Hustling for Health (1919)

It's most odd to see Stan without Ollie, but here we have an early solo outing from Lancashire's very own Stan Laurel.

The film is only fifteen minutes long but, like a cartoon short, packs a lot of splendid visual and slapstick humour within that run time, along with some delightfully terrible one-liners as part of the intertitles. But, most notably, it clearly hows just how brilliant the twentysomething Stan Laurel was at physical comedy.

It's clearly of another era, of course: a world of hen-pecked husbands and tyrannical wives who were sometimes (gasp) suffragettes, a time when horses and carts were still a common sight on the road, and a time when one could casually remark that one was going out to "kill a giblet for diner". And there's a baby in this short, who would certainly be a centenarian if alive today.

Some things are timeless, though, and the comic potential of a hose is certainly one of them. The film is genuinely funny, with some top quality physical comedy acting from all involved, and the hopefully romantic ending is cute. The film is freely available on YouTube and is certainly worth a look.

The Finishing Touch (1928)

This is another Laurel and Hardy short from their early period, before the later sound films for which they would later become well known. It's coming up to four years since my rave review of a similar short, Leave 'Em Laughing; this is every bit as good. Then again, so were all the many (sound) shorts I happened to see on the telly back in the '80s when schedulers weren't afraid of black and white.

This is sheer cartoon humour, done extremely well, by two superlative comedy actors who excel, particularly, in facial comedy acting. A superb script helps, with a conceit that is straightforwardly funny, but what really makes this short film excel is the comedy double act between Laurel and Hardy and their little mannerisms. There's a hint of melancholy in that these two, a kind of pre-Depression Lenny and George, will forever be poor, struggling and aimless but such thing are, rightly, not dwelt upon in favour of hilariously well-executed slapstick comedy.  And there's plenty of opportunity for that when these two try to build a house.

The hats, and Hardy's moustache, may be dated here, but the comedy hasn't. It's bizarre to think the two of them were a good few years younger than I am now while making this. Absolutely first class comedy, although I certainly ought to try a longer work of theirs one of these days.

Leave 'Em Laughing (1928)

It's a little odd, these days, to see a cinematically released comedy short that is but 21 minutes long, shorter than an episode of the typical sitcom even on commercial television. But this is bloody brilliant; the best of physical comedy which was never the same again for the generations of performers who grew up with sound. 

The visual comedy here is first class, from the slapstick of the concluding road dodgems sequence to the early scenes with Stan's aching tooth. Laurel and Hardy are geniuses without sound as much as with. This is bloody brilliant; obviously it's out of copyright so just watch it on YouTube if you've twenty minutes to spare and fancy a chuckle. Silent comedies just haven't dated in the way that some comedy from later on has done.

Well, the nurses have flapper hairstyles, the cars are 1928 vintage and have cranks, and our two stooges sleep in the same bed with nary an eyebrow raised, but you know what I mean...