Oliver HardyFilmography

Slapstick, Too!

Actors: Eli Wallach

Synopsis: In the early years of cinema, nothing kept audiences in stitches quite like a good dose of physical comedy -- affectionately known as slapstick. Though it may not be as prevalent today as it was in the days of Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and W.C. Fields, audiences can still look back on this Read More

Classic Comedy Teams

Synopsis: A documentary video that looks at the many hilarious comedians in history. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Laurel & Hardy

Synopsis: Interviews with Laurel and Hardy are combined with clips from some of their films. Also includes Be Big in which the duo go to great lengths to attend a party and The Flying Deuces in which they manage to get on the wrong side of the French Foreign Legion. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Silent Comedies: The Laugh's on Us

The Hollywood Clowns

Four Clowns

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Charley Chase, Buster Keaton

Synopsis: Robert Youngson once again compiles scenes from the golden age of comedy's silent film era. Laurel and Hardy are shown battling a gum machine, and Hardy is a debaucherous Romeo whose amorous plans are thwarted by Rex, the Wonder Horse. Charley Chase is hampered by hiccups and a female professor Read More

The Further Perils of Laurel and Hardy

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Charley Chase

Synopsis: The second of Robert Youngson's compilations of the silent comedies of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, The Further Perils of Laurel & Hardy suffers a bit from too much repetition and gee-whiz obvious narration. Still, the vignettes offered herein are first-rate, as fresh and funny as they were when Read More

Laurel and Hardy's Laughing 20's

Actors: Jay Jackson, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Vivien Oakland, Glenn Tryon

Synopsis: Five of Laurel and Hardy's best features from the silent film era are compiled in this collection by Robert Youngson. Included are From Soup To Nuts, Wrong Again, The Finishing Touch, and iberty. On hand are legendary comic foils like James Findlayson and Edgar Kennedy, both masters of the "slow Read More

MGM's The Big Parade of Comedy

Actors: Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Gary Grant

Synopsis: This compilation film is one of the few Robert Youngson productions to incorporate sound as well as silent excerpts. All the clips are culled from 40 years' worth of MGM comedy material. The silent scenes spotlight such funsters as Marion Davies, Buster Keaton, Karl Dane and George K. Arthur Read More

A Few Moments with Buster Keaton & Laurel & Hardy

30 Years of Fun

Synopsis: The fourth of Oscar-winning short-subject director Youngson's comedy compilations (the earlier ones were Golden Age of Comedy, When Comedy was King, and Days of Thrills and Laughter) is, amazingly, almost as full and fresh as those earlier efforts, containing highlights from such silent comedy Read More

Days of Thrills and Laughter

Synopsis: This is one in a series of entertaining cinematic compilations by Robert Youngson that reviews aspects of the history of film (The Golden Age of Comedy and When Comedy Was King directly preceded this release). As in its predecessors, this compilation looks back on the more distant past. Renowned Read More

When Comedy Was King

Synopsis: Robert Youngson's second feature-length compilation of silent comedy highlights (the first was The Golden Age of Comedy), When Comedy Was King covers the years 1914 to 1929. Using snipettes from the 1929 Charley Chase 2-reeler Movie Night as a framing device, Youngson offers vintage clips from the Read More

Clown Princes of Hollywood

Synopsis: This documentary video offers a variety of clips from the silent screen's funniest men. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

The Golden Age of Comedy

Actors: Harry Langdon, Jean Harlow, Will Rogers, Jr.

Synopsis: The first of documentary producer Robert Youngson's feature-length silent comedy compilations, The Golden Age of Comedy began life as a short subject, consisting of vintage clips from the Mack Sennett vaults. When Youngson struck a deal with the Hal Roach studios, he was able to expand the film's Read More

This is Your Life: Laurel and Hardy

Synopsis: Host Ralph G. Edwards surprised the famous comic team of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in this episode of his popular show, This Is Your Life. Many of Laurel and Hardy's acquaintances from childhood and co-workers from their days at Hal Roach Studios appear and reminisce about their experiences Read More

Utopia

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Suzy Delair, Max Elloy

Synopsis: In their very last feature film, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy travel to London so that Stan can claim his uncle's inheritance. All of the cash has been eaten up by taxes, but at least Stan is able to claim a tax-free island and yacht that his uncle has left him. Boarding the yacht (actually a Read More

Riding High

Actors: Bing Crosby, Coleen Gray, Charles Bickford, Frances Gifford, Raymond Walburn

Synopsis: Anxious to remain active in the 1950s, director Frank Capra wanted to prove to Paramount Pictures that he could deliver an "A" picture on a modest budget. To that end, Capra bought the rights of his 1934 film Broadway Bill from Columbia, and remade it under the title Riding High. He then hired Read More

The Fighting Kentuckian

Actors: John Wayne, Vera Ralston, Philip Dorn, Oliver Hardy, Marie Windsor

Synopsis: Set shortly after the Battle of New Orleans, the film casts John Wayne as John Breen, a Kentucky trooper making the long journey homeward with his confreres. Breen becomes involved with a plan by robber baron Blake Randolph (John Howard) to deprive hundreds of French army refugees of land granted Read More

The Bullfighters

Actors: Richard Lane, Carol Andrews, Diosa Costello

Synopsis: Laurel & Hardy's last American film is a marked improvement over their previous 20th Century-Fox features, though still not in the same league as their 1930s classics. Stan and Ollie play a couple of detectives from Peoria, Illinois, who fly to Mexico City to arrest the notorious Larceny Nell (Carol Andrews Read More

Nothing But Trouble

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Mary Boland, Philip Merivale, Henry O'Neill

Synopsis: The second of Laurel & Hardy's two MGM starring films, Nothing But Trouble casts Stan and Ollie as, respectively, an unemployed butler and chef. Despite their inherent ineptitude, there's a wartime servant shortage, so the boys are hired by flighty dowager Mrs. Hawkley (Mary Boland), who hopes to Read More

The Big Noise

Actors: Oliver Hardy, Doris Merrick, Stan Laurel, Arthur Space, Veda Ann Borg

Synopsis: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play janitors for a detective agency who pose as super-sleuths when they're hired to protect inventor Alva P. Hartley (Arthur Space). Moving bag and baggage into Hartley's gadget-laden house, Stan and Ollie must first contend with the inventor's bratty son Egbert (Bobby Blake Read More

Jitterbugs

Actors: Vivian Blaine, Bob Bailey, Douglas Fowley, Noel Madison

Synopsis: If Jitterbugs is, as has often been claimed, the best of Laurel & Hardy's 20th Century-Fox films (an otherwise fair-to-mediocre lot), it is because the studio was using the picture as a showcase for their newest singing discovery Vivian Blaine. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play a couple of Read More

The Dancing Masters

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Trudy Marshall, Matt Briggs

Synopsis: This lesser Laurel and Hardy vehicle casts Stan and Ollie as the proprietors of the "Arthur Hurry" dance studio. Despite a rather sizeable student body (consisting mainly of 20th Century-Fox contract starlets), the boys would starve to death were it not for their only paying customer, socialite Read More

Air Raid Wardens

Synopsis: Set in wartime (WW II), this film finds the fat guy, skinny guy comedy duo not much good at any attempted professions; they can't even enlist in the war effort. None of the services want them. But they do become air raid wardens, at least for a while, until their misadventures continue. They get Read More

Tree in a Test Tube

Synopsis: This short educational film, produced by the United States Department of Agriculture, offers a look at just how many products are made from wood, and stresses the consequential importance of forest cultivation. The film is best remembered today for a cameo appearance by Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy Read More

A-Haunting We Will Go

Actors: Sheila Ryan, John Shelton, Don Costello

Synopsis: Laurel & Hardy's second starring vehicle for 20th Century-Fox is arguably their weakest feature film, with the laughs few and far between. Broke as usual, the duo is given 24 hours to get out of town by the local constabulary. In dire need of travelling expenses, they take a job accompanying a Read More

Great Guns

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Sheila Ryan, Dick Nelson, Edmund MacDonald

Synopsis: In their first 20th Century-Fox vehicle, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are cast respectively as the butler and chauffeur of wealthy young Dan Forrester (Dick Nelson). Tired of being pampered and coddled by his overprotective aunts (Mae Marsh, Ethel Gryffies), Dan is delighted when he is drafted Read More

Our Wife

Actors: Melvyn Douglas, Ruth Hussey, Ellen Drew, Charles Coburn, John Hubbard

Synopsis: Dumped by wife Ellen Drew, musician Melvyn Douglas goes into a creative slump. His gloom is lifted when he falls in love with Ruth Hussey (with a little help from Hussey's foxy papa Charles Coburn). Soaring to hitherto unimaginable heights of fame after marrying Hussey, Douglas suddenly becomes Read More

A Chump at Oxford

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, James Finlayson, Forrester Harvey, Wilfred Lucas, Forbes Murray, Peter Cushing

Synopsis: Back at Hal Roach Studios for the first time since 1938's Block-Heads, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy star in the uneven but generally rewarding A Chump at Oxford. The boys are cast as street-sweepers who hope to better their lot in life by attending night school. Fate intervenes when Stan and Ollie Read More

Saps at Sea

Actors: Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel, James Finlayson, Ben Turpin

Synopsis: In their last film for Hal Roach, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play employees at the Sharp and Pierce Horn Factory, where the workers tend to go beserk at a rate of one per hour. Driven crazy by the cacophonous G-minor horn, poor Ollie begins to tear the factory apart, screaming "Horns to the left Read More

Zenobia

Actors: Oliver Hardy, Harry Langdon, Billie Burke, Alice Brady, James Ellison

Synopsis: With comedian Stan Laurel temporarily off his payroll due to a contract dispute, Hal Roach hastily put together a solo starring vehicle for Laurel's longtime partner Oliver Hardy. Digging into his files, Roach pulled out Zenobia's Infidelity, an H.C. Bunner story originally purchased as a vehicle Read More

The Flying Deuces

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Jean Parker, Reginald Gardiner, Charles B. Middleton

Synopsis: In their first starring feature away from the Hal Roach studios, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play a couple of fish peddlers from Des Moines on a Cook's Tour of Paris. While stopping over at quaint suburban inn, Ollie falls in love with innkeeper's daughter Georgette (Jean Parker). At Stan's Read More

Block-Heads

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Patricia Ellis, Billy Gilbert

Synopsis: Twenty years after the Armistice, doughboy Stan Laurel continues guarding a trench in France--simply because no one told him the war was over. His rescue coincides with the first wedding anniversary of his old pal Oliver Hardy. Heading to town to pick up a gift for his wife (Minna Gombell), Ollie Read More

Swiss Miss

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Della Lind, Walter Woolf King, Eric Blore

Synopsis: American mousetrap salesmen Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy journey to Switzerland, reasoning that where there's cheese, there's mice. When they innocently try to pay their dinner bill with phony money, Stan and Ollie are put to work in the kitchen of the Alpen Hotel. Their enforced stay coincides Read More

Pick a Star

Actors: Patsy Kelly, Jack Haley, Rosina Lawrence, Mischa Auer, Lyda Roberti

Synopsis: Film collectors take note: Hal Roach's Pick a Star is not a Laurel and Hardy picture, though the popular comic duo does make a brace of amusing cameo appearances halfway through the film. A remake of Buster Keaton's Free and Easy, this is the story of how small-town gas-station owner Joe Jenkins (Jack Haley Read More

Way Out West

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Sharon Lynne, James Finlayson, Stanley Fields, Rosina Lawrence

Synopsis: Prospectors Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy head to the western town of Brushwood Gulch, two men on a top-secret mission. The boys have been entrusted by their recently deceased partner Cy Roberts with a deed to a valuable gold mine, to be delivered in person to Roberts' daughter Mary (Rosina Lawrence Read More

The Bohemian Girl

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Thelma Todd, Antonio Moreno, Jacqueline Wells, Darla Hood

Synopsis: The excellent box-office returns for the previous Laurel & Hardy comic operas The Devil's Brother and Babes in Toyland encouraged Hal Roach to cast the team in still another operatic adaptation, a self-styled "comedy version" of William Balfe's The Bohemian Girl. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play Read More

One Good Turn

Synopsis: In this comedy a pair of aspiring music hall entertainers attempt to live their dream while saving their landlady's daughter from ruin. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

On the Wrong Trek

Synopsis: Charley Chase suffers through the vacation from hell in this hilarious two-reeler. He drives to California with his wife (Rosina Lawrence) and his mother-in-law (Bonita Weber), who is determined to run everything. Unfortunately, Rosina always sides with her mother, ever voicing the annoying Read More

Our Relations

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Betty Healy, Daphne Pollard, Sidney Toler

Synopsis: Working on the theory that the only thing funnier than Laurel and Hardy is two sets of Laurel and Hardys, Our Relations milks its central mistaken-identity situation for all it's worth. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are two solid citizens, happily married and highly respected in their community. Read More

Twin Trouble

Bonnie Scotland

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, June Lang, William Janney, Anne Grey

Synopsis: Stanley MacLaurel (Stan Laurel), the American "black sheep" of the MacLaurel clan, stows away on a cattle boat to Scotland in the company of his pal Ollie (Oliver Hardy) so that he can claim his share of his late uncle Angus Ian MacLaurel's fortune. Alas, Stan's inheritance consists of a snuffbox Read More

Tit for Tat

Synopsis: Stan and Ollie play proprietors of an electric store, anxious to make friends with neighboring grocer Charlie Hall. Unfortunately they'd already earned the enmity of Hall in a previous two-reeler, Them That Hills (34), and he is in no mood to bury the hatchet. When Hall accuses Hardy of fooling Read More

Hollywood Party

Actors: Jimmy Durante, Charles Butterworth, Lupe Velez, Polly Moran

Synopsis: Hollywood Party was planned as a lavish, star-studded MGM musical titled Hollywood Revue of 1933. Under the less-than-sterling guidance of "kicked upstairs" MGM producer Harry Rapf, production dragged on interminably, using up the talents of five directors (none of whom were credited) and Read More

Oliver the Eighth

Synopsis: Mae Busch never looked more menacing than she did in this Laurel and Hardy three-reeler. She plays a wealthy widow who was once dumped by an Oliver and has sworn to kill every subsequent Oliver that crosses her path. Stan and Ollie, blissfully ignorant of her scheme, see her advertisement in the Read More

The Live Ghost

Synopsis: This is perhaps Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy's most atmospheric short. It begins at the waterfront where a captain (the always-menacing Walter Long) is having a hard time finding a crew because his ship is supposedly haunted. A pair of fish cleaners (Stan and Ollie) aren't any more willing to sign Read More

Going Bye-Bye!

Synopsis: This is an especially violent -- but very funny -- Laurel and Hardy two-reeler. It opens in a courthouse where the vicious Butch Long (Walter Long) is being sentenced for murder. After the judge commends Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy for providing the evidence necessary for the conviction, he gives Read More

Babes in Toyland

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Charlotte Henry, Felix Knight, Henry Kleinbach

Synopsis: March of the Wooden Soldiers is the 1952 reissue title for Hal Roach's 1934 film version of Victor Herbert's Babes in Toyland. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy star as Stannie Dum and Ollie Dee, bumbling apprentices to the master toymaker of Toyland. This joyous fairy-tale community is populated by Read More

Dirty Work

Actors: Ralph Lynn, Gordon Harker, Robertson Hare

Synopsis: Although this Laurel and Hardy short is quite funny, it's often neglected. The boys, playing chimney sweeps, don't appear right away -- first the stage is set in the laboratory of a mad scientist, Professor Noodle (Lucien Littlefield). He has been working intensely for the past 20 years to create Read More

The Devil's Brother

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Dennis King, James Finlayson

Synopsis: Based on an 1830 opera entitled "Fra Diavolo" by Daniel F. Auber, the parts of two bit bandits were built up for Laurel and Hardy, but this was still just a minor effort--a few good laughs but nothing spectacular that wasn't done better elsewhere. Released later as Bogus Bandits and The Virtuous Read More

Twice Two

Synopsis: The whole point of this Laurel and Hardy two-reeler was to dress up the comic duo as women and have them play each other's wives. It's a simple domestic scenario -- Oliver Hardy, brain specialist, and Stan Laurel, his "associate advisor," are celebrating their one year wedding anniversary. They Read More

Me and My Pal

Synopsis: It is Oliver Hardy's triumphant wedding day -- he is marrying the boss's daughter and thus becoming general manager for the International Horsecollar Corporation. The so-called best man (Stan Laurel -- who else?) arrives with the ring and tickets to Chicago for the honeymoon (Ollie actually wanted Read More

Busy Bodies

Actors: Charlie Hall

Synopsis: This is one of Laurel and Hardy's most entertaining sound shorts, and perhaps its beauty is in its utter comic simplicity -- there's no plot, just a lot of great, well-paced gags. Stan and Ollie are cheerfully driving to work and listening to their "car radio" -- actually a gramophone, hooked up Read More

Wild Poses

Synopsis: It is time for Spanky McFarland and his family to have a group portrait taken, and prissy photographer Otto Phocus is the man for the job. At least, that's what Otto thinks, before he's worn to a frazzle trying to coax a smile out of the taciturn Spanky. Meanwhile, the rest of the Our Gang Read More

Sons of the Desert

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Charley Chase, Mae Busch, Lucien Littlefield

Synopsis: Lodge members Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy take a solemn oath to attend the 80th-annual Sons of the Desert Convention (read: annual binge) in Chicago. That is, Ollie takes the oath, but Stanley balks. When asked why, Stanley answers that he's afraid his wife won't let him go. Ollie is appalled Read More

The Midnight Patrol

Synopsis: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are policemen on night duty. As they sit in their car having a snack, they get a call from headquarters to inform them that their spare tire is being stolen. But that's only a taste of their sheer incompetence -- when they are told to investigate a burglary, they get Read More

Their First Mistake

Synopsis: In spite of a sudden end which makes this Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy two-reeler seem incomplete, there are quite a few wonderfully funny moments. Arabella Hardy (Mae Busch) is more than fed up with her husband Ollie, who has been spending all his free time with his pal Stanley. Their domestic Read More

Choo Choo!

Actors: George "Spanky" McFarland, Matthew "Stymie" Beard, Kendall McComas, Bobby "Wheezer" Hutchins, Dorothy de Borba

Synopsis: Originally released on May 7, 1932, the "Our Gang" comedy "Choo-Choo!" was a loose remake of the 1923 two-reeler A Pleasant Journey. Exchanging clothes with a group of mischievous orphans, the Our Gang kids end up on a train headed for Chicago. Pressed into service as the kids' supervisor Read More

Towed in a Hole

Synopsis: This is one of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy's most popular two-reelers; it's particularly rich in gags, well-structured, and is a hilarious illustration of the chemistry that brought the duo its fame. It begins with Stan and Ollie as fish salesmen, and doing very well at it too. Then Stanley comes Read More

Laurel and Hardy: Rare Home Movies

Synopsis: This is a collection of footage shot during a tour by the team of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

Pack up Your Troubles

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Donald Dillaway, Jacquie Lyn, Mary Carr

Synopsis: Drafted into the army during World War I, those muddled misfits Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy make a shambles of Training Camp before being shipped to France. When their best pal Eddie (Donald Dillaway) is killed in battle, Stan and Ollie vow to locate the grandparents of Eddie's orphaned little Read More

Scram!

Synopsis: It's a rainy night and Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are faced with a particularly ill-tempered judge Rychard Cramer. He'd love to throw them in the clink for vagrancy, but since the jail is full, he gives them just one hour...to leave town. Out on the street, they encounter a drunk (perennial Read More

The Music Box

Actors: Charlie Hall, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy

Synopsis: This most famous of Laurel and Hardy shorts won an Oscar for "Best Comedy Short Subject." Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play characters who run a transfer company. They are hired to deliver a player piano to an address which turns out to be up a very long flight of steps The whole film involves the Read More

The Chimp

Synopsis: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy have been working for a circus as two halves of an ersatz horse. When the circus closes, in lieu of pay, each employee gets a portion of the show. Stan gets the flea circus and Ollie gets Ethel the chimp. They try to check into a boarding house, but the proprietor (Billy Gilbert Read More

County Hospital

Synopsis: Stan Laurel arrives at the hospital to visit his friend Oliver Hardy. It takes him more time to locate Ollie's room than it does for him to destroy it completely. That happens when the doctor (Billy Gilbert at his most fulsome) enters to see how his patient is doing. Ollie, his broken leg Read More

Any Old Port!

Synopsis: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy have just returned from a whaling trek. They check into a run-down hotel, the Mariner's Rest, whose owner, Mugsy Long (the intimidating Walter Long), is forcing a girl (Jacqueline Wells) into marriage. The girl manages to reveal her dilemma to Stan and Ollie before Read More

At Work

On the Loose

Synopsis: In this classic two-reel comedy from the Hal Roach Studio, blonde Thelma Todd and plain-Jane ZaSu Pitts are depressed because their cheapskate boyfriends (Billy Gilbert and Charlie Hall) refuse to take them anywhere other than the amusement park at Coney Island. Things brighten considerably when Read More

Come Clean

Synopsis: This Laurel and Hardy two-reeler contains a similar premise to Chickens Come Home, and starts off the same way as Should Married Men Go Home? does -- Ollie and his wife (here, it's Gertrude Astor) are spending a quiet evening at home, away from "those Laurels." Just then, Stan and his wife (Linda Read More

Pardon Us

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Walter Long, Wilfred Lucas, James Finlayson, June Marlowe

Synopsis: Two-reel comedy favorites Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy made their feature-film debut (excluding their guest appearances in Hollywood Revue of 1929 and Rogue Song) in the prison comedy Pardon Us. A spoof of MGM's The Big House, the story begins when erstwhile bootleggers Laurel and Hardy sell a Read More

Our Wife

Synopsis: Oliver Hardy finds that getting married is more difficult than he had planned in this two-reeler. It starts off with partner and best man Stan Laurel's adventures with a container of fly spray. While Laurel is ruining the wedding breakfast and cake, Hardy's fiancée, Dulcy (Babe London), is having Read More

Be Big!

Synopsis: While this isn't one of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy's best shorts, its premise is very similar to one of their finest features, Sons of the Desert. In both films, the hapless duo is trying to sneak around their wives' backs to join a group of club mates. In Sons of the Desert, they're going to a Read More

Polítiquerias

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy

The Stolen Jools

One Good Turn

Synopsis: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are victims of the depression in this tworeeler. They do have an old car, a tent and some clothes, though, so things could be worse. With Stan's help, things do get worse -- their tent goes up in flames and their laundry shrinks down to minuscule size. They are forced Read More

Doughboy Daze

Beau Hunks

Synopsis: This Laureland Hardy four-reeler is very loosely based on Beau Gest. It opens with Oliver Hardy singing a sweet love song. He's feeling sentimental because he's about to marry his girl, Jeanie-Weanie who, he tells his friend Stan Laurel, "has been all around the world and everyone loves her." Read More

Laughing Gravy

Actors: Charlie Hall

Synopsis: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy attempt to hide Laurel's dog, Laughing Gravy, from their landlord (Charlie Hall, the premiere angry landlord in many Laurel and Hardy films), who does not allow pets. Of course, the landlord discovers the dog and throws him out into the snowy night. While trying to get Read More

Spuk um Mitternacht

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy

Helpmates

Synopsis: Most Laurel and Hardy aficionados consider this film among the comic duo's very best two-reelers, and it is especially rich in slapstick antics. It opens up with an extremely hungover Oliver Hardy admonishing himself in the mirror for throwing such a wild party the night before. An arriving Read More

Chickens Come Home

Synopsis: Not only has Oliver Hardy established a successful business -- in fertilizer -- he has also decided to run for mayor. General manager Stan Laurel interrupts his duties (which involve a fly swatter) in the sample room to help Ollie with a speech. Ollie's old flame (Mae Busch) barges into the Read More

Another Fine Mess

Synopsis: The 1930 Laurel & Hardy 3-reeler Another Fine Mess is a remake of the team's 1927 effort Duck Soup--which, in turn, was based on "Home from the Honeymoon", a vaudeville sketch written in 1908 by Stan Laurel's father. Escaping from an angry cop, Stan and Ollie take refuge in a posh East Side Read More

Night Owls

Actors: Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel

Synopsis: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are supported by a couple of Hal Roach's best stock players in this comic two-reeler. The film opens at the police station, where the chief (Anders Randolph), fed up at the high number of burglaries and no arrests, threatens Officer Kennedy (Edgar Kennedy): Any more Read More

The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case

Synopsis: While on an outing to go fishing, Oliver Hardy is trying to get some sleep. He's disturbed by a newspaper that blows in, advertising the reading of the will of an Ebeneezer Laurel. Convinced that his partner, Stan Laurel, must be the heir, the pair head for the Laurel mansion. Upon arrival they Read More

Below Zero

Actors: Charlie Hall

Synopsis: Business is not good for street musicians Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Perhaps it's because they're playing in front of a deaf and dumb institute. Or maybe it's because the weather is reaching near-blizzard proportions and their song of choice is "In the Good Old Summertime". In response to the Read More

The Rogue Song

Actors: Lawrence Tibbett, Catherine Dale Owen, Nance O'Neil, Judith Vosselli, Ullrich Haupt, Sr.

Synopsis: Metropolitan opera star Lawrence Tibbett headed the cast of The Rogue Song, an opulent Technicolor adaptation of the Franz Lehar operetta Gypsy Love. Set (vaguely) in 19th-century Russia, the film stars Tibbett as Yegor, dashing leader of an outlaw band called "The Robbing Larks." During one of Read More

Hog Wild

Synopsis: Oliver Hardy wants to go see his friend Stan Laurel; his wife (Fay Holderness) tells him, in no uncertain terms, that he must put up the radio antenna first. When Stan comes by and gives Ollie his helping hand, the inevitable mayhem ensues. He begins by setting Ollie's pants on fire with the Read More

Blotto

Synopsis: In this especially amusing Laurel and Hardy short, the boys are planning a night on the town. Standing in their way is Mrs. Laurel (Anita Garvin). Ollie telephones Stan with a scheme: Stan will send himself a bogus telegram, calling him away on "business." Unfortunately for the duo, Mrs. Laurel Read More

Brats

Synopsis: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play both the fathers and their unruly children in this two-reel comedy. The really funny thing about this film is that as the kids, Laurel and Hardy don't behave much differently as they generally do as adults. The relationship is basically the same between the two Read More

Hollywood Revue of 1929

Synopsis: With the arrival of talkies, every major studio hopped on the musical bandwagon by turning out lavish "revues," spotlighting their top stars performing specialty numbers. MGM's entry in this all-star genre was Hollywood Revue of 1929, which, though a box-office smash and a "Best Picture" Oscar Read More

The Hoosegow

Actors: Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel

Angora Love

Synopsis: A goat escapes from a pet shop, and the owner reports the missing goat to the police. Laurel & Hardy have spent their last dime on donuts, and Laurel feeds his donuts to the goat. The goat follows them everywhere, and they can't get away from it. They sneak the goat into their bedroom, under the Read More

Bacon Grabbers

Synopsis: This Laurel and Hardy two-reel silent involves the boys' attempts to repossess a radio from Collis P. Kennedy (Edgar Kennedy). A barking toy dog scares them off at first, but they come back with a borrowed Great Dane. The Great Dane is also scared off by the toy. Ollie apprehends Kennedy while Stan Read More

Perfect Day

Actors: Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel

Synopsis: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy have a Sunday picnic planned with their wives (Isabelle Keith and Kay Deslys) and Uncle Ed (Edgar Kennedy). But in the world of Laurel and Hardy, an easy, pleasant outing such as this is not without its pitfalls. Everyone piles into the car and after bidding goodbye to Read More

Men O' War

Synopsis: In this early Laurel and Hardy sound short, Stan and Ollie are a pair of sailors on leave. They meet two girls at a park (Anne Cornwall and Gloria Greer). They have also found a pair of bloomers, which they assume belongs to one of the young ladies. Delicately, they try to discern if either of the Read More

Big Business

Actors: Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel, James Finlayson

Synopsis: Stan (Stan Laurel) and Ollie (Oliver Hardy) are selling Christmas trees door-to-door. Stan unintentionally insults their first customer (a single woman) when he asks, "If you had a husband, would he buy a tree?" The second house has a sign up that says "No Peddlers." Ollie rings the bell anyway Read More

Double Whoopee

Actors: Charlie Hall

Synopsis: A hotel is gearing up to welcome its prestigious new guest, a European Prince (Captain John Peters). But before he appears, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy walk in. After much confusion, it is discovered that the two are not the Prince and his Prime Minister, but are the hotel's new doorman and Read More

Unaccustomed as We Are

Synopsis: Although the title of Laurel and Hardy's very first sound film is a joke on the phrase, "Unaccustomed as we are to public speaking," it already shows a firm grasp of the comic potential for sound. The boys, and the writers and directors of their films, realized that more than dialogue was Read More

Wrong Again

Synopsis: This entertaining film is one of Laurel and Hardy's most bizarre. Stan and Ollie work as stable-hands for a racehorse named "Blue Boy." They overhear two men talking about "the famous Blue Boy," which has been stolen. There is a $5000 reward for its return, but the boys don't know that the men are Read More

Berth Marks

Synopsis: Laurel and Hardy's second two-reel talkie is made up of a few very simple scenes -- Oliver Hardy goes to meet his partner Stan Laurel at the train station. They have a vaudeville act which involves a bass fiddle and are on their way to their next performance. They just barely make the train and Read More

Liberty

Synopsis: This Laurel and Hardy short film has a thin plot but plenty of laughs. The two have escaped from prison, but the guards are hot on their tail. Some confederates pick them up, and Stan and Ollie change out of their prison uniforms in the car while a motorcycle policeman pursues them. In their Read More

That's My Wife

Synopsis: Mrs. Magnolia Hardy (Vivien Oakland) is fed up with her husband Oliver Hardy and his permanent houseguest Stan Laurel. Even though Ollie points out that Uncle Bernal will cut them out of his will if she leaves, she walks out anyway. Naturally, Uncle Bernal chooses just this time to pay his nephew Read More

They Go Boom

Leave 'em Laughing

Actors: Charlie Hall

Synopsis: In this Laurel and Hardy two-reel silent, Stan's toothache is keeping both him and Ollie awake. Their attempts to pull the tooth out also wake up their chagrined landlord (the perennial Laurel and Hardy landlord, Charlie Hall). The next day, Ollie takes Stan to a dentist (Jack V. Lloyd). Stan Read More

Should Married Men Go Home?

Synopsis: Up until this two-reeler, Laurel and Hardy's films for Hal Roach were released under the "All-Star Comedy" label; Should Married Men Go Home is the start of the duo's own series, showing the faith Roach had in their future. The film opens up on a peaceful day for Ollie and his wife (Kay Deslys). Read More

Habeas Corpus

Synopsis: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are perhaps unique amongst comedians of the 1920s and 1930s, and their silent and sound films are equally funny. This two-reeler was originally released with music and sound effects; it would be nearly six more months before the boys made their talkie debut. This short Read More

Early to Bed

Synopsis: Laurel and Hardy are poor and unemployed until a letter arrives informing Hardy that he has inherited a fortune. Hardy moves to a large mansion, and Laurel becomes his butler. One night, Hardy comes home drunk and plays some practical jokes on Laurel. When Laurel has had enough ribbing, he chases Hardy Read More

The Finishing Touch

Synopsis: This two-reel Laurel and Hardy silent is especially rich in slapstick. The comic duo have been promised five hundred dollars to finish a house, but the racket is disturbing the quiet of a nearby hospital, and both a nurse (Dorothy Coburn) and policeman (Edgar Kennedy) insist that the noise be kept Read More

From Soup to Nuts

Synopsis: Mr. and Mrs. Culpepper (Tiny Sanford and Anita Garvin, respectively) are a nouveau-riche couple who are throwing a fancy dinner party. Unfortunately for them, the waiters they have hired for the evening are Laurel and Hardy. The subsequent gags run from typical (Ollie destroys a cake) to the Read More

Their Purple Moment

Synopsis: In her family, Mrs. Pincher (Fay Holderness) keeps a firm hold on the purse strings, but Mr. Pincher (Stan Laurel) has managed to squirrel away three dollars in the pocket of a portrait hanging in the hallway. Mrs. Pincher discovers the hiding place, takes the money, and substitutes her trading Read More

Barnum & Ringling, Inc.

Actors: Joe Cobb, Farina Hoskins, Bobby "Wheezer" Hutchins, Jay R. Smith, Jackie Condon

Synopsis: Originally released on April 7, 1928, "Barnum & Ringling, Inc." was the first "Our Gang" silent comedy to be released with a synchronized musical and sound-effects track. All of the action takes place at the fashionable Ritz-Biltmore hotel, where the Our Gang kids have elected to stage a circus. Read More

You're Darn Tootin'

Synopsis: This classic Laurel and Hardy comedy is famous for the pants-ripping scene at the end, but the other parts of it are just as funny. Laurel plays the clarinet, and Hardy plays the French horn in a band. During a concert, they destroy a musical performance and drive the conductor crazy. Fired from Read More

We Faw Down

Synopsis: Laurel and Hardy want to slip out of the house and play poker. Their wives want them to stay home, so they make up a story about having to meet their "boss" at the Orpheum Theatre. On the way to the poker game, they run into two women who have lost a hat under an automobile. While they attempt to Read More

Two Tars

Actors: Charlie Hall

Synopsis: This is arguably Laurel and Hardy's best two-reel silent (the other contender for first place is Big Business). The boys play sailors on furlough. They have rented a Model T Ford for the day and meet a pair of pretty girls (Thelma Hill and Ruby Blaine). After an altercation with a gum machine and Read More

Sugar Daddies

Synopsis: Although they had appeared together in several films before this two-reeler was made, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were still a ways off from adopting the comic personas that made them famous. Here, the boys form a trio with James Finlayson, who lent them great support in later films. The picture Read More

Sailors Beware

Synopsis: Although this is one of the better early films from Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, they have obviously not yet teamed up and their characterizations have not yet gelled. Stan still exhibits the assertiveness from his previous films, and Ollie is still a rather lecherous heavy. The latest fare for Read More

Should Tall Men Marry?

Synopsis: This Hal Roach two-reeler was comedian Stan Laurel's last film as a solo player (all his films after this one would be with Oliver Hardy). Although it's not particularly distinguished, it has an interesting background. Initially, the script was titled Why Cowboys Leave Home, and Hardy was to be Read More

The Second Hundred Years

Actors: Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel

Synopsis: Laurel and Hardy are stripe-suited convicts in a cramped penitentiary cell. Seemingly model prisoners, they actually spend every available moment in digging a secret tunnel to freedom. Unfortunately, this only brings them up in the warden's office and lands them back in their cell. Breaking rocks Read More

Why Girls Love Sailors

Synopsis: Although Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy both appear in this two-reel short, it's not a Laurel and Hardy film in the true sense of the term. The boys were still a few films away from officially becoming a team. This comedy is primarily Stan's film. As fisherman Willie Brisling, he is engaged to Read More

Call of the Cuckoo

Actors: Max Davidson, Lillian Elliott, Spec O'Donnell, Charley Chase, Stan Laurel

Synopsis: Jewish comic Max Davidson stars in this Hal Roach farce that would most likely have been completely forgotten had not Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, and Charley Chase turned up in cameo appearances. Davidson, wife Lillian Elliott, and son Spec O'Donnell are attempting to sell their house, which is Read More

Baby Brother

Actors: Joe Cobb, Farina Hoskins, Jackie Condon, Jean Darling, Jay R. Smith

Synopsis: Lonely rich boy Joe Cobb wants a baby brother more than anything, but his parents are too busy and self-involved to discuss the matter. Sensing that Joe needs a few friends his own age, the family nursemaid (Anita Garvin) takes him to visit the Our Gang kids, whose latest money-making venture is Read More

Crazy to Act

Synopsis: This Mack Sennett two-reel comedy features Oliver Hardy, who was on loan from the Hal Roach studios. Arthur Young (Matty Kemp) is in love with Ethel St. John (Mildred June), but he has no money and she wants to be in movies. Gordon Bagley (Hardy) also wants to marry her, and she accepts his Read More

With Love and Hisses

Synopsis: Hal Roach had put Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy together in five silent films prior to this one, but the teamwork between the two was still gelling, and they hadn't yet developed the characters that we now know as Laurel and Hardy. Here, the boys are part of an Army Reserve group, headed for a Read More

Fluttering Hearts

Actors: Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel

Synopsis: This especially funny Charley Chase two-reeler features Oliver Hardy in a supporting role. A girl (Martha Sleeper) rushes off to a white sale, but is stopped by a cop (Eugene Pallette) for speeding. Charley, a wealthy young man (Chase), gets involved, and soon the three of them are heading off to Read More

Do Detectives Think?

Synopsis: Until the rediscovery of Duck Soup in the 1970s, this comic short was thought to be the first time that Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy appeared together in something akin to their now-familiar personas (before teaming up, Laurel and Hardy appeared in quite a few of the same films at the Hal Roach Read More

Hats Off

Synopsis: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy can't even tell whose hat is whose, so it's no surprise when they lose their jobs as dishwashers. But it isn't long before they once again obtain employment, this time selling washing machines. Their duties involve dragging a sample machine from door to door. One woman Read More

Eve's Love Letters

Synopsis: Although Oliver Hardy doesn't appear in this comedy, which features his future partner Stan Laurel, his name does -- there is a character named Sir Oliver Hardy. In the leads are fading stars Agnes Ayres and Forrest Stanley. A wife (Ayres) is being blackmailed by her former lover, Sir Oliver Read More

The Battle of the Century

Synopsis: Laurel is Canvasback Clump, an underfed and thoroughly clueless prize-fighter, and Hardy his rather overly optimistic manager. In confronting his ape-like opponent, Thunder-clap Callahan (Noah Young), Canvasback is quickly out for the count and the boys are left with the five-dollar loser's end of Read More

Duck Soup

Synopsis: A pair of adle-pated vagrants on the run from the police take refuge in a posh mansion, assuming the identities of its vacationing millionaire owner and the housemaid. Complications ensue when a couple arrives to enquire about renting the house. Forced to play out the charade to its ultimate Read More

Flying Elephants

Synopsis: In an ersatz Stone Age, the King orders all single males to marry or be banished -- or worse. A husky caveman known as the Mighty Giant (Oliver Hardy) and Twinkle Star (Stan Laurel), an effeminate warrior wannabe, compete for the hand of Blushing Rose (Viola Richard), daughter of Ye Aged Read More

No Man's Law

Synopsis: A wild stallion becomes the protector of a prospector and his foster daughter in this fine Western adventure produced by comedy specialist Hal Roach. Several members of the Roach "all-star" comics played straight roles this time around, including Oliver Hardy, here appearing scruffy, unshaven, and Read More

Love 'em and Weep

Synopsis: Confronted by a blackmailing former girlfriend (Mae Busch), recently wed businessman Titus Tillsbury (James Finlayson) is forced to quickly cover up when his suspicious new bride visits the office. In order to keep the old flame away from his home and the society party he's hosting that night Read More

Putting Pants on Philip

Synopsis: Although Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy and producer Hal Roach all name Putting Pants on Phillip as the first true Laurel and Hardy film, the comic pair had appeared in films together for The Roach Studios over a dozen times previously. In addition, while this two-reeler helped establish many of the Read More

Be Your Age

Actors: Charley Chase

Synopsis: This entertaining Charley Chase comedy features an old star (pretty Gladys Hulette, whose career was on its downslide) and an up-and-coming luminary (Oliver Hardy, who hadn't yet teamed up with Stan Laurel). Charley discovers that his family is in desperate need of 10,000 dollars. Meanwhile, his Read More

Long Fliv the King

Synopsis: This Hal Roach two-reeler is not one of Charley Chase's best efforts. It's notable only because it's one of the approximately ten percent of silent films known to have survived, and it features Oliver Hardy, before he teamed up with Stan Laurel, in a bit role. Princess Helga of Thermosa (Martha Read More

Gentle Cyclone

Actors: Rose Blossom, Buck Jones, Oliver Hardy, Reed Howes, Jay Hunt

Synopsis: Comedy and thrills are doled out in equal measure in the Buck Jones western The Gentle Cyclone. The story is motivated by a long-standing feud, which comes to a head when each of the warring families tries to adopt an orphan girl who is about to receive a huge inheritance. Into the fray comes a Read More

Crazy Like a Fox

Synopsis: Oliver Hardy -- who would soon join up with Stan Laurel to make a winning comic team -- has a walk-on in this Charley Chase two-reeler. A father (William V. Mong) wants his daughter (Martha Sleeper) to marry the son (Chase) of an old friend. Since she has never met the young man, Martha decides to Read More

Slipping Wives

Synopsis: A love-starved wife (Priscilla Dean) hires a dim-witted delivery man (Stan Laurel) to make love to her and revive the waning interest of her eccentric artist husband (Herbert Rawlinson). As might be expected, the makeshift gigolo manages to foul things up, disastrously confusing the identities of Read More

Forty-Five Minutes From Hollywood

Wandering Papas

Synopsis: This was one of Clyde Cook's better comedies for Hal Roach, perhaps due in part to the excellent direction of Stan Laurel, who at the time preferred working behind the camera (that would change a little later on when he teamed up with Oliver Hardy, who also has a small role here). Living up to his Read More

Bromo and Juliet

Actors: Charley Chase, Corliss Palmer

Synopsis: Charley Chase will do just about anything to marry his sweetheart Madge (Corliss Palmer) in this amusing two-reeler. So she promises herself to him -- providing that he play Romeo to her Juliet in the Shakespeare/variety benefit show she's holding. He agrees, though reluctantly, and once he's in Read More

Hard Boiled Yeggs

Thundering Fleas

Actors: Mickey Daniels, Mary Kornman, Joe Cobb, Farina Hoskins, Johnny Downs

Synopsis: Easily one of the fastest and funniest of the silent Our Gang comedies, Thundering Fleas is set in motion with a sidewalk performance of Professor Clements' Trained Flea and Insect Circus. When the Professor's star attraction, Garfield the flea (depicted via animation) escapes, Clements offers to Read More

Madame Mystery

Synopsis: 1910s screen vamp Theda Bara ended her film career at Hal Roach studios. Originally she had been signed to do a number of comedies, but after making this two-reeler, Bara's husband, director Charles J. Brabin, asked her to quit. Bara looks good in this film, and she plays up the comedy for all Read More

Stop, Look And Listen

Actors: Larry Semon

Synopsis: Supposedly based on the musical comedy of the same name, Stop, Look and Listen emerged as a typically slapsticky vehicle for pasty-faced comedian Larry Semon. Plots never really matter much to Semon, who usually abandoned the storyline sometime during the second reel to indulge himself in his Read More

Should Sailors Marry?

Synopsis: This two-reel comedy-thriller was the second picture that Clyde Cook made for the Hal Roach studios. When a couple divorces, the wife (Fay Holderness) finds herself in the unusual situation of having to pay alimony to her ex-husband (Noah Young), a wrestler. The wife goes through some hard Read More

They All Fall

Actors: Bobby Ray, Oliver Hardy

Synopsis: Although there's no longer any way to tell for sure (many records have been lost, and nitrate film negatives disintegrated), this seems to be the last time Oliver Hardy and Bobby Ray would appear in a film together (within a couple of years, Hardy would be teamed up with Stan Laurel, creating Read More

Stick Around

Actors: Bobby Ray, Oliver Hardy, Hazel Newman, Harry McCoy

Synopsis: Diminutive Bobby Ray and portly Oliver Hardy play employees of the Blatz and Blatz Interior Design company, hired to wallpaper Dr. Brown's sanatarium. When an inmate accidentally drops alcohol into the hospital's water supply, the two drunken wallpaperers go at their work with a vengeance. A Read More

Hop to It!

Actors: Oliver Hardy, Bobby Ray, Frank Alexander

Synopsis: Bobby Ray and Oliver Hardy are rival bellboys at the Hotel Bilkmore in this two-reel farce, one of four "Mirthquake Comedies" the team would make for low-budget Cumberland Productions. The guest in room nine (Frank "Fatty" Alexander) is carrying a large bankroll, which both Ray and Hardy plan to Read More

The Joke's on You

Actors: Billy West, Ethlyn Gibson, Oliver Hardy

Synopsis: Once again, Billy West borrows Oliver Hardy away from Bobby Ray (West was producing Ray's films, along with starring in his own). West plays a husband who is suffering from stress, and from his wife's awful cooking. The doctor advises him to take a vacation, so he and the wife (Ethlyn Gibson) go Read More

Yes, Yes, Nanette

Synopsis: This two-reel Hal Roach comedy was not one of James Finlayson's best starring efforts, but it's notable because it's the first film in which Stan Laurel directed his future comic partner, Oliver Hardy. Hardy just has a bit part, and according to Rob Stone's excellent book, Laurel or Hardy, he only Read More

Fiddling Around

Actors: Billy West, Oliver Hardy, Ethlyn Gibson

Synopsis: Oliver Hardy played the "heavy" for Billy West, both while West was known as the premier Charles Chaplin imitator, and several years later, after West had dropped the Chaplin trappings. This latter-day West comedy was made a couple of years before Hardy teamed up with Stan Laurel. Hardy is a stage Read More

Perfect Clown

Actors: Larry Semon, Kate Price, Oliver Hardy, Dorothy Dwan, Otis Harlan

Synopsis: Pasty-faced comedian Larry Semon was both producer and star of the modestly titled The Perfect Clown. Semon plays Bert Larry, a young bank clerk forced to stay outside all night when he's unable to pay his board bill. As if this isn't bad enough, Bert has been entrusted with $10,000 in bank funds Read More

The Wizard of Oz

Actors: Larry Semon, Bryant Washburn, Dorothy Dwan, Virginia Pearson, Charlie Murray

Synopsis: Popular silent film comedian Larry Semon literally sold the ranch to secure film rights to L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz -- then proceeded to chuck most of the Baum story in favor of his usual broad slapstick antics. In Semon's version, Dorothy (played by Dorothy Dwan, aka Mrs. Larry Semon) is Read More

Rivals

Actors: Billy West, Oliver Hardy, Ethlyn Gibson, Ernie Young

Synopsis: While comedian Billy West was producing the "Mirthquake" comedies starring Oliver Hardy and Bobby Ray, he would occasionally borrow Hardy for one of his own pictures. In this two-reeler, West and Hardy are rivals for the affection of Ethlyn Gibson. The two men spend most of the film trying to foil Read More

Isn't Life Terrible

Actors: Charley Chase, Katherine Grant

Synopsis: One of Charley Chase's co-stars in this comic short is Oliver Hardy. The two comedians knew each other from other studios, and Chase brought him to Hal Roach. He also is responsible for Stan Laurel coming to Roach, too. While it is likely that Laurel and Hardy would have wound up at the studio Read More

Girl in the Limousine

Synopsis: In his first feature-length comedy, white-faced Larry Semon starred as a milquetoast who gets involved with a gang of thieves. Through no fault of his own, Larry ends up in the home of his childhood rival (Oliver Hardy), a fact that the lady of the house (Claire Adams) has a terrific time Read More

Kid Speed

Actors: Larry Semon, Dorothy Dwan, Oliver Hardy, Frank Alexander, James J. Jeffries

Synopsis: White-faced comedian Larry Semon produced, co-directed, and starred in this two-reel farce, filmed at breakneck speed at the Charles Ray studios and the Santa Monica Auto Race Course. Avery DuPays (Frank "Fatty" Alexander), the city's wealthiest man, has promised his daughter Lou's hand in Read More

Trouble Brewing

Actors: Larry Semon, Oliver Hardy, Carmelita Geraghty, Billy Hauber, Al Thompson

Synopsis: This was the last two-reel comedy that Larry Semon made for Vitagraph. It was so uninspired that the studio didn't want to accept it, but Semon was so busy hunting down a new studio that Vitagraph was eventually forced to take it to satisfy distributors' demands. It's clearly a rehash of past Semon Read More

Her Boy Friend

Actors: Larry Semon, Dorothy Dwan, Oliver Hardy, Frank Alexander, Fred Spencer

Synopsis: After the disappointing full-length feature The Girl in the Limousine, comedian-turned-director Larry Semon returned to the two-reel format, at least for a while (coming up was Semon's flawed epic The Wizard of Oz). To keep the slapstick moving at an even more heightened pace, Semon used both of Read More

Three Ages

Actors: Buster Keaton, Margaret Leahy, Wallace Beery, Lillian Lawrence, Joe Roberts

Synopsis: Thirty years after its release, Buster Keaton admitted that his first feature film was essentially three two-reel comedies strung together. Perhaps this was a way for the comic filmmaker to play it safe; he had achieved success for his short films and if Three Ages wasn't going very well, its trio Read More

No Wedding Bells

Actors: Larry Semon, Lucille Carlisle, Oliver Hardy, Spencer Bell, Glen Cavender

Synopsis: In spite of racial stereotypes that grate today, this Larry Semon two-reeler has a lot of funny moments (due, in no small part to Oliver Hardy, who played his adversary in this and many other comedies). Larry is in love with a girl (Lucille Carlisle) whose father (Hardy) is on the verge of winning Read More

Horseshoes

Actors: Larry Semon, Oliver Hardy, Kathleen Myers, James Donnelly

Synopsis: For a long stretch in the early 1920s, Larry Semon's cinematic adversary of choice was Oliver Hardy. In this two-reeler, Hardy plays a boxer, Dynamite Duffy, who has offered to pay 50 dollars to anyone who is able to spar with him for a full minute. So far nobody has been able to earn the money Read More

One Stolen Night

Synopsis: This Alice Calhoun vehicle was one of dozens of desert romances that were made in the wake of Rudolph Valentino's The Sheik. Calhoun plays Diantha Ebberly who travels to the Sahara with her parents (Otto Hoffman and Adele Farrington). Although the members of her family are conservative Bostonians Read More

The The Midnight Cabaret

Actors: Larry Semon, Oliver Hardy, Kathleen Myers, Fred DeSilva

Synopsis: For what this Larry Semon comedy lacked in originality, it made up for in gags (which was usually the case with Semon's films). Larry plays a waiter in a fashionable cabaret who befriends a dancer (Kathleen Myers) who also works there. The dancer is forced by the management to be friendly to the Read More

Show

Actors: Larry Semon, Oliver Hardy, Lucille Carlisle, Frank Alexander, Alice Davenport

Synopsis: Comedian Larry Semon borrows heavily from two of his prior films, Between the Acts and The Stage Hand, for this mediocre comedy. Semon, the prop man for a high-class variety theater, has a crush on the leading lady (Lucille Carlisle who, in real life, was Semon's fiancée). The show involves a Read More

Pair of Kings

Actors: Larry Semon, Oliver Hardy, Lucille Carlisle

Synopsis: Not only did Larry Semon spoof The Prisoner of Zenda in this comic two-reeler, he also seemed intent on giving his film the same elaborate budget that Zenda had. Exhibitor trade weekly Moving Picture World accurately called this film "low comedy dressed up in silks and ermines." In the kingdom of Read More

The Agent

Actors: Larry Semon, Oliver Hardy, Lucille Carlisle, Al Thompson, Kittie Rinehart

Synopsis: Larry Semon's second film under his new Vitagraph contract is already beginning to show the comic's penchant for overspending on production -- the set includes an elaborate Mexican border town. In this border town, Don Fusiloil (Oliver Hardy) runs a dance hall that illegally sells alcohol. Larry Read More

Fortune's Mask

Actors: Earle Williams, Patsy Ruth Miller, Henry J. Herbert, Milton Ross, Eugenie Forde

Synopsis: Although this adventure-romance was loosely adapted from the O. Henry story Cabbages and Kings, it seems like it was more likely made as an excuse to have the virile Earle Williams slug a bunch of bad guys and show off his manly physique. While Ramon Olivarra (Williams) is being educated in the Read More

The Lucky Dog

Synopsis: In this two-reeler, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy appear together for the very first time. However, they're a long way from their famous Laurel and Hardy characters (that pairing wasn't to come until 1927). Laurel, after an up-and-down career in Vaudeville, had just begun acting in films, while Hardy Read More

The Counter Jumper

Actors: Larry Semon, Oliver Hardy, Lucille Carlisle, Eva Thatcher, Jack Duffy

Synopsis: This comedy Western was not one of Larry Semon's better two-reelers, although it does have a number of amusing gags. Glorietta Hope (Lucille Carlisle) owns a trading post where Larry is employed as a clerk. Accompanied by a mercenary suitor (Oliver Hardy), Glorietta shows up at the post to see how Read More

Little Wildcat

Actors: Alice Calhoun, Ramsey Wallace, Herbert Fortier, Oliver Hardy

Synopsis: Maybe the reason that Alice Calhoun's name has faded into the far reaches of silent film history is because she was difficult to cast -- she wasn't a winsome, Lillian Gish type ingenue, a glamour girl a la Gloria Swanson, or a lively flapper like Colleen Moore. She earned some attention from her Read More

Tourist

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Oliver Hardy, Zella Ingraham

Synopsis: This Western comedy was the last in which Jimmy Aubrey used Oliver Hardy as his foil. Jimmy is riding on a stage coach that is held up by an outlaw (Hardy) and his gang. Jimmy creates so much havoc that the bandits hold him hostage. He gets away and climbs up a tree with the bad guys in pursuit. Read More

Nuisance

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Rosa Gore, Leila McCarthy, Oliver Hardy, Jack Lloyd

Synopsis: This two-reel comedy starring Jimmy Aubrey was shot on location at a Ventura farm, 60 miles north of Vitagraph's studio in Hollywood. Oliver Hardy, who plays opposite Aubrey in many of his Vitagraph films, is the villain here -- known as the Walrus, he is courting a widow (Rosa Gore) in order to Read More

Fall Guy

Actors: Larry Semon, Oliver Hardy, Norma Nichols, Frank Alexander, Billy Hauber

Synopsis: This Larry Semon two-reeler takes place in a Western town circa 1921 (in other words, it has both cowboys and automobiles). By day Gentleman Joe (Oliver Hardy) is a respectable citizen. But in reality he is Black Bart, who robs travelers with the help of his souped-up roadster. At the local Read More

Blizzard

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Oliver Hardy, Maude Emory, Jack Lloyd, Vincent McDermott

Synopsis: Vitagraph shot a number of comedian Jimmy Aubrey's two-reelers on location. This one was filmed in Truckee, in northern California, in the middle of a frozen December, so its title was quite appropriate. Jimmy is a resident at a shabby boarding house and a blizzard is blowing outside. While trying Read More

The Sawmill

Synopsis: Comedians Larry Semon and Oliver Hardy battle over Kathleen O'Connor, the belle of the logging camp, in this 2-reel farce co-directed by Semon and Norman Taurog. The always extravagant Semon went too far making this film on location at Sequoia National Forest, where he made the Vitagraph Company Read More

The Bakery

Synopsis: With a huge brush mustache and wild eyebrows, Oliver Hardy is almost unrecognizable as the bakery foreman in this Larry Semon comedy (this, however, is how Hardy appeared in many of Semon's films). Semon is a clerk in the bakery, and his ineptitude constantly infuriates the foreman, not to mention Read More

The Fly Cop

Synopsis: Officially released September 1, 1917, the Billy West 2-reeler The Fly Cop didn't make it to New York until two weeks later. Inasmuch as West was the screen's best Charlie Chaplin imitator, it shouldn't be surprising that The Fly Cop bore a marked resemblance to Chaplin's Easy Street. Billy plays Read More

Maids and Muslin

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Oliver Hardy

Synopsis: Oliver Hardy had featured roles in two dozen Jimmy Aubrey films while Aubrey was signed to Vitagraph. As many other comedians before and after him discovered, Aubrey was really no match for Hardy's comedic skill and quite often, the star would find himself upstaged. Although Mr. Bolts (Aubrey) and Read More

Decorator

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Oliver Hardy, Kathleen Myers, Jack Lloyd, Evelyn Nelson

Synopsis: The plot to many of the films Jimmy Aubrey made are interchangeable, with Aubrey constantly getting on the nerves of Oliver Hardy (who, years before teaming up with Stan Laurel, was already receiving kudos for his comedic talents). Here, Hardy is a millionaire and Aubrey is a decorator who has Read More

Mysterious Stranger

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Oliver Hardy, Maude Emory, Vincent McDermott

Synopsis: Comedian Jimmy Aubrey thwarts a Spanish revolution in this two-reel Vitagraph comedy. The favorite toreador (Oliver Hardy) of a sleepy little Spanish town is the mastermind behind the planned overthrow. The government, aware of his plot, has sent a spy to investigate. When Jimmy arrives in town Read More

Trouble Hunter

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Evelyn Nelson, Oliver Hardy, Kathleen Myers

Synopsis: In this two-reel comedy, Jimmy Aubrey's character is referred to as merely "a social error." Down-and-out, Jimmy lusts after the soup that is being dished up at an underground cabaret, called the Thalia. Inside, a bouncer (Oliver Hardy) is kicking out a patron who tried paying his tab with a fake Read More

Stage Hand

Actors: Larry Semon, Frank Alexander, Lucille Carlisle, Oliver Hardy

Synopsis: While this Larry Semon two-reeler is short on plot, it's particularly rich in the kind of absurd slapstick gags at which Semon excelled. Semon is a stage hand whose incompetence is exacerbated by the presence of a mischievous monkey. Things go from bad to worse when the stage hand lights his Read More

His Jonah Day

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Oliver Hardy, Evelyn Nelson, Rosa Gore, Estelle Harrison

Synopsis: Although this Jimmy Aubrey comedy was shot on Catalina Island, all that is ever really seen of the lovely surroundings is the pier and the ocean, where Aubrey constantly gets dunked. Aubrey plays a tourist who is more interested in checking out the bathing beauties than he is any other sort of Read More

He Laughs Last

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Dixie Lamont, Oliver Hardy

Synopsis: This two-reel comedy Western from second-tier comedian Jimmy Aubrey features a surprise ending. Aubrey is a prospector who happens on the town of Peace Center. In spite of its name, Peace Center is a rough town that goes through sheriffs on a daily basis. The town's bad guy (Oliver Hardy) tries to Read More

Fists and Fodder

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Dixie Lamont, Oliver Hardy, Leo White

Synopsis: Jesse Robbins, who oversaw Charles Chaplin's films for Essanay, directed this Jimmy Aubrey comedy, which has something of a Chaplinesque feel about it. Aubrey plays a tramp whose thieving ways are cured by a pretty settlement worker (Dixie Lamont), who convinces him to go straight. Still hungry Read More

Squeaks and Squawks

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Dick Dickinson, Dixie Lamont, Oliver Hardy

Synopsis: This two-reel comedy is one of Vitagraph's more amusing vehicles for their second-string comic Jimmy Aubrey (their first-stringer at the time was Larry Semon). Aubrey plays a mechanic who goes to work for the village blacksmith (Dick Dickinson), but spends more time mooning over the blacksmith's Read More

Springtime

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Dixie Lamont, Oliver Hardy, Evelyn Nelson

Synopsis: In the first two dozen films comedian Jimmy Aubrey made for Vitagraph, his foil was a pre-Stan Laurel Oliver Hardy. By the time they were working on the second dozen films, the studio was giving Hardy quite a bit of room in their press kits, something that likely did not please Aubrey, whose Read More

Pals and Pugs

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Dixie Lamont, Oliver Hardy, Leo White

Synopsis: Comedian Jimmy Aubrey shares his best moments in this two-reeler with Oliver Hardy who, before he teamed up with Stan Laurel, played alongside a variety of other comics. He plays a neighborhood bully here, who mercilessly harasses Aubrey, an outcast who is even beaten up by a gang of children. Jimmy Read More

Backyard

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Oliver Hardy, Jack Ackroyd, Kathleen Myers, Evelyn Nelson

Synopsis: Because he was Vitagraph's second-string comic, Jimmy Aubrey was forced to film a lot of his comedies out of doors (the studio's main comic, Larry Semon, generally took over the sets). As a result, the slum setting of this two-reeler was a common one for Aubrey. Jimmy gets involved with a gang of Read More

Dames and Dentists

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Oliver Hardy, Dick Smith

Synopsis: As usual, this Jimmy Aubrey comedy makes little sense, but it contains a lot of gags. Jimmy is a dentist's assistant who turns the office upside down while the dentist is away. After using a variety of ways to extract teeth, including a mallet and a hammer and chisel, he has to chase after a Read More

Squabs and Squabbles

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Oliver Hardy, Dick Smith

Synopsis: Jimmy Aubrey -- Vitagraph's low-rent answer to their star comedian, Larry Semon -- starred in this two-reel knockoff of Charles Chaplin's Easy Street. Jimmy lives in a tough neighborhood by the name of Paradise Alley. The only time everyone toes the line is when the neighborhood boss (big Oliver Hardy Read More

Switches and Sweeties

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Oliver Hardy, Dick Smith

Synopsis: While most Jimmy Aubrey films didn't spend much time developing a plot, this two-reeler makes even less sense than the comedian's usual fare. Aubrey plays a janitor at a beauty parlor whose wife runs a gymnastics class in the same building. The police chief (Dick Smith) and his sergeant (Oliver Hardy Read More

Mates and Models

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Maude Emory, Oliver Hardy, Dick Smith

Synopsis: Because comedian Larry Semon had a bad habit of running over budget, Vitagraph had no choice but to offer his films at a premium (and theaters were willing to pay because he turned out quality films). But this meant that the studio needed to offer less expensive comedies too, and they filled this Read More

Mules and Mortgages

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Maude Emory, Oliver Hardy, Snookums

Synopsis: Jimmy Aubrey is upstaged by a monkey in this two-reel comedy. Aubrey plays the assistant to Strongarm, the local blacksmith (Oliver Hardy, who also upstaged Aubrey more often than not in the pictures they appeared in together). When a tax collector threatens to evict a girl (Maude Emory) and her Read More

Yaps and Yokels

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Oliver Hardy, Dick Smith

Synopsis: This particular Jimmy Aubrey comedy actually has some sort of cohesive story line. Helping the laughs along (as he did in the first 24 films Aubrey made for Vitagraph) is Oliver Hardy, some eight years away from teaming up with Stan Laurel. Aubrey plays a tramp who falls for a pretty farmer's Read More

Bungs and Bunglers

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Oliver Hardy, Dick Smith

Synopsis: Comedian Jimmy Aubrey's films tried to make up in gags what they lacked in originality, but this particular two-reeler has little of either. Any bright moments it may have had are offered either by a Model T with elliptical wheels or Oliver Hardy, who even at this relatively early stage in his Read More

Head Waiter

Actors: Larry Semon, Lucille Carlisle, Oliver Hardy

Synopsis: While he didn't have the charisma of a Chaplin or Lloyd, Larry Semon was immensely popular in his day, and this two-reeler received glowing reviews. Semon starts off the film in the classic kind of character favored by his contemporaries: a down-on-his-luck character in need of a meal. His efforts Read More

Tootsies and Tamales

Crew: Screen Story

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Oliver Hardy, Maude Emory, Bud Ross, Dick Smith

Synopsis: Although it is widely assumed that Oliver Hardy had no desire to work behind the camera and left the offscreen creative tasks up to his partner, Stan Laurel, this may not have always been the case. Earlier in his career, Hardy directed a number of shorts in which he also starred, and afterwards Read More

Flips and Flops

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Oliver Hardy, Dick Smith

Synopsis: Jimmy Aubrey's films for Vitagraph were the studio's lower-budget offerings (their other comic, Larry Semon, had a bad habit of running way over budget. Because of this -- and because Semon was clearly the superior comic -- Semon films commanded a heftier fee). The plot to this Aubrey two-reeler Read More

Dull Care

Actors: Larry Semon, Frank Alexander, Lucille Carlisle, Oliver Hardy, Billy Hauber

Synopsis: During his two years working with Jimmy Aubrey, Oliver Hardy would occasionally appear in comedies starring Larry Semon (Aubrey and Semon were both making pictures for Vitagraph at the time). Although Hardy plays a hefty apartment building janitor in this two-reeler, he's not the biggest guy in Read More

Distilled Love

Actors: Alice Howell, Oliver Hardy, Dick Smith, Rae Godfrey

Synopsis: Judging from existing footage, this comedy, featuring Alice Howell and a pre-Stan Laurel Oliver Hardy, may be a combination of two different films. It was shot long before its April 1920 release date, probably at the lot where L-KO studios and Century Comedies were shot (Hardy was working for L-KO Read More

Soapsuds and Sapheads

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Oliver Hardy

Synopsis: For most of 1919 and 1920, Oliver Hardy worked at Vitagraph on the comedies of Jimmy Aubrey (Aubrey, a minor comedian, was a veteran of Fred Karno's troupe, alongside the far more talented Charles Chaplin and Stan Laurel). This knockabout entry was the first to be released with Aubrey and Hardy Read More

Healthy and Happy

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Oliver Hardy, Dick Smith

Synopsis: In the 1910s, comedy filmmakers had a fondness for alliterative titles, and that was never more apparent than in the Vitagraph films starring Jimmy Aubrey. All of Aubrey's first 12 films for the studio featured alliterative titles. This one was the fifth in the series. Quincy (Aubrey) loves a Read More

Hearts in Hock

Actors: Oliver Hardy, Peggy Provost, Jack Henderson, Bartine Burkett, Billy Armstrong

Synopsis: This two-reel comedy was the last Oliver Hardy would make for Henry Lehrman's L-KO studio. It was also the last time Hardy and Charley Chase (who, in 1919, was billed under his real name, Charles Parrott) would work together until 1925, when they would both appear in Isn't Life Terrible? for Hal Roach Read More

Jazz and Jailbirds

Actors: Jimmy Aubrey, Oliver Hardy, Dick Smith, Dorothy Vernon, Dorothea Wolbert

Synopsis: Before he teamed up with Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy co-starred with a number of other comedians. Often he was more talented than those he appeared with, as is obvious in this two-reeler with Jimmy Aubrey in the lead. It is Hardy (wearing a walrus mustache and caterpillar-like fake eyebrows), not Aubrey Read More

Artist

He's in Again

Actors: Billy West, Oliver Hardy

Synopsis: Although this two-reel Billy West comedy was released under the banner of the Bull's Eye Film Corporation, it's likely that it was made while the comic was still working for King Bee. Oliver Hardy, who did not join West and the other King Bee stock players in later endeavors, also appears in the Read More

Hello Trouble

Synopsis: Many years before either of them wound up at the Hal Roach studios, Oliver Hardy and Charley Chase both spent time working for Henry Lehrman's studio L-KO. They worked together a number of times, usually with Chase acting as director under his real name of Charles Parrot. This particular Read More

The Prospectors

Stranded

Synopsis: Broadway luminary DeWolfe Hopper was felicitously cast as a broken-down ham actor in the 5-reel comedy-drama Stranded. The title accurately describes the dilemma faced by H. Ulysses Watts (Hopper) and his fellow performers when travelling-show manager Stoner (Carl Stockdale) skips town with the Read More

Slave

Synopsis: This two-reel Billy West comedy should not be confused with the Fox drama of the same name which was also released in 1917. It was the first film West shot on the West Coast after moving the company from New Jersey. Although Leatrice Joy had apparently been in a few other West films, this is the Read More

The Hobo

Synopsis: Considering that Billy West was the premier impersonator of Charles Chaplin's tramp character, it's no surprise that he'd wind up in a film called The Hobo. The plot to this particular two-reel offering is especially Chaplinesque. Hobo Billy rides the rails and when he lands in the yard, he is Read More

The Scholar

An Aerial Joyride

Synopsis: If nothing else, this one-reel comedy starring the team of Plump (Oliver Hardy) and Runt (Billy Ruge) offers an interesting view of Jacksonville, Florida, as it appeared in the summer of 1916. To impress his wife (Ray Godfrey), Runt has bought a car and hired Plump as his chauffeur. Unfortunately Read More

Never Again

Synopsis: The outskirts of Jacksonville, FL, do a fair imitation of the Spanish countryside in this Vim one-reel comedy featuring Oliver Hardy and Billy Ruge as Plump and Runt. Pop Dale (Bert Tracy) whisks his wife (Helen Gilmore) and daughters (Florence McLoughlin and Ray Godfrey) off on a trip to Spain. Read More

Charley's Aunt

Babe's School Days

Synopsis: For a few months at the end of 1914 and beginning of 1915, Oliver Hardy performed in comedies for the Lubin company. These split-reel and one-reel films were released over the next year and a half, and Hardy made such an impressive showing in many of them that his name even became part of the Read More

Ethel's Romeos

Synopsis: Popular Broadway star Fayette Perry occasionally appeared in films -- her credits include pictures for Universal and Jesse L. Laske. She made this one-reel comedy for Casino, the same outfit that made a couple of shorts starring then-Follies star W.C. Fields. This comedy, however, features a Read More

Back to the Farm

Synopsis: In one of his many "split-reel" comedies produced by Lubin in Jacksonville, Florida, a young Oliver Hardy is teamed with lifelong friend Bert Tracy. Arriving in the Big City for a visit with their aunt (Eloise Willard), Tom (Hardy) and Bob (Tracy) mistakenly enter the wrong apartment. The irate Read More

Female Cop

Synopsis: Early Lubin comedienne Mae Hotely was the wife of one of the company's producers, Arthur Hotaling. Hotely was no beauty and she was not afraid to make the most of her plain features in films such as this split-reel comedy, which features a very young Oliver Hardy, who was just getting his start in Read More

What He Forgot

Synopsis: Jerold Hevener both directed and starred in this split-reel comedy in which early film comedienne Mae Hotely is prominently featured. A film is being shot on-location and Bill Bailey (Hevener) stops to watch the crew working. The director sees him and puts him in the film as an extra who gets the Read More

Our Gang [Film Series]

Synopsis: Hal Roach's enduring Our Gang comedy shorts tickled audiences between 1922 and 1944. Originally an off-shoot from the extremely popular Sunshine Sammy series, the Our Gang shorts followed the lively adventures of a group of mischievous children as they played and learned the foibles of life. The Read More