Rating: 
Summary: They go boom
Review: I must admit that it's a great DVD, but I disagree with the other reviewer that the new sound on "They go boom" is a revelation. They replaced the optical soundtrack with the original sound-on-disc soundtrack, but I think the optical one should have been better, because now the sound is terribly out of sync. And that's a shame, because otherwise I should have rated this DVD 5 instead of 4 stars. Nevertheless I think it's a great DVD.
Rating: 
Summary: the best
Review: i think they are so funny can anybody tell me the name of the film where they have to get a piano up loads of stairs (does it really matter if the sound is not that good)
Rating:
Summary: Solid compilation
Review: I wish the films in this series had been put out in chronological order on the discs instead of having shorts from different years rammed together, but even for being assembled in a less than ideal fashion, this is fine material. The package also contains information about and synopses of the films presented, including information about films which were on the verge of decomposition or, like some of the films on this volume, which hadn't been heard with the proper soundtracks in decades.
Apparently a number of people dislike 'They Go Boom!,' but I love this short. That might be because it's been years since I've had the opportunity to see any of their sound shorts which are new to me, since AMC no longer shows them and I've been making do of a tape with five of their sound shorts on it for too many years now (when are we American fans going to get real DVD treatment of all of their sound shorts like the Brits have?!); still, I find this short hilarious. They often recycled elements of past shorts and movies; in this movie I recognised one of the gags in the later 'Busy Bodies,' the nail in the wall going right into a waterpipe, with predictable results. Elements of 'Bacon Grabbers' (another great short presented here) also resurface in 'The Music Box.' The other strongest work on here comes from 'Their Purple Moment' and 'On the Wrong Trek'; I love the L&H cameo appearance in the latter Charley Chase short!
'Should Sailors Marry?' is enjoyable and funny, but overall doesn't seem quite as strong as the rest of the shorts, and really only seems to have been included because Oliver Hardy appears as a doctor, a bit more than halfway through the piece. 'Unaccustomed As We Are' is funny, but should have stayed a talkie. This picture does not work as a silent film. At all. There are some bits of it that are great silent comedy, but they're cancelled out by the most intertitles in any L&H short. The humour in this piece derived from a combination of speech and slapstick, but there are just WAY too many intertitles explaining what's going on and what's being said to get as much humour out of it as there is in the original talking version. It's in the same vein as how some late silent pictures were later rereleased with sound dubbed onto them--it took away from how the story was being conveyed, and clearly UAWA was specifically built to be a sound comedy, not a silent comedy.
Rating:
Summary: The early experiments of Laurel & Hardy with sound
Review: The four Laurel & Hardy comedy shorts collected together on this fourth volume of "Lost Films" represents some of the boys' earliest work with sound. "They Go Boom" finds Ollie in bed with a bad head cold and his friend Stan waiting on him. Unfortunately, this ends up pretty much destroying their small rented room to the consternation of their landlord Charlie Hall. As with several other of these early Laurel & Hardy talkies, "They Go Boom" relies on a single situation exploited for comic effect because that made it easier for the microphone to pick up the sound. This 1929 two-reeler was directed by James Parrott from a script by the great Leo McCarey. In "Their Purple Moment," Laurel & Hardy simply want to go out bowling, but their wives never leave them any pocket money. Stan has been sneaking a little cash each week and hiding it in a special hiding place, which, of course, their wives are watching when he explains this to Ollie. After the wives replace the cash with cigar coupons, the boys are sent out on the town. Before they can discover the switch, they hook up with a couple of young ladies who have been stood up by their dates and decide to invite the boys to take their place. Laurel & Hardy taken them to a fancy restaurant, leaving the cab with the meter running. Once the boys discover they have no money, thinks quickly deteriorate until the climatic soup fight involving the boys, their wives, the waiter, the cabbie and everyone else in sight. This 1928 two-reeler was also directed by James Parrott. "Bacon Grabbers" is pretty much a unique Laurel & Hardy film because when it was first released it had a musical score and special sound effects recorded on a disc. So it was not a "talkie" per se, but something in between. Without those sound effects, this 1929 silent two-reeler directed by Lewis Foster is obviously missing something. In the first reel the boys try to serve Edgar Kennedy with a summons for his radio, while the second finds them pursuing him in and around his house in high slapstick style. As is true of many Laurel & Hardy comedy shorts of this period, the story is be Leo McCarey and George Stevens is behind the camera. Kennedy's wife in this film is another one of Hal Roach's stable of players, Jean Harlow. "Unaccustomed as We Are" is the alternate silent version of the first full talkie by Laurel & Hardy. Hardy brings Laurel home for a home cooked meal by his wife (Mae Busch), who storms out of the apartment at this imposition. Thelma Todd plays the friendly blonde next door who takes pity on the boys and makes dinner for them. Unfortunately she accidentally burns her dress and as soon as she has taken it off both her husband, cop Edgar Kennedy, and Ollie's wife suddenly return. Thelma hides in the trunk and then the comedy takes an interesting twist. Kennedy figures out what is going on and decides to have some fun of his own, making Laurel & Hardy bring the trunk over to his apartment. In the end both wives go after their husbands with pretty much everything in the kitchen. This 1929 two-reeler was directed by Lewis Foster from a story by Leo McCarey, who was writing most of the boys' comedies at this point. Also included on this disc are the 1925 Oliver Hardy solo short "Should Sailors Marry?" and a cameo appearance by the boys in the Charley Chase 1936 short "On the Wrong Trek."
Rating: 
Summary: Lost Films of Laurel & Hardy 4
Review: The four Laurel & Hardy comedy shorts collected together on this fourth volume of "Lost Films" represents some of the boys' earliest work with sound. "They Go Boom" finds Ollie in bed with a bad head cold and his friend Stan waiting on him. Unfortunately, this ends up pretty much destroying their small rented room to the consternation of their landlord Charlie Hall. As with several other of these early Laurel & Hardy talkies, "They Go Boom" relies on a single situation exploited for comic effect because that made it easier for the microphone to pick up the sound. This 1929 two-reeler was directed by James Parrott from a script by the great Leo McCarey. In "Their Purple Moment," Laurel & Hardy simply want to go out bowling, but their wives never leave them any pocket money. Stan has been sneaking a little cash each week and hiding it in a special hiding place, which, of course, their wives are watching when he explains this to Ollie. After the wives replace the cash with cigar coupons, the boys are sent out on the town. Before they can discover the switch, they hook up with a couple of young ladies who have been stood up by their dates and decide to invite the boys to take their place. Laurel & Hardy taken them to a fancy restaurant, leaving the cab with the meter running. Once the boys discover they have no money, thinks quickly deteriorate until the climatic soup fight involving the boys, their wives, the waiter, the cabbie and everyone else in sight. This 1928 two-reeler was also directed by James Parrott. "Bacon Grabbers" is pretty much a unique Laurel & Hardy film because when it was first released it had a musical score and special sound effects recorded on a disc. So it was not a "talkie" per se, but something in between. Without those sound effects, this 1929 silent two-reeler directed by Lewis Foster is obviously missing something. In the first reel the boys try to serve Edgar Kennedy with a summons for his radio, while the second finds them pursuing him in and around his house in high slapstick style. As is true of many Laurel & Hardy comedy shorts of this period, the story is be Leo McCarey and George Stevens is behind the camera. Kennedy's wife in this film is another one of Hal Roach's stable of players, Jean Harlow. "Unaccustomed as We Are" is the alternate silent version of the first full talkie by Laurel & Hardy. Hardy brings Laurel home for a home cooked meal by his wife (Mae Busch), who storms out of the apartment at this imposition. Thelma Todd plays the friendly blonde next door who takes pity on the boys and makes dinner for them. Unfortunately she accidentally burns her dress and as soon as she has taken it off both her husband, cop Edgar Kennedy, and Ollie's wife suddenly return. Thelma hides in the trunk and then the comedy takes an interesting twist. Kennedy figures out what is going on and decides to have some fun of his own, making Laurel & Hardy bring the trunk over to his apartment. In the end both wives go after their husbands with pretty much everything in the kitchen. This 1929 two-reeler was directed by Lewis Foster from a story by Leo McCarey, who was writing most of the boys' comedies at this point. Also included on this disc are the 1925 Oliver Hardy solo short "Should Sailors Marry?" and a cameo appearance by the boys in the Charley Chase 1936 short "On the Wrong Trek."
Rating:
Summary: The early experiments of Laurel & Hardy with sound
Review: The four Laurel & Hardy comedy shorts collected together on this fourth volume of "Lost Films" represents some of the boys' earliest work with sound. "They Go Boom" finds Ollie in bed with a bad head cold and his friend Stan waiting on him. Unfortunately, this ends up pretty much destroying their small rented room to the consternation of their landlord Charlie Hall. As with several other of these early Laurel & Hardy talkies, "They Go Boom" relies on a single situation exploited for comic effect because that made it easier for the microphone to pick up the sound. This 1929 two-reeler was directed by James Parrott from a script by the great Leo McCarey. In "Their Purple Moment," Laurel & Hardy simply want to go out bowling, but their wives never leave them any pocket money. Stan has been sneaking a little cash each week and hiding it in a special hiding place, which, of course, their wives are watching when he explains this to Ollie. After the wives replace the cash with cigar coupons, the boys are sent out on the town. Before they can discover the switch, they hook up with a couple of young ladies who have been stood up by their dates and decide to invite the boys to take their place. Laurel & Hardy taken them to a fancy restaurant, leaving the cab with the meter running. Once the boys discover they have no money, thinks quickly deteriorate until the climatic soup fight involving the boys, their wives, the waiter, the cabbie and everyone else in sight. This 1928 two-reeler was also directed by James Parrott. "Bacon Grabbers" is pretty much a unique Laurel & Hardy film because when it was first released it had a musical score and special sound effects recorded on a disc. So it was not a "talkie" per se, but something in between. Without those sound effects, this 1929 silent two-reeler directed by Lewis Foster is obviously missing something. In the first reel the boys try to serve Edgar Kennedy with a summons for his radio, while the second finds them pursuing him in and around his house in high slapstick style. As is true of many Laurel & Hardy comedy shorts of this period, the story is be Leo McCarey and George Stevens is behind the camera. Kennedy's wife in this film is another one of Hal Roach's stable of players, Jean Harlow. "Unaccustomed as We Are" is the alternate silent version of the first full talkie by Laurel & Hardy. Hardy brings Laurel home for a home cooked meal by his wife (Mae Busch), who storms out of the apartment at this imposition. Thelma Todd plays the friendly blonde next door who takes pity on the boys and makes dinner for them. Unfortunately she accidentally burns her dress and as soon as she has taken it off both her husband, cop Edgar Kennedy, and Ollie's wife suddenly return. Thelma hides in the trunk and then the comedy takes an interesting twist. Kennedy figures out what is going on and decides to have some fun of his own, making Laurel & Hardy bring the trunk over to his apartment. In the end both wives go after their husbands with pretty much everything in the kitchen. This 1929 two-reeler was directed by Lewis Foster from a story by Leo McCarey, who was writing most of the boys' comedies at this point. Also included on this disc are the 1925 Oliver Hardy solo short "Should Sailors Marry?" and a cameo appearance by the boys in the Charley Chase 1936 short "On the Wrong Trek."
Rating:
Summary: gems....
Review: The lost films of laurel and hardy collection are my proudest possessions as far as dvds go,,,this is a must have for any fans laurel and hardy or fans of old time comedy,or silent films,these are just as good as their talkies,which is rare for that time period.........
Rating:
Summary: Sound Problem Fixed
Review: The newly-digitized and restored soundtrack for THEY GO BOOM! had slipped out of synch during the compression process (this can happen with DVD--and you can't even tell that it has done so--and this happens more than one would think). But, the disc has been completely remastered and the soundtrack of THEY GO BOOM! is now perfectly in synch as it should be.
Rating: 
Summary: Some solid laughs from the end of the silent era
Review: This collection, featuring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, as well as other stars from the Hal Roach Studio, will be an essential addition to loyal fans of the comic duo, who will be easily convinced to buy this, as well as the other volumes in the series. For those with a broader interest in silent screen comedy, but who are not necessarily die-hard L&H fans, this collection is as good a representation of the best of the duo's silent and early sound output as any others in the series, but no better.
L&H may not have been the first silent comic team, but they were the first to illustrate the potential of two funny men who became funnier as the result of the ability to play off the personality of the other. However, "They Go Boom", which starts the volume, is a very weak early sound film, offering mostly crude physical humor based on accidentally inflicted pain and discomfort, combined with a weak dialogue. "Their Purple Moment", a silent from 1928, offers a stark contrast, and is the best of this volume. It is light, energetic, perfectly paced, and full of refined visual humor about two husbands trying to escape the wives and paint the town. In general, the best of their silent films, including this one, seem to be those with future great directors Leo McCarey and George Stevens (as photographer) in the credits. McCarey and Stevens also supervised "Bacon Grabbers", one of their last silent films. This one also has a number of clever scenes, as in the opening. They play "repo agents" and they've received their assignment. The difficulty they have just leaving their office with the papers to serve in their hands and their hats on their heads aptly illustrates the extent of their comic grace.
The other L&H film in this volume includes "Unaccustomed As We Are", a silent version of their first talkie; it is, however, too overloaded with dialogue titles to make a good silent film. The other two selections, starring Clyde Cook in one and Charlie Chase in the other, are forgettable.
Rating:
Summary: Lost Films of Laurel & Hardy 4
Review: This item has no spoken dialogue. Disappointed....
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