'BE BIG'--A LAUREL AND HARDY MISSING SCENE
Having very much enjoyed 'Stan and Ollie', the Laurel and Hardy biopic, I've been immersed for the past few days in gathering up the shards of unseen L&H material that for some reason I've missed over the years. Mostly this consists of their silent films, which I never had any real interest in--what are L&H without their voices? Well, I was wrong. The silents are delightful and I'm plowing through them at a rapid rate. Then there are the lousy Fox films of the early-mid forties of which I've only seen two--'Jitterbugs' and 'The Bullfighters' and which, honestly, I feel it might be better off to avoid. L&H without Hal Roach simply were not themselves--I have a feeling that Stan would have resented hearing that, but Roach provided them with the freedom to work at their best and most comfortable level (and beside, he had that Marvin Hatley music). Then there are the multi language shorts which are interesting to behold, in a limited ...