LAUREL & HARDY: YEAR THREE On Blu-ray From Flicker Alley

 

For the third year in a row, Flicker Alley has released a magnificent set of rare and restored material featuring the legendary comedy team of Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy. LAUREL & HARDY: YEAR THREE covers the duo's short films made for the Hal Roach Studios in 1929. 

By 1929, the rough edges of the Laurel & Hardy pairing had been smoothed out, and the team has become what we all know and love. 1929 also saw the Roach Studios transitioning to sound, a technical achievement that if anything made the duo more popular. Most of the shorts presented on this two-disc region free set are silent, but L & H's first sound film, UNACCUSTOMED AS WE ARE, is included (and fully restored to boot). UNACCUSTOMED AS WE ARE shows that Stan & Ollie (and the Roach writers and directors) had few problems adjusting to the new technology--a number of gags included in the short are audio-oriented. 

This set contains 9 short films, including 2 bonus sound shorts and plenty of extras. Among the many highlights are LIBERTY, in which L & H wind up on an unfinished skyscraper, and BIG BUSINESS, where the duo's meddling attempts at selling a Christmas tree to James Finlayson result in a manic, destructive free-for-all. 

DOUBLE WHOOPEE is notable for an appearance by a 17 year old Jean Harlow, who suffers a  major wardrobe mishap. (Harlow also has cameo roles in two other movies in this set.) Speaking of wardrobe mishaps, UNACCUSTOMED AS WE ARE features Thelma Todd's first encounter with Stan & Ollie, and it's very easy to figure out what happens to her. 

Each short film in this set has multiple music tracks, with some of them having the option of the original Vitaphone audio. The shorts also have greatly informative audio commentaries by either Randy Skretvedt and Richard W. Bann, and extensive still galleries. There's also a dubbed version of DOUBLE WHOOPEE, created by Chuck McCann in 1970, and a silent version of UNACCUSTOMED AS WE ARE. 

Other extras include a 16mm excerpt from MGM's THE HOLLYWOOD REVUE OF 1929, which has Laurel & Hardy in a skit with Jack Benny, and a fragment of the Spanish version of BERTH MARKS. There's also extremely rare footage of L & H that was filmed for a 1930 MGM sales convention. 

As with the other two Laurel & Hardy sets from Flicker Alley, Year Three contains a 32 page illustrated booklet with extensive info on all the shorts and extras, an article by Leonard Maltin, and an essay by Richard W. Bann and Serge Bromberg detailing the various issues involved with restoring the Laurel & Hardy shorts made during their early period as a comedy team. 

I can't give enough praise to this set, or to the other two L & H sets released by Flicker Alley. The shorts are still entertaining nearly 100 years on, and the wealth of historical material is incredibly fascinating, especially to classic film geeks. I can't even fathom the amount of work that went into these Laurel & Hardy sets, but I'm quite thankful to Flicker Alley for putting them together. I believe this might be the final Flicker Alley Laurel & Hardy set, but as far as I'm concerned, they can go on to make Year Four, Year Five, Year Six, and on and on......