allows Stan a wonderfully daft Russian dance), Roughest Africa spoofs the African travelogue, with Laurel battling lion and elephant. Movie parodies were a Laurel specialty; Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pride is a send-up of a certain Robert Louis Stevenson story, with Laurel's monster an unexpected demonic treat. The final short on disc 2 is Yes, Yes, Nanette, co-directed by Laurel and starring Jimmy Finlayson, a frequent stooge in these shorts. In a supporting role, there's "Babe" Hardy, pointing the way toward greatness. These shorts are fun, but Laurel and Hardy needed each other. --Robert Horton