Rating: 
Summary: Mixed. Purists will hate the feature but the shorts are fine
Review: Artisan presents its first Laurel & Hardy DVD, containing vintage material produced in the 1930s by Hal Roach. Laurel & Hardy fans have been waiting for this release, and this writer's reaction is mixed."Sons of the Desert" is a genuine comedy classic, with Stan and Ollie sneaking off to a lodge convention without telling their wives. But beware the DVD's claim of "digitally remastered" -- this version was broadcast on TV's "Laurel & Hardy Show" in pre-digital 1986. The film is incomplete, with edited scenes (the "wax fruit" and "convention" are trimmed), overdubbed background music, and frequent fade-outs for commercial breaks. The editing is good, so casual fans and general audiences will enjoy the feature, but dyed-in-the-wool Laurel & Hardy admirers will resent all the tampering. The DVD's featurettes and short subjects have better picture quality, and appear to be taken from excellent 35mm and 16mm prints. "Another Fine Mess" (vagrants Stan and Ollie pose as butler and householder to escape the police) is the 1990s restoration that aired on the AMC cable network; it has the original Hal Roach titles and is superior to older video and TV editions. "The Music Box" (the team's Oscar-winner where the boys move a piano up a long flight of steps) and "Busy Bodies" (Stan and Ollie in a carpentry shop) are also fine presentations. "County Hospital" (visitor Stan ruins patient Ollie's hospital stay) is taken from a 1940s "Film Classics" reissue print but the quality is equally good. This writer noticed a very occasional light scratch or stray debris in the image, but the flaws are minor and should not detract from your enjoyment unless you are a perfectionist. The menus and bonus features use some clever optical effects. Too bad Artisan hadn't consulted a better print of "Sons of the Desert," or paid more attention to the transfer, but it's great to have this choice material on DVD at all. Here's hoping Artisan will continue its Laurel & Hardy series.
Rating: 
Summary: START YOUR LAUREL AND HARDY COLLECTION OFF RIGHT!
Review: This long awaited DVD contains one of 'they boys' best loved features Sons of the Desert and a nice selection of their two reel comedies; Busy Bodies, Another Fine Mess (which is actually a three reeler), County Hospital, and the Academy Award winning Music Box. What makes this release so important is that it is the first (of hopefully many) of their sound comedies. The Laurel and Hardy catalog has been criminally ignored over time and the package of films has switched hands too often with no care going into the released product. Fans have had to tolerate colorized (UGH!) prints or non restored films that have been copied so much they are barely recognizable. Artisans (Hallmark) DVD states these films are 'digitally remastered' which indicates we are finally seeing these films fully restored much like the Little Rascals product that was released on VHS through Cabin Fever and Artisan a few years ago. If you are a Laurel and Hardy fan like me who has been waiting to see these films the way they were meant to be seen, get out there and support this release and order it now. If enough of us get behind it, it should ensure more releases from this classic team.
Rating:
Summary: Slightly Dissenting Opinion
Review: O.K.,so this isn't the sharp,new restoration seen in Europe.But at least the prints of MUSIC BOX and COUNTY HOSPITAL have some of that crisp sunny look that one also associates with the best prints of silent comedies[especially in the Robert Youngson complilations.]I think the exteriors on HOSPITAL are brighter than they were on the 80's LAUREL AND HARDY SHOW package,and the greys are pretty good for a Film Classics print.BUSY BODIES is dark in comparison,but at least it's better than those contrasty 16MM prints that were once the norm.I think that the transfer of MUSIC BOX is the one prepared by Janus in 1978 for public TV,because I recall being struck by the clear sound quality[hiss notwithstanding]and this is duplicated on the DVD.I would love to find out why the Kirsch group restorations were not used.I know that Kirsch went bankrupt.Maybe Hallmark and Kinowelt are having some kind of feud.
Rating: 
Summary: Honesty Is The Best Politics
Review: There was incredible excitement at our house when we found this DVD at Amazon. My son even used his own money to buy it. While the picture quality is good, and the films on the disc are some of their best, I must say I'm a little confused by a few ... choices ... made for this compilation.
Oddity number one: No matter which audio track, digitally restored or unrestored, you choose for "The Sons of the Desert," there has been some very low-volume background music added to Ollie's "nervous shakedown scene," and perhaps others. (I've only had time to spot check). I believe the music is from Beau Hunks recordings, also available on Amazon.
Don't get me wrong; I love the Beau Hunks. But I'd rather see a "restored" Laurel & Hardy film exactly as released, or, maybe with a deleted scene added back in. For instance, "Laughing Gravy" is available this way, and has typical Hal Roach underscoring for the deleted scene added from modern recordings. That, at least is defensible on the grounds that the deleted scene probably would have had underscoring in 1931. But I don't know why someone would add music now to a scene that was released without it.
Oddity number two: The sound track for "Another Fine Mess" isn't synchronized properly. You can spot this when Officer Harry Bernard complains about Stan answering, 'Yes, ma'am." Bernard hits his chest twice. The sound is late. Ditto when Stan and Ollie slam the front door. This short suffered from missing elements when it was being restored in 1986, but synchronization shouldn't have been a problem when it was transferred to DVD.
While the picture quality of all the material was generally quite good, I believe there are better elements available. For instance, camera negative for "The Music Box" was extant as recently as 1986, and "County Hospital" as of the same date was available in the studio lavender composite. The print of "County Hospital" in the DVD has quite a few scratches in it, and although they're not dramatic, it's not likely a lavender would suffer from scratches.
Still, it's good to see the boys in above average copies of some of their best films.
Rating:
Summary: Hard Boiled Eggs and Nuts
Review: The unavailability of classic Laurel and Hardy sound films in America has amounted to nothing short of national criminal neglect -- especially since several European companies have gone to great length (and expense) to restore many of them. Hopefully, this DVD will be the first in an eventual complete series of Stan and Ollie that will rectify this failing. More hopefully, this DVD will contain those restored editions circulating in Europe and recent limited theatrical U.S. release. So, what we have before us at long last is a collection containing one of the greatest full-length comedies ever made (SON'S OF THE DESERT), perhaps THE greatest short comedy feature of all time (the Academy Award winning THE MUSIC BOX), two solid "B" shorts (BUSY BODIES & COUNTY HOSPITAL), and the interesting, if not classic, ANOTHER FINE MESS. To focus on just one, few films are so etched into the common psyche as MUSIC BOX. Anyone who has ever seen it -- even as a small child -- remembers assending the Steps of Sisyphus, and the "mechanical blunderbus" piano with a seeming mind of its own. One of their many surrealist masterpieces (it's not by chance that Dali once credited the Boy's BELOW ZERO as his favorite film) every scene shimmers with a kind of internal Magical Reality. How can that flimsy awning support a giant piano with massive block-and-tackle? Is the horse Susie actually consciously planning Ollie's indignities? Yet, the world of 1127 Walnut Ave. -- the ever receding house "on the stoop" -- is as real and inevitable as gravity.
Now, with a world of over 100 additional L&H films to choose from, can we at least hope for a volume two?
Rating:
Summary: "Hard boiled eggs and nuts!"
Review: I don't know why the people who have this DVD are complaining about the transfers being bad, that's rubbish. Their all hard boiled eggs and nuts!
Rating:
Summary: Picture and sound worse than European releases
Review: The picture and sound of this DVD are worse compared with the European release. On the other hand it's unfair to compare an NTSC release with a PAL version - anyway the difference is obvious since the masters are different and the master of the German Kinowelt release or the master of the British release (which is the same) is much better.
Rating: 
Summary: DVD didn't work
Review: I bought this DVD as a Christmas gift for my father, an avid Laurel & Hardy fan, and when we tried to watch it the day after Christmas, it would not play in his brand new DVD player. We tried it on another DVD player at a neighbor's house and it would not work there either. The only place it would somewhat work was on my sister's laptop, but she was leaving to go home to California the next day. It is unfortunate that when trying to return an electronics product you are also only credited with half of the price of the movie because it was opened. How else would you know that it works? I undersand Amazon needs to have policies on these items, but they should assist the consumer in getting a new, working copy from the manufacturer as an exchange or at a reduced cost. Not only was my father looking forward to watching this set of classics, but there are no comparable DVDs to get as a replacement gift (in B&W/costwise). I'm sure this can happen anywhere, but at least if you buy a DVD at a store and need to return it, you can deal with an actual person. Just one of the downfalls of online shopping, I guess.
Rating:
Summary: A GOOD BUT SHORT COLLECTION
Review: This DVD provides 5 L & H features, among them the classics "Sons of the Desert" and the Music Box. All are some of the best of their features but there could have been more I think. A few decent extra features. nothing to write home about.
Rating:
Summary: Off to a great start,but we would love more please!!!!
Review: It's great that the Laurel and Hardy shorts and Sons of the Desert are on dvd,but couldn't they have put all of theirs in a box set,like Kino on Video did with Buster Keaton????I'm sure for the special features they could put in the foreign shorts,tv appearances and so on,right?? These are great shorts from one of the best comedy teams ever,but they deserve better!! These are perfect for the family and parents,please show these to the kids,so they'll see what real comedy is all about and not have them think Adam Sandler and the lot are funny,ok??? These will always stand the test of time and never get old...Very funny!!...P.s..How about a box set next time?
| 
