Laurel and Hardy - SAPS AT SEA
Ollie Suffers a debilitating illness ; he cannot stand the sound of a horn. Which is bad news as he works, with Stan - in a horn factory. I don’t have to write anymore. You can tell there’s going to be more horns than on the African continent.
Again, certainly a disk well worth watching; the sound has been cleaned up and there are some excellent classic L & H sequences ; putting jackets on; reversing a car, taking a nail out of a shoe. Even answering a telephone is rigged for a 90 second ‘bit’. All show the inventiveness which have kept their film consistently popular for over almost seventy years. The picture quality on the main feature is exceptional, though the colorisation option on these disks is generally best avoided.
Also on this disk are BELOW ZERO, the notorious film where Ollie for some reason becomes tired of playing a double bass in the snow, and persuades Stan that they must try and better themselves. Again, hilarious and a pre-cursor to the Chumps AT Oxford feature which they made later. The sound on this has also been cleaned up and the picture quality is excellent.
Also on this disk are TIEMBLA y TITUBEA, which appears to be BELOW ZERO in Spanish. I don’t know what the thinking was here. But the film was obviously shot twice with all signs being in Spanish ‘ the dubbing, though clumsy, sounds like it could be Stan and Ollie, and it does give new insight into the pair, seeing them in a new language, even though I can’t understand a word. There are subtitles, but they don’t seem to work on the Spanish version.
Finally there’s a silent on this disk called You’re Darn Tootin’. Which is again an early collaboration of Stan and Ollie. Again it is interesting to see the characters in an early stage of development; this was the period when they were defining the trademark brown Derby hats, made around 1926. they are, once again, musicians who are taunted by fate. this is one of the better silent movies, certainly more of the long suffering of Ollie and the child like wonderment of Stan had developed.
All in all the main feature, SAPS at SEA is the bit everyone is going to like here, the additional material really is for fans or people like myself who work in comedy to see the mechanics of the partnership develop.
It’s not the best Laurel and Hardy disk, but if you like them you’ll like this. If you are looking to introduce someone to Laurel and Hardy, then this is probably not the best disk to choose.
Again, no extra features on this disk, with the exception of the subtitles, though a excellent job has been done cleaning up the sound and the standard introduction montage on all these disks always raises a smile.