Yesterday would have been Stan Laurel's 120th Birthday. I enjoyed Laurel and Hardy because of my Grandfather. He used to love their movies and I got into them because of how much he would laugh talking about them. And since Home Videos (or VHS back in the day) had just become really popular when I was a kid, I got the opportunity to watch a great deal of the movies. The first two I remember seeing were Flying Deuces and Be Big.
Laurel and Hardy's films were a different type of humor than the Marx Brothers and Three Stooges. And that's a good thing because it gives a variety to all the classic comedies out there.
It had all the fall on the floor slapstick that would have you rolling over with laughter like the Stooges had. But it was a more genteel type of slapstick than the Stooges. And while it didn't have the same rapid fire verbal brilliance as Groucho Marx did, Stan Laurel would sparkle with his simplistic word mangling saying things like "Honesty is the best politics" or "You can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be lead".
If you have not seen any of Laurel and Hardy's movies or shorts as of yet, I highly recommend you check them out!! When it comes to comedy like Laurel and Hardy, The Marx Brother and The Three Stooges. They just don't make 'em like they used to.
2 comments:
I'm with you on the Marx Bros (early ones) and The Stooges (ditto), but just don't find Laurel & Hardy funny. My dear departed great aunt loved them too-- and she got me into history, museums, comic books, classic films, opera and old time radio-- but she could never get me to bite at the Stan & Ollie apple.
Could this be tied somehow to my dislike of (gasp) Month Python?!
I hear ya!! I'm pretty much like that with the Rathbone/Bruce wartime Sherlock Holmes serials.
As for the Marx Brothers. Yeah, you can't beat the stuff they were doing with Paramount and as much as I like Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races. I don't enjoy it as much as much as their days at Paramount.
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