Laurel and Hardy Never Fails to Disappoint

Cafe Society
1

So Laurel and Hardy are TCM’s Binary Star of the Month, and I’ve recorded a few of their shorts. I’ve watched The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case, Another Fine Mess, and The Battle of the Century.

And all I got was a snicker or two.

I dunno, Laurel and Hardy just don’t do it for me. Yeah, they do some cute dance moves sometimes, and there’s some inventive slapstick. They had some Pre-Code dialogue that had some double entendre stuff that raises my eyebrow now and then.

But they’re just so damn sloooowwww. It seems half their bits are Stan puttering around with something while Ollie looks at the camera. Okay, breaking the fourth wall was clever back then. It’s still clever today if it’s done right. But jesus, Ollie does that ‘see-what-I-go-through?’ take about fifty times in every picture. It gets to be annoying.

I try to enjoy this classic stuff, but I’m only mildly amused. I’m talking bell pepper mild here.

Part of my problem with Laurel and Hardy, I think, is that I grew up in the '60’s and '70’s watching the Three Stooges. Now, them guys make me laugh. If Laurel and Hardy are the bell peppers of slapstick comedy, the Stooges are scotch bonnets. The Stooges don’t linger over their mayhem, they keep up the tempo. That’s why they’re funny.

Anyway, back in the '70’s when I started reading film critic’s opinions, it was still fashionable to dis the Stooges as low grade hacks. Most critics back then praised Laurel and Hardy as comedy gods.

This snobbery always pissed me off. It still does. I think that’s part of the reason I’ve never understood the adulation surrounding Laurel and Hardy.

The critics back then also praised the Marx Brothers to the skies. But I never minded that because I find the Marx Brothers pretty funny.

2

I grew up in the '60s watching L&H and the Stooges, and I always laughed at both.

Two completely different styles of comedy, one burlesque and the other very subtle. The first requires a rapid pace, the second has to be much more staid.

The Marx Bros. movies are pure insanity. You have to laugh before you realize just how stupid the jokes are.

Tastes differ. Thankfully, mine are eclectic. I can appreciate all of the above.

3

The last time I saw something by Laurel & Hardy, this was precisely my reaction: the pacing didn’t work for me at all.

So, yes, I agree with the OP.

4

I never saw the genius in Laurel & Hardy until I viewed some of their shorts in a silent movie theater with an audience and a live organist. It was brilliant, and I don’t ever remember laughing so hard. Sometimes you just have to experience art in its intended form and venue to really appreciate it.

5

The pacing is slower than nowadays because there had to be a buildup of tension with things going wrong until the climax was reached. Comedies today always seem to be in a hurry to get to the punch line, which is usually lame. This is a big reason why I no longer go to the movies or watch many sitcoms. I simply don’t find them funny.

6

Of all of those old comedy teams, Laurel & Hardy are the best in my opinion. My son, when he was only about 2 or 3 used to watch the shorts over and over again. He still loved them as an adult. Of course, some of the films weren’t as good as others but there are some that will always make me laugh: Berth Marks, Their First Mistake, Dirty Work, Me & My Pal, County Hospital, Another Fine Mess and Helpmates. There are certain lines in each one that will always crack me up and I will always remember. We even use them around the house - “Why don’t you do something to help me?”, “Quit crowding me”, “I want to press me pants”, hard boild eggs and nuts.

I never cared for any of the full-length movies.

7

Me neither. I agree the shorts are funnier. But still, meh.

8

I recall reading that L&H used to test out their gags to measure how long the laughter lasted and so they could hold off the next one until the audience was paying attention- so that might be why it appears slow on TV, and in a theater with live music accompaniment it seemed funnier (of course the group response enhances that, hence laugh tracks).

9

If this is true, they were the stupidest team in comedy.

10

The Marx Brothers did the same thing.

Even Woody Allen lengthened scene after seeing audience reaction to the “cocaine sneeze” scene in Annie Hall.

I’m not a fan of Laurel and Hardy. Their gags are never more than mildly amusing. Gerald Mast pointed out they were second tier comedians their entire career. I find them on the level of the Edgar Kennedy shorts.

11

Why? For not anticipating that someday their films would be seen on TV, instead of in front of a mass audience?

12

I like Laurel and Hardy a little, but they are slow and I have to be in the right kind of laid back mood to enjoy them. Their films could probably be edited to reflect modern comedy responses. They would be much shorter, but that’s just from removing dead time, everything good they did would still be there.

13

No, for expecting the flow of a comedy skit to apply precisely measured pauses. The response will always vary. Don’t just stand there flat-footed, waiting for the chuckles to end. If the audience misses a gag, let them catch the next one.

14

Billy Wilder adjusted the timing in his movies in response to test audiences’ response. A classic example is Marilyn Monroe’s walk past the train in Some Like It Hot. William Wyler did the same thing in the cafe scene with Gregory Peck and Eddie Albert in Roman Holiday.

Tampering with L&H shorts to “bring them up to modern standards” would ruin them. It would be on the level of defacing the Mona Lisa. Contemporary movies generally suck anyway, especially comedies.

The reason L&H’s full-length movies aren’t as good as the shorts is the same one that afflicted Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis when they moved from nightclubs to motion pictures. They were playing characters written for them instead of basically being themselves.

15

I agree with this. And Laurel and Hardy fans would raise freaking hell.

16

Which has been done plenty of times.

17

I meant the actual painting, not facsimiles. And most of those examples are hideous anyway.

18

Yeah, I kinda agree. I saw they were on and avoided that like a bucket of spit. Can’t stand The Marx Brother or Abbot and Costello, either.

I’m a Stooge Man, all the way! Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!

19

Why? I’m talking about better timing, getting rid of dead time. It’s like getting rid of the lines to get into a museum to see the Mona Lisa, not doing anything to the image itself. By your reasoning it’s an abomination to ever show a clip of movie, like nothing less than viewing the entire movie is acceptable. If someone thinks the upper left corner of the Mona Lisa is worth looking at then why would you care if they ignored the rest of it?

20

The timing was calculated very deliberately by Stan Laurel himself. He wouldn’t even let Oliver Hardy tamper with it (“What, you want to ruin the whole thing?”). There is no “dead time” in the shorts: each mishap happens as it needs to in order to reach the climax.

Clips can be done so long as the sequence of events in each is kept intact from start to finish. Otherwise, you end up with something like this:

Why the hell would anyone other than a restorer want to look at bits and pieces of the Mona Lisa???