I received a number of e-mails this morn from serial buffs who take me to task for suggesting that thirty chapters of Superman serial is anything less than thirty glorious viewing experiences…assuming one has the good sense to watch but one per day. Okay, fine, whatever. They're right that this material wasn't meant to be watched all at once. That's one of the problems of DVD sets.
I also wouldn't suggest watching the three films on the new Laurel and Hardy set back-to-back. As noted here, Stan and Ollie made six films for Twentieth-Century Fox in the forties after leaving their home at the Hal Roach Studios. Some are better than others and all have moments that remind you how brilliant they could be…but when I think of their great movies, none of these come to mind.
A-Haunting We Will Go, despite its title, contains no ghosts or haunting. It has a silly gangster plot and a showy guest role by the famous magician, Dante. There's nothing really wrong with it except that there's nothing really right with it. The Dancing Masters doesn't make a lot of sense and Stan was getting a little old to be parading around in a ballerina costume. The Bullfighters is, I think, the worst movie they ever made. It's actually the only Laurel and Hardy movie in which they're the villains and it has a contrived plot and an ugly, inane end gag. In it, Stan is mistaken for a world famous matador and forced to parade about in stock footage, wearing a matador suit.
Laurel and Hardy fans may argue over my ranking of best-to-worst but few would insist this is the kind of work that made Stan and Ollie perhaps the most beloved screen comedians of all time. Nevertheless, I have ordered this new DVD. Why? Because even weak Laurel and Hardy is better than no Laurel and Hardy. In addition, the DVD set also has commentary tracks by Randy Skretvedt and Scott MacGillivray, two learned scholars of The Boys, plus there are bonus featurettes and trailers and other goodies. If you'd like to order one, here's a link to get it from Amazon. And while you're clicking that mouse of yours, here's a link to get the earlier set with the other three Fox films.
Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy also made two very weak films for M.G.M. in the forties — Air Raid Wardens and Nothing But Trouble. These are due out in November on a low-priced DVD you can order here. Again, weak Laurel and Hardy is better than no Laurel and Hardy…but these movies make it a wee bit harder to believe that statement.
The best Laurel and Hardy work is only slowly making it to DVD with releases like this one that came out last April. More have been rumored but nothing's been announced yet. What we're really waiting for is something deluxe and complete like the set that came out in 2004 in Great Britain, which is unfortunately unplayable on most U.S. DVD machines. Here's a link to the Amazon UK page where you can see what they got over there. It sent American Laurel and Hardy fans into spasms of Brit envy…and out to buy region-free DVD players.