DVD Review HTF REVIEW: Laurel and Hardy Vol. 2 (1 Viewer)

[John Hodson]

I'd like to see some screen grabs of the R1 Way Out West; apart from the aforementioned splices there's not too much to complain about with the UK release as far as I can see - it seems quite nicely detailed to my eyes. I must say I've never noticed any significant cropping, and mention of it has piqued my interest.

 

[John Morgan]

I too, thought this Hallmark release was much better than their previous one...as far as transfer and film quality goes.

Does anyone here know what master elements survive on most of these films? I guess it would vary, but I would assume Hallmark has access to the best materials and camera originals, if they do exist. Also, what was the source material for the German and UK collections? I wouldn't think they had all the nitrate stuff shipped overseas for transfer. Maybe they had fine grain duplicates, but what really makes me drool over these releases is the original music put back on the early shorts...rather than the later tracked jobs. Also, the original titles in many cases.
I guess the very best result could only be from the Hallmark materials, carefully restored.

 

[Joe Karlosi]

I just bought the Hallmark disc and would have to say that it's much better-looking than I was lead to believe. There is nothing wrong with BLOCK-HEADS or WAY OUT WEST, and the CHICKENS COME HOME short is nowhere near as awful-looking as the original review made it sound (IMO). Sure, there were some speckles and so forth on CHICKENS, but it looked better than I'd ever seen it before - at least going by the old Nostalgia Merchant VHS prints. I think a lot of Laurel & Hardy's shorts are less than what we'd call perfect, and that should be understood. I was thoroughly able to enjoy the short.

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised and very glad I took a chance. If Hallmark was to keep up this quality and a quicker pace of releasing their new volumes, I'd be very satisfied.

 

[Richard-W-Bann]

When I was supervising this work in the 1980s and 1990s, I thought every HRS fan knew about it. Now it seems very few did. The misinformation I hear, even from friends, is such that I thought I needed to say something. All of the restoration and preservation work done on the Hal Roach library was done in Los Angeles. The lab used was Film Tech. I selected Film Tech because I could work with Bill Lindholm there. Both of us are grads of Blackhawk Films. We worked mostly from the nitrate pulled out of the bureaucratic quagmire of the Library of Congress, then deposited it all at UCLA. Everything was paid for by KirchMedia and predecessor companies (all now bankrupt but not owing to this work), headquartered in Munich. So everything now coming from Europe today that fans love so much was provided out of Los Angeles. We shipped a preservation dupe neg and fine grain for each title which Munich then converted to video masters. This is the material everyone is enjoying today on DVD. At the same time we offered a fine grain to Hallmark Entertainment for use here in the Western Hemisphere at the direct manufacturing cost. Hallmark acquired many such identical fine grains, but as happened with respect to the SONS OF THE DESERT DVD, when they pull a twenty year old TV video master to work from instead of the 35mm fine grain I provided them, well, I can't help that! To those who understand all this, no further explanation is necessary; for those who don't understand, no explanation is possible. But if we are having these kinds of miscommunications and mistakes made in the year 2005, what chance does anyone have of seeing beautiful prints a hundred years from now, if in fact anyone alive then has even a clue who Laurel and Hardy were? I still enjoy 16mm best. But whatever you are screening, L&H live so long as the last one of us remembers them! --Richard W. Bann--

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

Richard - thank you for the detailed story about the materials. Here's hoping that one day Hallmark allows somebody to license the L & H titles and give them a deluxe release in the USA if they don't want to do it themselves.

 

[Patrick McCart]

What sort of software would be required to convert the PAL DVD's into NTSC with proper speed correction? You know... the same masterful conversion applied to the Koch Lorber "La Dolce Vita" DVD.

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

Patrick - sent you a PM.

Pete

 

[Ross _Owen]

Hi Randy,

I've been trying to track you down for ages. My name is Ross Owen, grand sheik of the newly formed Fra
Diavolo tent in North Lanarkshire, Scotland and admin / founder of the
Laurel & Hardy Forum at LaurelAndHardyForum.co.uk. We'd
love to see you there actually, we have members from all over the
world and Lois Laurel could be joining us soon for a regular 'ask lois' section.

I am from a little town in Scotland called Airdrie which is literally
15 mins from James Finlayson's home town of Larbert. This brings me to
the reason for this message. I am about to start work on a major project
to find out as much unknown information about Messr. Finlayson via
research in the local area, historical records and exclusive
interviews with existing family members etc. I have read that you are
interested in any information regarding Fin so if there is anything in
particular you would like to know, let me know and I will see what I
can find out for you. I am happy to offer you any exclusive
information for your research.

You can reach me via our Forum at LaurelandHardyForum.co.uk

 

[John Morgan]

Well, I have now seen all three titles on the new L & H disc. BLOCK-HEADS looks very good, but I was terribly disappointed in WAY OUT WEST. I can't believe this print came from any restoration. Memory can play tricks, but I remember having a 16mm print from Blackhawk that was superb. Also, weren't those excellent prints on AMC several years ago from the restorations? They also looked very good.
I just can't believe a good transfer is now impossible for WAY OUT WEST. There were splices, scratches and other problems almost ruining a few scenes for me. I wonder if the restorations would cost Hallmark a few dollars and they are just putting out whatever is sitting on their shelves.
For a Laurel and Hardy fan, this is disappointing. I hope TCM has a different source for their upcoming presentations.

 

[Keith Paynter]

John, you have a PM...

 

[Cosmo Penini]

Hello everyone, new guy here and big Laurel and Hardy buff.

Just wanted to chime in and say even though I have all the wonderful Region 2 PAL DVDs from Kinowelt, Universal Benelux and the Universal-UK 21 box set I went ahead and got this region 1 disk to show support for Stan and Ollie.

After watching it BLOCK-HEADS is the best looking movie on this disk, but it has a lot of film grain not visible on the region 2 PAL DVDs. WAY OUT WEST is scratchy and splicy, there's also a chunk of footage missing after Stan and Lola crawl under the bed, on the wide shot the bed bounces only a couple time then cuts away to Ollie and Fin. There's several feet of the bouncing bed missing. Again, the version on the region 2 disks are sparkling.

CHICKENS COME HOME looks alright but they edited out the main title, it goes from Hal Roach Presents Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy to Director and technical credits.

No film restoration was done by Hallmark whatsoever to make a presentable DVD.

My opinion here is that the region 2 PAL DVDs from Kinowlet, Universal Benelux and UK containing fully restored versions of the shorts and features by the Kirch Group presenting Laurel and Hardy in all their glory are by far superior with stunning picture quality. My suggestion to fans in the US is get a region-free player and seek out these gems.

 

[Mario Gauci]

For the last weeks, I’ve been having a great time delving into the massive R2 21-Disc Laurel & Hardy set. Just now, I’ve started going through their features and have just watched what are considered by many, me included, to be their two finest vehicles – SONS OF THE DESERT (1933) and WAY OUT WEST (1937).

Because they are so different from each other, really, it’s difficult to choose between the two films: while I’d say that SONS OF THE DESERT is the more consistently funny (side-splitting, in fact, for there’s hardly a let-up in its tight running-time), in a way, coming at a time when they were still making shorts, it’s little more than an extended version of them (and WE FAW DOWN [1928] and BE BIG! [1931] in particular) – not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. In comparison, WAY OUT WEST feels, for lack of a better word, more like a ‘real’ film: certainly the western setting offers the comic duo a change of pace and, well, greater scope than usual (not that it strives in any way to be authentic) – but also the fact that Stan Laurel was producing the film himself (a position he had previously held, the only other time in their career, on OUR RELATIONS [1936]) may have had something to do with this increased care in the overall structure of the film; the charming song and dance numbers, for instance, really feel like an integral part of the film and are not at all intrusive, as they were in their operetta-style films, i.e. FRA DIAVOLO (1933), BABES IN TOYLAND (1934), THE BOHEMIAN GIRL (1936) and SWISS MISS (1938).

I won’t talk of individual sequences or gags, as I would spoil it for those who have yet to savor these marvelous entertainments and these are, in any case, better watched than described; suffice it to say that the two films on discussion here (along with OUR RELATIONS, BLOCK-HEADS [1938], and a fair number of their shorts from both the Silent and Sound era) approach perfection in both inventiveness and execution. Since childhood, Laurel & Hardy have been my favorite comedy team and, now, thanks to Universal’s treasure-trove of a DVD set I’m glad to be able to confirm (through virtually their entire ‘vintage’ canon, quite a few of which I had never watched before) that they are also, unquestionably, the greatest!