Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Binding: DVD EAN: 0024543231752 Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC Label: 20th Century Fox Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox Number Of Items: 3 Publisher: 20th Century Fox Region Code: 1 Release Date: April 11, 2006 Running Time: 221 minutes Sales Rank: 10669 Studio: 20th Century Fox Theatrical Release Date: September 22, 1944
Description: Episode Description: Disc 1 'Big Noise': Rating: NR Audio: English: Mono & Stereo Subtitled: English and Spanish Special Features: Commentary by Randy Skredvedt, Photo Gallery, Theatrical Trailer, Laurel and Hardy Theatre: Bullfighters Theatrical Trailer, Great Guns Theatrical Trailer, & The Dancing Master Theatrical Trailer
Disc 2 'Great Guns': Rating: NR Audio: English: Mono & Stereo Subtitled: English & Spanish Special Features: Commentary by Randy Skretvedt, Photo Gallery, Opening the Freemont Theatre Movietone News, Theatrical Trailer, Laurel and Hardy Theatre: Big Noise Theatrical Trailer, Bullfighters Theatrical Trailer, & Jitterbugs Theatrical Trailer
Disc 3 'Jitterbugs': Rating: NR Audio: English: Mono & Stereo Subtitled: English & Spanish Special Features: Commentary by Randy Skretvedt, Photo Gallery, Inauguration of the Railway Movietone News, Theatrical Trailer, Laurel and Hardy Theatre: Big Noise Theatrical Trailer, Bullfighters Theatrical Trailer, & Great Guns Theatrical Trailer
Amazon.com: Though Laurel and Hardy fans will attest to the relative weakness of the three films included in this Gift set, Great Guns, Jitterbugs, and The Big Noise, the films still brim with classic Stan and Ollie antics, and more intriguingly, serve as historical markers of American Wartime Cinema. These post-Hal Roach, Twentieth Century Fox releases offer, even in the liner notes, information about how the film industry was influenced by World War II. Great Guns' plot most directly refers to the war, showing what happens when the Army recruits two clowns. Gunpowder gags, planes dropping flour bombs, and physical comedy inside the barracks, involving cots, dangling light bulbs, and mess kits abound in this film that hopefully entertained soldiers. Jitterbugs, the funniest film in the set, provides comedic escape from hardship by constructing a plot based on a dislike for gas rationing. In Jitterbugs, Stan and Ollie, stars of the Zoot Suit Band, encounter a scam artist who allegedly can turn water into gasoline with an invented pill. Together, the three men swindle their ways into absurd situations, culminating in hilarious scenes of Stan disguised as a wealthy elderly lady who at one point declares, to a bunch of gangsters, that she's feeling 'quite gay.' Clever double-entendres, subtle wordplay, and co-star Vivian Blaine make this film wonderful. A documentary entitled 'Revenge of the Sons of the Desert,' about Laurel and Hardy fan clubs and conventions, shows how the wacky spirits of Stan and Ollie live on into the present day. True, these three films may not be their strongest, but they defined comedy during some of America's grimmest times. --Trinie Dalton
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Rating: - L@H box set Volume 1 One out of Three
I'll start off by saying "Great Guns" and "The Big Noise" are pretty bad movies. Any comedy actor of the day could have been the stars of these movies and lord knows these movies would not be available on dvd today. But, Hey, it's still Stan and Ollie. Most every Actor-Actress goes downhill late in their career. Did you see Bette Davis in "Return from Witch Mountain". That was a Terrible Boring Movie. Why was she even in it? Let alone so was Christopher Lee. My point is that not everyone buys Movies(dvd's) just for the sake of :Is It a good movie or not?!? I bought this set knowing what these movies were all about. I'm glad they were cleaned up looking and sounding good and above all... They all had commentary by Randy Skretvedt. Anything L@H is worth getting especially if you are a true fan of their decades of acting.
Rating: - Stan & Ollie during wartime
The saga of Laurel & Hardy's post-Hal Roach years as they fell in line at Twentieth-Century Fox (and did their best to entertain during WWII) is finally chronicled here in this trio of films. The offering is a mixed bag, demonstrating the difficulties the boys had in their transition, ranging from good ("Jitterbugs") to mediocre ("Great Guns") to poor ("The Big Noise").
Behind the cameras, the boys were not allowed to tamper with the scripts (similar to Buster Keaton's fate when he signed on at MGM). Stan, curiously, was not allowed to use his traditional clown-white makeup (which would've helped to make him look younger). What's worse, they were being humbled onscreen by the white-hot new comedy team of Abbott & Costello, whose antics, in comparison, seemed funnier & fresher than the often-pale material Stan & Ollie were given. And the release dates didn't help the situation either: "Great ... Read More
Rating: - All the FOX movies are finally on DVD
Just about any Laurel & Hardy biography or film book had the same opinion. "Blockheads" was the teams last great movie. Then the team was temporally split up with Laurel going off to produce B westerns and Hardy getting the lead role in "Zenobia". This was the dividing mark in their career. They re-teamed but the films their following films "A Chump At Oxford", "Flying Deuces" and "Saps At Sea" were all pretty weak. Then the Laurel and Hardy left Hal Roach for a contract at 20th Century Fox to make a series of movies and Fox executives sabotaged the team ( perhaps deliberately ) with bad movies that gradually grew worse until they hit rock bottom with "The Bullfighters". The boys also made a couple of movies for MGM studios but did no better as that studio had no idea how to make comedies. After a five year hiatus from movies the team returned to redeem themselves in the film "Atoll K" which was far superior to ... Read More
Rating: - Fives stars for entire disk content!
These are not the very best Laurel and Hardy movies but they are not really bad either. They are different. If they had started as a team making these movies we would never have known about all their best work and we'd be satisfied with these films as they are.
Each of these three movies I enjoyed watching. The picture and sound quality are superior to many of the other Laurel and Hardy videos available.
The extra features are a bonus too. I especially liked the audio commentaries by expert film historians.
I highly recommend this collection to ture Laurel and Hardy fans!
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