5 Star

Lessons in Comedy

Here is another great remastered release from Eureka Entertainment, with this release of the greatest duo to grace the silver screen. This compilation follows hot on the heels of their January release of LAUREL & HARDY: THE SILENT YEARS (1927). This time it is from the year 1928, and ten of their silent shorts. The Blu-ray is for the fans of the duo and anyone that loves the sound of a theatre organ. Please see the special features below for a more in-depth experience with these ten shorts.

Starting with Leave ’em Laughing, which has our hapless duo trying to solve Stan’s (Stan Laurel) toothache problem, which involves Ollie (Oliver Hardy) losing his night sleep.

Followed by The Finishing Touch, the boys are contracted to build a house in a day, but they have many mishaps and run into trouble with the nearby hospital staff, due to their excessive noise.

The other eight classic silent shorts are From Soup to Nuts, You’re Darn Tootin, Their Purple Moment, Should Married Men go Home, Early to Bed, Two Tars, Habeas Corpus, We Faw Down. Many of these shorts were co-written by Stan Laurel.

Definitely one for the fans or historians.

LAUREL & HARDY: THE SILENT YEARS (1928) 10 Silent Shorts with Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy (Masters of Cinema) Limited Edition Two-disc Blu-ray is available now.

LIMITED TWO-DISC BLU-RAY EDITION SPECIAL FEATURES:

Limited edition of 2000 copies

Limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Scott Saslow

1080p HD presentations on Blu-ray from 2K restorations

Scores by a variety of silent film composers

Brand-new audio commentaries by film historian and writer David Kalat, Patrick Vasey, (editor of The Laurel & Hardy Magazine and host of The Laurel & Hardy Podcast), film writer Chris Seguin, Kyp Harness (The Art of Laurel & Hardy: Graceful Calamity in the Films), Glenn Mitchell (The Laurel & Hardy Encyclopedia) and silent film accompanist Neil Brand

Alternate Robert Youngson score on The Finishing Touch, newly restored by Stephen C. Horne

United we Fall – brand new feature-length documentary by David Cairns and Fiona Watson

Brand-new interview with Neil Brand

Super 8 presentations of Dizzy Heights, Let ’em Rip, Out of Step and The Car Wreckers | On Location with Laurel and Hardy – 1928 home movie footage of Laurel and Hardy

Stills Galleries for each short

PLUS: A limited edition collector’s booklet featuring newly written notes on each film by writer and comedian Paul Merton and new essays by silent cinema expert Imogen Sara Smith and film historian Sheldon Hall