50-movie comedy classics disc 1
That’s right—it’s another 50-pack, this time comedy “classics.”
It’s a little tricky to watch silent short comedies, particularly slapstick comedies—particularly when you’re alone. There’s the gap of time and change in comedy styles to consider; silents offer fewer clues; and most of all, to be fair to the original flick, you have to wonder what it would be like to watch it in a movie theatre surrounded by hundreds of others, with organ music going behind the movie. I’m trying to do that; it’s not always easy.
This disc consists of five collections of shorts—17 in all.
Stan Laurel Festival (all b&w, all silent and presented with unrelated music, all with Stan Laurel). Includes Mud and Sand, 1922, Gilbert Pratt (dir.), 0:26; Just Rambling Along, 1918, Hal Roach (dir.), Clarine Seymour, 0:09; Oranges and Lemons, 1923, George Jeske (dir.), 0:12.
Mud and Sand would seem inordinately strange if you hadn’t seen Rudolph Valentino’s Blood and Sand—but fortunately, I had—and recently (in the 50 Movie Hollywood Legends set). With Stan Laurel as Rhubarb Vaselino—well, it’s pretty much a plot-for-plot remake but with silly names, lots of titles talking about “bull” with both meanings, and Laurel’s slapstick. The print’s poor at times, and this seemed as forced as many single-movie spoofs.
Just Rambling Along is apparently one of the earliest Laurel shorts, and it’s best moment is in a cafeteria line where Laurel manages to cadge a fairly full meal out of a ten cent cup of coffee (but the pretty young thing he sits next to then swaps his not-yet-paid ticket for her .25 big meal). Good print and so-so slapstick: I might have been laughing in that theater. …