Another Fine DVD Issue 1 It now seems that hardly a month passes before new L&H material is available on DVD these days. Whether it be superior German sound shorts, or yet another Flying Deuces re-issue. With so many to choose from which do you opt for? As a collector it would be nice to say all - but I think a happy medium of good quality DVD's to steadily replace the worn out video versions is the best route. If you do not have Internet access then some choices may be limited/difficult to purchase - indeed you may not even know of some discs existing at all. That is where we come in - a special newsletter, designed to detail and review ALL DVD releases of The Boys worldwide, giving you the reader and informed choice of what to buy. These special issues will give basic details of new and forthcoming releases, as well as full reviews of those already available, good places to buy them, and price ranges. This first issue deals mainly with US discs, with UK and Europe to follow - although there will be a bit of every region in each issue. Happy viewing. STOP PRESS AT LAST - A VERSION OF FLYING DEUCES WORTH GETTING!!!!!!!!!! While on holiday I purchased a superior version of Flying Deuces, it may look like previous UK versions with its black cover, but has a new drawing of the Boys in the left hand corner of the sleeve. The cover also states NEW remastered version. More on this next issue. Editorial address: 53 Garnett Road East, Porthill, Newcastle-Under-Lyme, Staffs, ST5 8AP. E-mail: antony@stokelaurelnhardy.fsworld.co.uk. New and Forthcoming Releases (for all regions) USA Two disc set of the remastered Sons of the Desert, Music Box, Another Fine Mess, Busy Bodies, County Hospital and extras. Five-disc box set by Passport/Koch Entertainment of Utopia, Flying Deuces, March of the Wooden Soldiers, Be Big/Lucky Dog, This Is Your Life/At the Movies. GERMANY June 2003 - Babes In Toyland/Another Fine Mess/Duck Soup August - Night Owls/Midnight Patrol/Fixer Uppers/Habeas Corpus October - Do Detectives Think/Scram/Murder Case/Bacon Grabbers/Leave 'em Laughing December - Thicker Than Water/Oliver 8th/That's My Wife/With Love and Hisses January 2004 - Perfect Day/Berth Marks/Battle of the Century/Flying Elephants ITALY Sons of the Desert Flying Deuces Pack Up Your Troubles Way Out West Babes in Toyland Atoll K Swiss Miss Our Relations A Chump At Oxford All the above to feature at least one solo short, and extras such as trailers. UK The Artsmagic label has released some of the solo films, along with Lucky Dog, Stolen Jools, Utopia and This Is Your Life. More on this to follow next issue. Extra! Eggstra! A brief look at some of the lesser-known extras of The Boys available on shiny discs. The Kinowelt disc of Their Purple Moment features Dick Und Doof versions of Leave 'Em Laughing and Bacon Grabbers, even though the menu screen lets you believe it's a German version of Double Whoopee. The same disc also contains a L&H DVD trailer in German along with a clip from Blockheads and trailer to Chump at Oxford. Kinowelt's Saps At Sea contains a trailer to Die Doppelganger. Kinowelt's In Oxford disc contains a film critic (Theo Lingen) telling us all about Oxford (in German of course). The schoolroom scene from Pardon Us is also included. Beau Hunks (Kinowelt) contains Chase's Crazy Like A Fox and an interview. Listings and Reviews for the American Region 0 and 1 NTSC Discs The following list is all of the various discs we know of that feature non-Roach material. More details on these will follow as we get them. * Fighting Kentuckian * Comedy Kings Collectors Box (Diamond Video) Includes L&H, Three Stooges, Bob Hope, and Our Gang etc in Road to Bali, Jack and the Beanstalk, At War With The Army. * Slapstick Encyclopedia - 53 shorts, over 15 hours including L&H, Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Arbuckle and Rogers. * Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1920) (Kino Video) - includes Stan's solo work Dr Pyckle and Mr Pryde. * The New Adventures of Laurel and Hardy: For Love or Mummy (Monarch Home Video, cat no. MHV 7548). Running time: 84 mins. Approx $15. * Flying Deuces (Madacy Entertainment, cat no.dvd9 9268) includes newsreel, blooper reel, lobby poster and trivia quiz. Running time: 70 mins. * Utopia (Madacy Entertainment) * Flying Deuces & Utopia "Collectors Choice Double Feature" (Madacy Entertainment, cat no.dvd9 9113). Includes facts, trivia, filmography, Stan and Babe bios. Running time: 70 mins (Flying), 83 mins (Utopia). * March of the Wooden Soldiers (Good Times DVD, cat no.05-81056). Superior colour version, with Stan home movie footage, Babe 1950 interview, B/W trailer and notes. Running time: 78 mins. HAL ROACH STUDIOS/IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT DISCS In the US ten discs of fully restored films are available - nine "Lost Films" and one "and friends" title. It took the restoration teams nearly seven years to work on these titles, and the set comprises of all the silent works, with a couple of talkies, and quite a few solo works - each disc usually comprising four films of the Boys together and two solo. Many of the films have been restored from the original nitrate prints, Kodascope master positive prints, and original 35mm camera negatives. Most have the original Vitaphone music and effects track also - so if you are used to seeing and hearing these films on the old Virgin video or Blackhawk 8mm versions, you will be in for quite a surprise. In my view they are the best discs to opt for if you collect the silent films. The discs are now in their second pressing, with a slightly glossier cover. Many shops advertise these discs as Region one, but you should find that they are region FREE - meaning that any machine will play them, providing your TV can handle NTSC picture signals. Most new TV's will, and many new DVD players have built in converters. Although on a recent disc that I purchased (which was a re-release), my player registered it as Region one - we are looking into this at the moment. All come in matching (but different colour) covers as shown left, with original poster artwork on the inside. They retail on Amazon for around $25, but you can occasionally find them second hand on Amazon and E-Bay! The films on each disc are as follows: The Lost Films of Laurel and Hardy Volume 1 (HRS 4791) 124 mins. * * Big Business * Do Detectives Think? * Call of the Cuckoo * The Finishing Touch * On The Front Page (Stan) * Hustling For Health (Stan) Volume 2 (HRS 4792) 118 mins. * * Double Whoopee * Early To Bed * Angora Love * Sugar Daddies * Roughest Africa (Stan) * Oranges and Lemons (Stan) Volume 3 135 mins. * * Liberty * We Faw Down * Love 'em and Weep * Lucky Dog * Along Came Auntie (Babe) * Bromo and Juliet (Babe and Charley Chase) Volume 4 120 mins. * * They Go Boom * Their Purple Moment * Bacon Grabbers * Unaccustomed As We Are (silent version) * Should Sailors Marry? (Babe) * * On The Wrong Trek (Chase film with Boys cameo) Volume 5 124 mins. * * Wrong Again * Habeas Corpus * Duck Soup * Leave 'em Laughing * Fluttering Hearts (Babe and Chase) * Short Kilts (Stan) Volume 6 122 mins. * * That's My Wife * Flying Elephants * Putting Pants on Philip * 45 Minutes From Hollywood * Crazy Like A Fox (Babe and Chase) * The Soilers (Stan) Volume 7 127 mins. * * Unaccustomed As We Are (talkie) * Double Whoopee (rare talkie version) * Sailors Beware! * With Love and Hisses * Should Married Men Go Home? * Mixed Nuts (talkie) Volume 8 129 mins * * Two Tars * The Second Hundred Years * Slipping Wives * From Soup To Nuts * Scorching Sands (Stan) * Should Tall Men Marry? (colour tinted) Volume 9 132 mins. * * You're Darn Tootin' * Why Girls Love Sailors * Battle of the Century (two versions of) * Wandering Papas (Babe with Stan directing) * Thundering Fleas (Babe and Our Gang) * Mum's The Word (Chase) Laurel and Hardy and Friends (Volume 10 - unofficially) 129 mins. This disc features The Boys, Charlie Chase, Thelma Todd, and "Our Gang" in the following talkies: * * Be Big! * Our Gang Follies of 1938 * School's Out * Bear Shooters * The Stolen Jools * Whispering Whoopee US Disc Reviews by Willie McIntyre and Paul Mular March of the Wooden Soldiers (1934). Colour. Bonus items colour and b/w. Distributed by Good Times Home Video, New York. Price: see below. Region free. Originally released as Babes in Toyland, this musical was frequently re-released under the above title. Probably more than any, it benefits from the addition of colour, giving this fairy tale feature new appeal, and the colorization is the best I have seen in Laurel and Hardy films. There are several bonus items. My favourite is the theatrical trailer (in black and white). Additionally we have one and a half minutes of a colour, silent home movie of Stan in the Oceana Hotel, Santa Monica. California in 1961, in which Stan does a bit of clowning, polishes his Oscar and plays with string puppets of Laurel and Hardy. There is also the familiar material of Hardy being interviewed for Ship's Reporter around 1950, in a worn print which has extra material compared with some versions. There are optional captions in English and in Spanish, plus production notes. This is a region-free version, which will play on any DVD player. Amazon had the DVD on offer in the USA for only $9.95, surely the bargain of the century. They also offered it in the UK reduced from Ł15.99 to Ł14.99. The All New Adventures of Laurel and Hardy: For Love or Mummy (1998). 84 minutes. Distributed by Monarch Home Video. Price: $29.99 from Amazon.com. Region free. Bronson Pinchot and Gailard Sartain play the nephews of Stan and Ollie in a yarn best suited to children's matinees. It's difficult to envisage what sort of movie our familiar Laurel and Hardy would be making if they were time-warped into the movie world of today, but it's likely that they would be rather different from the characters of their 1920 and 1930 films we all love. So Pinchot and Sartain can be excused for diverting a little from familiar formulae. Indeed there is no reason at all why they should be identical clones of the familiar Stan and Ollie. There is a mummy on the rampage and a Hardy love plot. That's about the extent of the story, but don't be discouraged. There are a few genuinely amusing sequences. "Kids will love this movie!" proclaim the cover notes and as such the film should be categorised. Laurel and Hardy aficionados should approach it only with caution and an open (or vacant!) mind. I did and I enjoyed the experience. I smiled at the statement that Ollie was striving for the office of Grand Pooh~Bah* of the Fraternal Order of the Nile and savoured the meeting of the fraternal society, which was obviously a parody of the Sons of the Desert, which society is itself a parody! Visit the website http://www.monarchvideo.com for more details. *The Collins Dictionary defines "Poo-Bah" as "a pompous, self-important official holding several offices at once and fulfilling none of them." The term originates from The Mikado. The Lost Films of Laurel and Hardy Volume 10: Laurel and Hardy & Friends Excellent 35mm transfers on unofficial volume 10 with nice 35mm transfers of public domain comedies. The title to the disc is misleading, as there is only one Laurel & Hardy short on it. It should be called The Little Rascals and Friends as there are three Little Rascals (aka Our Gang) shorts. Laurel & Hardy do make a brief cameo on the last short. This disc features the only Roach era sound Laurel & Hardy short to date to come out on DVD: "Be Big", which has fallen into the public domain. This disc was released without a volume number while the silent shorts were being issued. When Volume 9 of the silent DVD set came out there was an announcement inside it that called this disc Volume 10. UK Reviews Way Out West (1937) B/W and colour. Price Ł17.99. Distributed by VVL. Region 2. I have lost count of how many copies of Way Out West are in my collection, ranging from a standard 8 Mountain print from the early 1970s to the video version colorized in 1985. Here Way Out West is featured in a very sharp, rock-steady black and white print, which is perfect in parts and worn in other parts, but generally most acceptable, and I rate this my favourite copy of Way Out West to date. There is a nasty splice, however, in The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, which could surely have been avoided. You can view the feature as originally released, or with French or Spanish dubbed dialogue, and with subtitles (if chosen) in English, French, Dutch or Spanish. The colorized version which is also included is disheartening, with poor colour and unsteady images. The silent short Big Business (1929), in black and white, is extremely good and adds greatly to the value of this, the third Laurel and Hardy DVD to be released in the UK by VVL. Classic Comedy Shorts Vol 3 B/W Price Ł17.99. Distributed by Stonevision Entertainment. Region 0. This selection of silent "solo" shorts has a fuller and more carefully matched musical accompaniment than in the other volumes. Again, however, the subtitles are often partly out of frame. Along Came Auntie (1926) 22 minutes Bitterly opposed to divorce, Auntie has stipulated that Vivien Oakland will receive $100,000, providing that she is still married to her first husband (Oliver Hardy) from whom she is actually divorced. Glenn Tryon, the second husband, is billed as the main star. On the Front Page (1926) 23 minutes So that a newspaper can have a juicy story, Countess Polasky (Lillian Rich) is set up for a compromising encounter - with butler Stan. Stan has characteristics very similar to his later familiar "team" roles. Amazingly sharp and with high definition, this is the best print in the series, but the entertainment value is only average. Bromo and Juliet (1926) 22 minutes This Charley Chase two-reeler is great if you like Charley as much as I do. The action centres around a Shakespearian stage presentation and some bootleg whisky. Hardy plays a cab driver in a minor role. This is Your Life (1954) 25 minutes Broadcast live by NBC, this film is both a disappointment for missed opportunities and a valuable snapshot of the Boys towards the end of their careers. The show is already available to collectors in many formats and was even on satellite television recently. The Hazel Bishop adverts have been removed in a heavy-handed manner, This issue compiled, written and edited by Antony Waite, unless stated. My thanks to Bowler Desert Magazine for letting us use their reviews.