"Laurel & Hardy's Laughing 20's" is a compilation film from Robert Youngson, the man who brought us MANY compilations of silent comedies. Most of Youngson's compilations feature many comics and this is different because it focuses more on this brilliant team...though, oddly, not exclusively.
The film begins by showing a few clips from films where the two appeared together...before they were an official team. It doesn't show their first on-screen scene in "The Lucky Dog" (1921) and it probably was because the film was thought lost and only available in fragments back in 1965 (it has since been discovered intact). Then, it shifts to the early silents which featured the two as a team. And, then it strangely shows a few NON-Laurel & Hardy films from the same studio, Hal Roach. While I love Charley Chase, Max Davidson and the others, the clips seemed out of place as they don't include the pair named in the title of the film. This isn't unheard of with a Youngson film as some times I suspect he just added whatever clips he had instead of taking care to pick them better.
The film is generally very good because the material is so good. The film, however, suffers from too much narration (it should have let the shorts speak for themselves) as well as annoying music which was intended to be funny. Instead, it just annoyed.
By the way, when the film showed a clip from the Max Davidson comedy "Pass the Gravy" it completely misrepresented the short. It essentially changed the story completely from the original short. I have no idea why they did this.
The film begins by showing a few clips from films where the two appeared together...before they were an official team. It doesn't show their first on-screen scene in "The Lucky Dog" (1921) and it probably was because the film was thought lost and only available in fragments back in 1965 (it has since been discovered intact). Then, it shifts to the early silents which featured the two as a team. And, then it strangely shows a few NON-Laurel & Hardy films from the same studio, Hal Roach. While I love Charley Chase, Max Davidson and the others, the clips seemed out of place as they don't include the pair named in the title of the film. This isn't unheard of with a Youngson film as some times I suspect he just added whatever clips he had instead of taking care to pick them better.
The film is generally very good because the material is so good. The film, however, suffers from too much narration (it should have let the shorts speak for themselves) as well as annoying music which was intended to be funny. Instead, it just annoyed.
By the way, when the film showed a clip from the Max Davidson comedy "Pass the Gravy" it completely misrepresented the short. It essentially changed the story completely from the original short. I have no idea why they did this.