I loved this film. I realize a great deal of that might be due to my enormous affection for the comedy duo of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Which may be strange I guess in that I don't think I have watched one of their films since I was a teenager (which was a long time ago). Do they even show their films on TV any more? Would kids even get them now? Their comedy was so gentle, quiet and loving. Much of their comedy resided in a simple expression and the inevitability that all would go wrong eventually. But putting that aside I think this film was brilliant - balancing the sentiment, the sadness, the comedy so well.


Wisely I expect - though initially I was disappointed - the film makes only a brief stopover in their glory days when they were so enormously popular - and jumps to 1953 when their film careers were over, they hadn't had their rebirth in TV yet and their health was beginning to deteriorate - Ollie at a much faster rate. So they sign a contract to tour in England in hopes that a movie deal will come through. Its wonderful and based on fact for the most part - initially they are playing to half empty houses but the word spreads - it's fucking Laurel and Hardy - and they are playing to sold out theaters and do a few of their classic routines. In a poignant moment Laurel walks by a movie poster for Abbott and Costello and just gazes at it. Nothing needs to be said. Hacks compared to them but they were now the premier comedy duo.


Even with a great script, it wouldn't have mattered much without the right actors and Steve Coogan as Laurel and John C. Reilly as Oliver are amazing - they look like them, have their patter down, have their idiosyncrasies down, have the way they move down - to a T. After a while you almost forget you are watching actors and not the real thing. The film is such a love letter to these two icons and though it is steeped in an unspoken sadness because we know that they are coming to an end of their partnership and that Hardy is only a few years away from death, it still feels like a gift to us and to their memory. Once I finish the Keaton shorts, it will be time to embark on Laurel and Hardy.


Prior to teaming up both actors had made a number of shorts in the silent period. I watched one of Laurel's a month or so ago and it wasn't very funny. You can see hints at the character he was going to take on, but it wasn't there yet. And I saw Hardy in a silent as well - he was just a side character but he stole the show. They teamed up for the first time in 1927 and made 72 shorts and 23 feature films over the next 33 years. Nearly all of their work has been preserved. Hardy passed away in 1957 and Laurel refused to work without him afterwards. Stan passed away in 1965. Laurel wrote a lot of their material and became a mentor and influence to such as Dick Van Dyke and Dick Cavett who talked about him with reverence in an interview on Cavett's show.