Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, the comedy-duo who bequeathed audience in toto 107 films (mostly shorts), are rara avis in Old Hollywood since, when everything is said and done, their friendship endured the turmoil of showbiz, they are true friends both on and off the celluloid.Laurel and Hardy’s massive appeal can be excellently evinced in these two feature-length pictures. William A. Seiter’s SONS OF THE DESERT playfully pits conjugal trust against fraternal loyalty (the film’s title refers to a fictitious fraternal society the pair belongs to), and the result is a sparks fly, relentlessly rib-tickling slapstick that highlights the double act’s antics and personalities. A slim Laurel is the put-upon goofball and a rotund Hardy is the straight-faced bully, the exact opposite of Abbott and Costello, also, sometimes, their gags are preceded by oceanic pregnant pauses.In James W. Horne’s WAY OUT WEST, Laurel and Hardy go west to deliver the deed of a gold mine and promptly get themselves embroiled in duplicity and horseplay. They are perhaps the most unlikely knights in shining armor, that all depends on how feckless the villains are, James Finlayson’s crooked salon owner Mickey Finn is outright cartoonish, which leaves Sharon Lynn’s bejeweled salon singer Lola do the heavy lifting of manhandling Laurel with tickle torture, you can guess who is wearing the pants in that household.WAY OUT WEST gifts audience with Laurel and Hardy’s iconic synchronized dancing accompanied by the Avalon Boys, later the comical rendition of “The Trail of the Lonesome Pine”, and Laurel’s hat-eating, thumb-lighting gags, but its storyline is way too unremarkable to bother mentioning and the pratfall antics are deployed ad nauseam (I can imagine even the sinkhole would sigh resignedly), Meanwhile, SONS OF THE DESERT’s battle of sexes makes the best of domestic squabbles and situation comedies, contrast between Ms. Hardy (Busch) and Ms. Laurel (Christy), a termagant versus a sharpshooter, manifests that Laurel and Hardy are the weaker sex in their domestic unions.Pandering to a plebeian audience but with a morsel of refinement (they are not the Three Stooges), Laurel and Hardy’s comedies have less essence than Chaplin and Keaton’s bodywork, but contrivance is conveniently masked by the duo’s gladsome personae, and they attain the lowest common denominator with distinction. At the same time, cinematic techniques are evidently presented in both films, cross-fading in SONS OF THE DESERT, archaic special effects in WAY OUT WEST, all signal that the pair’s pictures are studio’s top-line commodities.Jon S. Baird’s biopic STAN & OLLIE cleverly reckons without the tired cradle-to-grave trope. By way of largely focusing on the duo’s music hall tour of the United Kingdom and Ireland in 1953, the film neatly carves out a sympathetic approach to honor their ever-indelible screen legacy. Laurel (Coogan) and Hardy (Reilly) are over the hill, attempting a comeback in the movie business which transpires to be a pipe dream. Saddled with old age and even older grudge, they are reunited, but it takes the whole tour and a heart attack to really open them up and patch things up, though their pique is a mote in the eyes of their Tinseltown coevals.Baird makes a good fist of his third feature film, his direction is nifty, attentive but not grandstanding, the narrative pans out coherently, digestible even for those who don’t know the duo from Adam, and it ends with a perfectly calibrated note of earnest emotion, short of mawkishness.Naturally the impact of biopics as such hinges on the actors, and STAN & OLLIE hits the jackpot with Reilly and Coogan, the former, imposed on himself ponderous prosthetic makeup and costumes, camouflages the arduousness with an open-faced facility, while the latter, studiously mincing every word and calculating every look and gesture, projects Laurel’s inscrape with acute faculty and precision, both actors breast a new peak in their acting careers (for my money, Coogan delivers something more magic here). And when they are on stage in concert to mimic Laurel and Hardy’s antics, the resemblance is uncanny and totally captivating.Ida and Lucille, Laurel and Hardy’s respective wives (played by Arianda and Henderson with distinctive flairs), are two different kettles of fish, one is a haughty loudmouth verging on caricature (Arianda and Coogan generate zero connubial chemistry, they look anything but a married couple) and the other is a mousy but devoted helpmate (Henderson and Reilly make good of domestic bliss), both must take a back seat to let the heartfelt bond of their husbands save the day.Take some liberty from facts, STAN & OLLIE is a masterly composed, subdued, almost elegiac panegyric on a comedy double act who is immortalized by their rambunctious energy and wholehearted benevolence.referential entries: Arthur Lubin’s HOLD THAT GHOST (1941, 7.1/10); Sam Wood’s A NIGHT AT THE OPERA (1935, 7.3/10); Ted Wilde’s SPEEDY (1928, 7.4/10).Title: Sons of the DesertYear: 1933Genre: Comedy, Family, MusicCountry: USALanguage: EnglishDirector: William A. SeiterScreenwriter: Frank CravenMusic: Marvin HatleyCinematography: Kenneth PeachEditor: Bert JordanCast:Stan LaurelOliver HardyMae BuschDorothy ChristyCharley ChaseLucien LittlefieldTy ParvisRating: 7.6/10Title: Way Out WestYear: 1937Genre: Comedy, WesternCountry: USALanguage: EnglishDirector: James W. HorneScreenwriters: Charley Rogers, Felix Adler, James ParrottMusic: Marvin HatleyCinematography: Art Lloyd, Walter LundinEditor: Bert JordanCast:Stan LaurelOliver HardySharon LynnJames FinlaysonRosina LawrenceStanley FieldsVivien OaklandChill WillsRating: 7.3/10Title: Stan & OllieYear: 2018Genre: Biography, Comedy, DramaCountry: UK, Canada, USALanguage: EnglishDirector: Jon S. BairdScreenwriter: Jeff Popeinspired by A.J. Marriot’s “Laurel and Hardy: The British Tours”Music: Rolfe KentCinematography: Laurie RoseEditors: úna Ní Dhonghaíle, Billy SneddonCast:Steve CooganJohn C. ReillyShirley HendersonNina AriandaRufus JonesDanny HustonJohn HenshawStephanie HyamRating: 7.5/10。

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