# Lost Films of Laurel and Hardy Volume 1 standard DVD review



## Richard W. Haines (Jul 9, 2007)

As a marketing gimmick using the term 'lost film' or 'restored' helps sell the units in the
markeplace. However, as a historian I'll have to state up front that the movies contained
in the 9 volume DVD set were never lost.

As I discussed previously, Hal Roach was a great comedy producer and entrepreneur. His
studio was known as the "Lot of Fun" and he launched the careers of Harold Lloyd, Laurel
and Hardy and Our Gang (Little Rascals). He had an instinct for what audiences would find
funny and always emphasized characterization so the humor wasn't mere slapstick but came
out of a specific comic's personality.

Unfortunately he was also notoriously cheap and stingy. His movies tend to be rather crude
(with a few notable exceptions like "Babes in Toyland") with flat photography, simple sets, bad sound editing and audio mixes. He also refused to spend a dime on the movies after
they were produced, including preservation. All of his output was shot on the highly volatile
nitrate film stock which while generating fine grain, sparkling black and white release prints
was also subject to decomposition, fire and even spontaneous explosion since the plastic
was derived from gun cotton.

Nitrate was a strange and mysterious substance. There were many variables in terms of it's
survival. The better the labwork (no processing chemicals left on the film), the longer the
prints and negatives would last. The colder and dryer the storage, the greater period of time
it's life could be extended before inevitable decomposition. The nitrate negatives of "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone with the Wind" were kept in cold storage at the George Eastman House archive and are still intact whereas the negative of "Lost Horizon" shot the same year completely crumpled to dust by 1967.

Before the advent of broadcast television and movie syndication, feature films and shorts were considered a 'one shot deal'. Between 100 to 400 prints would be made directly off of the camera negative (first generation prints) for exhibition. On rare occasions some popular titles might be re-released within ten years and Disney was unique in that he re-issued his classics ever seven years. Otherwise, old movies were considered as disposable and obsolete as last week's newspaper. They were left in their cans in awful storage conditions (hot and humid) or in exchanges and labs and many began to decompose from neglect.

Then after television airings of classics became popular the studios discovered the old negatives were actually worth something in the marketplace. Simultenously tri-acetate 'safety' film was introduced in 1948 and completely replaced the dangerous nitrate by 1951. The way to extend the life of an old movie shot on nitrate was to make a 35mm fine grain positive on safety film (also known as a fine grain master). This was a first generation print that was finer grain than a standard release print and low contrast. From the fine grain master, a black and white duplicate negative (also on safety film) could be made in both 35mm (for theatrical revivals) and 16mm (for television broadcast). So gradually and incrementally the studios began to transfer their nitrate
movies to safety. However, it took decades to do them all and of course they prioritized the
transfers to ensure that the most potentially profitable movies were done first and sold to television.

The last in line were the silent movies which had a very limited profit making potential (most stations didn't like to broadcast them) and little viewer interest. By the time the got around to them, most had decomposed completely. It's estimated that 80 % of all nitrate silent
films decomposed to flammable red powder by the time they considered transferring them to modern safety film. 

A real cultural tragedy. (The exceptions were Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd who
owned and preserved their own nitrate negatives and transferred them circa 1948
with their own money)

If the negatives are gone the only option they had at the time was to make a dupe negative from a surviving print. The problem was, the quality was quite poor. Old release prints were usually scratchy and splicey. When a negative was derived from a high contrast print it changed the gray scale and made the faces look washed out with little detail and made the darker parts of the image very muddy. Also, if the film had started to decompose, a flashy image would
be transferred (the image getting lighter and darker) due to the base rotting. In extreme cases you could see the blotches of rot in the new negative.

Hal Roach was no different than other studios at the time. He knew the Laurel and Hardy sound films were worth something so he sold them to various distributors for re-release including "Film Classics" and "Janus". He wouldn't fund the transfer to safety film so these distributors did it but on the cheap. The negatives weren't cleaned or transferred 'wet gate' (to fill in the scratches). The new 35mm saftey film fine grain masters and negatives of the sound movies were thus full of scratches, splices and dust on the image. And that's how they look today unless the current owner (Hallmark) wants to fund a complete restoration to digitally scan in the safety negatives and fix them up so they look brand new again.

As for the silents, Roach just left them in a storage vault on nitrate and completely ignored and/or forgot about them until documentary producer, Robert Youngson, approached him about doing a compilation. Roach granted permission in 1965 and Youngson pulled out the nitrate negatives and transferred 'sections' and 'scenes' from the Laurel and Hardy silent nitrate shorts to safety film and released them into a popular feature entitled, "Laurel and Hardy Laughing 20's". I saw it at a kiddie matinee at the Triangle theater in Yorktown and found if funny but a bit disorienting. I didn't know at age 9 that Laurel and Hardy had made silent comedies and while the clips of the shorts looked great (since they were derived from the nitrate negatives not battered old prints), I missed hearing their distinct voices.

In 1968, Youngson did another compilation duping off sections of the same nitrate negatives for a follow up entitled, "The Further Perils of Laurel and Hardy".

So while the funniest clips of their best silent shorts were available, the actual complete versions were not seen again until the seventies when Blackhawk Films made a deal with Roach to make complete 16mm dupe negatives from the 35mm nitrate negatives. They released them to the home non-theatrical market in 16mm, 8mm and Super 8mm. They looked acceptable but obviously the quality wasn't as good in the sub-formats as in 35mm. They also syndicated short 5 minute clips of them for broadcast on TV called "Laughtoons". The quality was quite good considering they were just individual gag sections.


Meanwhile no one had actually transferred the complete shorts from nitrate to 35mm tri-acetate. Roach was considering junking them all figuring he had squeezed whatever extra cash he could from them but fortunately the Museum of Modern Art persuaded him to donate them to their archive. They would fund the transfer from nitrate to safety. Luckily Roach gave the go ahead.

So MOMA transferred the 35mm nitrate negatives to 35mm fine grain masters and even struck some camera negative prints on safety film right off the originals. I saw a new print of "Big Business" there in the seventies which was part of Leonard Maltin's comedy course in college. Maltin was a film history teacher before his gig as the Entertainment Tonight celebrity. That particular short looked quite good. Unfortunately, many of the others had begun to deteroriate in the interim. So the shorts now vary in quality depending on their condition at the time of the final transfer to safety film in the seventies.

The 35mm tri-acetate safety fine grain positives were later released on laserdisc and VHS in the eighties and between 1997-1999 they were released on standard DVD under the inaccurately titled, "Lost Films of Laurel and Hardy". They announced a 10 volume set but only released 9 volumes. Most of the silent shorts are contained in the collection however. Since these are out of print early DVDs, the prices have gone out of sight on Amazon and ebay. However, if you're patient and keep checking you can still get them for reasonable prices.

When the nitrate negative was in good shape, the shorts look quite good and pretty close to what audiences saw back in the twenties. But when they are deteriorated you can see the splotchy rot on screen and some sections or whole shorts were derived from scratchy old prints and they look terrible. The collection is not chroniological and pretty random and the imagery is all over the place. The music scores tend to be the same ones recycled over and over which is monotonous. 

But...when the shorts are of good quality, they are actually in better condition than their sound films with sharp contrast and a gray scale. They're also very funny...in some cases funnier than their sound shorts.

Volume 1 of the series I was able to find for $7 and although it was used the disc was in mint
condition. Like all of the discs, the shorts are a mixed bag.

"Big Business" is in very good shape and only has some minor scratches and a little flashing/flickering in a few shots. It's their most famous silent short and has the boys attempting to sell Christmas trees unsuccessfully on a door to door basis. They run into James Finlayson and end up in a tit for tat routine where they trash each others house and car. One of the funniest silent films of all time.

"Do Detectives Think?" is is pretty good shape with some damage here and there but overall looks like a first generation copy with good gray scale and contrast. The boys do the graveyard scared schtick which was a vaudeville staple. Noah Young (Harold Lloyd's nemesis) plays the villain here and Finlayson is the other antagonist. Lots of laughs in this short.

"The Finishing Touch" is messy. Some of it is obviously from the original negative and looks good but there are sections derived from a beat up, scratchy print and dupey looking. They used what they could find and I'm sure the dupey sections were to replace decomposed footage in the negative. So it's distracting to watch but very amusing if you can get past that. The boys attempt to build a house with disastrous results. Nastiest gag has Hardy accidently swollowing nails. Veteran, Edgar Kennedy plays the cop as usual giving them a hard time.

"Call of the Cuckoo" is actually a Max Davidson short with Laurel and Hardy as guest stars. The beginning of the short shows obvious decomposition but then the image cleans up although all of the titles have been replaced from dupe footage. Davidson's films are very rare and hard to see now because he was one of the 'ethnic' comedians like Chico Marx. Davidson played a comical, henpecked Hassidic man which is considered politically incorrect today although I didn't see any anti-semitic references at all other than the fact that he wears the traditional black clothes. The plot has him being driven nuts by his crazy neighbors played by the boys although the story doesn't make too much sense. Davison is best known to Our Gang buffs as the crazy hermit who says "I know, but I won't tell ya" after pulling out the hairs from his beard.

"On the Front Page" is actually in very good condition and looks like it was derived from the camera negative. It's an okay comedy about a reporter but doesn't star the team. Stan Laurel has a guest role as a butler with slicked down hair although you can see him developing some of the personality traits he used for the team like crying when he gets upset.

"Hustling for Health" is a pre-team short starring Stan Laurel in a completely different type of character that he later portrayed. The image quality is terrible and it's obviously duped off a scratchy old print rather than from the negative.

So there you have it. For $7 it was a good purchase for me since "Big Business" was one of their all time best shorts and worth owning. Other Laurel and Hardy buffs will have to use their judgment based on what copy they can find and for what price considering the shorts are not of consistent quality.

Hopefully some day the Roach estate will allow the 'best of' silent shorts (those in 
good condition) to be released on blu ray but with a final digital clean up to remove
minor scratches, dust and some flickering.


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## deacongreg (Jul 29, 2008)

Whats going on Richard?
When I was young, though no one in my house watched, I loved Laurel and Hardy. They had me in tears. The only comedy duo to do so. Though I watched and enjoyed the Abbott and Costello movies, I never laughed with them, like I laughed with Laurel and Hardy. Just something about them.


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## Richard W. Haines (Jul 9, 2007)

My favorite team is Abbott and Costello but there are some provisos to
my preference. First and foremost is that Bud and Lou's movies were very
accessible throughout my youth. They were origiinally shown on WOR on
The Million Dollar Movie (same film every night from 8 to 10 and twice on
Saturday) and of course I saw them each time over and over. Then they
were shown on WPIX Channel 11 from 11:30 AM to 1 PM every Sunday night
for decades. Unfortunately this channel cut them to fit the time slot but they
tended to cut different scenes each time so I ended up seeing the entire film
during it's endless broadcasts. And most importantly, Universal supplied excellent
16mm prints that had no wear and great black and white contrast.

Laurel and Hardy were my second favorite group but were less accessible. They
were shown but infrequently except for "March of the Wooden Soldiers" on WPIX
which was a Thanksgiving tradition. Unfortunately that movie was the only one
in good shape. The rest of their features and shorts were severed scratched,
splicey and dusty with fair to poor contrast. And they're even worse now in
terms of the US negatives. The German negatives are in much better shape
in terms of contrast and sharpness but also dusty and scratchy and need a full
digital clean up. However, Hallmark (the current owners of L&H), don't seem inclined
to spend the money much less even release many of their films.

The silents that were finally transferred in the seventies that hadn't started to
decompose look very good in terms of contrast and sharpness. Better than the
German sound film negatives. But they were pulled from release too so Laurel and
Hardy has proven to be rather elusive on DVD at this point in time unless you want
to order the British boxset in Region 2.

And I never ever thought I'd own the only uncut, mint 35mm Super Cinecolor print of
Lou's sole feature production, "Jack and the Beanstalk". One of these days or years
I'll transfer it to blu ray and release it and the quality will be vastly superior to the garbage
that's been transferred to date. But not now. It's in archival storage for the time being. 
I have to concentrate on releasing my own features.


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## deacongreg (Jul 29, 2008)

Richard W. Haines said:


> My favorite team is Abbott and Costello but there are some provisos to
> my preference. First and foremost is that Bud and Lou's movies were very
> accessible throughout my youth. They were origiinally shown on WOR on
> The Million Dollar Movie (same film every night from 8 to 10 and twice on
> ...




Yes, I watched Abbott and Costello, at those times as well. They were more accessible, true, so we both were more familiar with them. But, for me, anyway, there was something quite hilarious with Laurel and Hardy. On Sunday mornings, at 11:30am, after my man Chuck McCann, they would show Abbott amd Costello movies. Those were the days.

How was your Mothers Day? BTW, this Saturday on the 16th, Meridian will be at Home Theater in Long Island, showing off their Meridian 810, top of the projector and loudspeakers. 10am - 4:00pm. In Manhassett. I`m really looking forward to it. Its very rare to get a real up close personal look at components at this price level. Let alone be able to play with it yourself.


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## Richard W. Haines (Jul 9, 2007)

Actually Chuck McCann showed Laurel and Hardy shorts and even did a fairly good
impression of Oliver Hardy. He also took a few of their silent movies, removed the
title cards and attempted to dub their voices with his impressions which was strange to
say the least.


As I recall, Abbott and Costello didn't have TV star intros. They just played the
features first on the Million Dollar Movie in the sixties (WOR) and then on WPIX
in the seventies. In 1965, the Millon Dollar Movie premiered "Jack and the Beanstalk"
in color. I assume they found a Super Cinecolor print and broadcast that. However,
for all future broadcasts they showed the 1961 black and white re-issue version until
the seventies when they played a very bad dupey looking color version in 16mm.
What's strange about the WPIX cut versions of A&C is that they usually left the musical
numbers intact and cut the comedy scenes rather than vice versa.


The Three Stooges were shown in Officer Joe Bolton's show who introduced them,
sometimes with Moe Howard who warned kids not to poke each other in the eye or
rip each other's hair out. Later the heavily censored the shorts on TV which is why
they were re-issued for Midnight Shows in the seventies along with the uncensored
Our Gang (Little Rascals) shorts. Unfortunately, the theaters that did the midnight
bookings exhibited them in 1.85 rather than 1.33 which cropped the images.


All of this only applies to the NYC area. I don't know how these films were shown
elsewhere and they might have had hosts.


Some Chuck McCann shows exist in poor quality kinescopes on bootleg DVDs.
Nothing exists on Officer Joe Bolton except for some stills. Syndicated stations
rarely saved anything which is why only samplings of The Soupy Sales show and
some out-takes/bloopers of Sandy Becker exist but not the entire seasons of 
episodes.


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## deacongreg (Jul 29, 2008)

Richard W. Haines said:


> Actually Chuck McCann showed Laurel and Hardy shorts and even did a fairly good
> impression of Oliver Hardy. He also took a few of their silent movies, removed the
> title cards and attempted to dub their voices with his impressions which was strange to
> say the least.
> ...


Now you have really hit it now. If you remember Richard, Wonderama with Sandy Becker, and Chuck McCann, were on at the same time Sunday mornings. My younger sister, wanted to watch Sandy. I wanted to watch Chuck, while he read Dick Tracey off the Sunday paper and of course, Flash Gordon. Followed by the Abbott and Costello movie at 11:30am. Boy, would we argue while dad made a big breakfast, featuring pancakes!! Joe Bolton, of course I watched him as well. I would love to be able to purchase those old Chuck McCann shows, and even Wonderama for my sister. Too bad they did not keep stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## Richard W. Haines (Jul 9, 2007)

Actually Sandy Becker had two shows. He was the host of Wonderama but then
left for his own series. There was this gimmick of trying to clock "Max"
which was Becker superimposed on the cartoon they were showing running across
the screen. If you were able to call the show with the exact time you saw him
you could get tickets to be in the show. I tried calling a few times but the line
was always busy. Becker was good at impressions and wacky characters but
I think the show's producer was concerned that he didn't interact as much with
the screaming brats so he was replaced by Sonny Fox and later Bob McAllister.
McAllister was on the show for the longest period of time befoe it was cancelled
and even had a hit record with his song, "Does anybody here have an ardvark".
You can still find copies on ebay along with the Becker blooper/out-take DVD
but no complete shows. Billy Crystal said in an interview he was one of the kids
on Wonderama way back when.



Channel 5 didn't preserve any of their output as far as I know. They were broadcast
live and sometimes they made kinescopes for re-runs and then junked or forgotten
about. 


There were two famous lawsuits regarding TV destruction of shows. Milton Berle
sued NBC for losing or junking his show and Paul Winchell sued a station too. Both
were producers and owners of their series and 'assumed' that the stations were saving
the shows for future broadcasts. Winchell won his suit but never found the shows
(outside of a few kinescopes that film collectors had saved) but made other stations
wary about hiring him again. The Berle case was cancelled when NBC found the shows
in a forgotten vault although I haven't seen anyone release them on DVD from the
kinescopes other than bootlegs.


All of this is what inspired me to take direct action to save and preserve my own
films. Aside from my feature negatives I even have some of the Super 8 sound
amateur movies I made as a kid. The film industry is one of those businesses that
you have to do everything yourself and to never assume anyone is doing anything
for you.


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## deacongreg (Jul 29, 2008)

Richard W. Haines said:


> Actually Sandy Becker had two shows. He was the host of Wonderama but then
> left for his own series. There was this gimmick of trying to clock "Max"
> which was Becker superimposed on the cartoon they were showing running across
> the screen. If you were able to call the show with the exact time you saw him
> ...


I definitely remeber Sonny Fox. In fact, I liked him better, than Sandy Becker. So, being that in those days, films were not saved, there would be no Flash Gordon, right? Ming the merciless, I would love to get my hands on some of those episodes. Just so I can see those space ships wabbling in the sky....lol!!!


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## Richard W. Haines (Jul 9, 2007)

I preferred Sandy Becker who was more of a wacky comedian than kiddie show host
like Fox or McAllister. I didn't like children's shows but I did like Becker, Chuck McCann
and Joe Bolton because while targeting kids they didn't talk down to them. McCann is
the only NYC area host still around. I remember he popped up in a "Columbo" episode
which affected me for years. The murder centered around a reel change in a movie.
McCann played a projectionist and discussed the reel change circles on the top corner
of a film print that indicated when the projectors would go from one to the other. I
never noticed them but then began to notice them in all TV shows and movies. The plot
device was whether the murderer had enough time to kill someone between reel changes.
Today they no longer have reel change cue marks on prints and have removed them from
old movies digitally. But for years I saw them and was angry at McCann and the writers of
that episode for pointing them out. Techincally they appeared one foot and 12 feet
before the end of each reel. 


Flash Gordon was a movie serial created by Universal and they exist along with the
compilation features. They were broadcast on TV shows but not created specifically
for that medium. And...if you want to see some Flash Gordon images check out
my own feature, "Space Avenger". There's a scene where the aliens go to a movie
palace in the thirties and see one of those serials on screen and assume that is the
level of American technology. I licensed the footage from a company and they let
me dupe off original Nitrate pre-print to superimpose on my tri-acetate safety film
negative optically. I've both handled and screened nitrate over the years. It's
very deceptive stock. It looks like a regular piece of film...until it starts to decompose
and then it's like handling nitroglicerin. In my movie, "Head Games", the climax takes
place in an old nitrate film lab and we actually ignited pieces of nitrate film.


In terms of the TV sci-fi fare like "Captain Video", the same company I licensed
the Flash Gordon from has many kinescopes of that show. The original kinescope
negatives were intentionally destroyed by the Du Mont network when they folded
in the mid-fifties. Wholesale destruction of negatives was common back then for
television networks. If they couldn't profit from them, they didn't want anyone
else to and most of the Du Mont network films and kinescope were intentionally
destroyed. But...there are some film collectors that saved them. I knew a collector
who had saved 35mm kinescopes of all kinds of things like the Kate Smith hour and
Kefaufer hearings from the early days of TV. Most kinescopes were 16mm but some
were actually filmed in 35mm.


There are two ways of looking at movie and TV past. One is to lament the tragedy
that so many movies and shows were lost due to neglect and ignorance. The other
is to applaud how much survives in near mint shape. Personally I didn't want to take
any chances so I preserved my own movies.


Alas, because we are facing a future where so many shows and movies originated
digtially instead of celluloid, I suspect we will have as many 'lost' images as in the
past when nitrate was the culprit.


But...not my movies which have 35mm tri-aceate or estar film elements. But to try to explain this to the digital advocates is a waste of time.


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## deacongreg (Jul 29, 2008)

Wow,

If there is anyone who knows more than you do, I can not imagine who that would be. So, if I want to see my beloved Flash Gordon, you said to watch your Space Avenger. Okay, you left out how I might go about doing this!!!


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## Richard W. Haines (Jul 9, 2007)

Greg,

This is just stuff I picked up over the years as a film collector and later historian.
Don't forget I've been doing this since 1982 so I've accumolated lots of info and
technical data. I'm by nature an archivist (or pack rat) so I just kept saving everything
from manuals to trade magazines and newspapers, old Technicolor prints, lab data
and so forth. People thought I was nuts but I ended up using all of it for my two
books years later. Being a film collector also gives a person access to information
that no one else has regarding movie technology. 

Email me at [email protected] and enclose your address and I'll send you some
stuff.


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