Bereamic Awesome Movie

Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Aryana Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

TheLittleSongbird Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were comedic geniuses, individually and together, and their partnership was deservedly iconic and one of the best there was. They left behind a large body of work, a vast majority of it being entertaining to classic comedy, at their best they were hilarious and their best efforts were great examples of how to do comedy without being juvenile or distasteful.'The Battle of the Century' is nowhere near classic Laurel and Hardy, later films, short and feature, had stronger chemistry when fully formed and used their considerable talents better. At this point, Laurel was much funnier and more interesting while Hardy in most of the previous outings had too little to do. 'The Battle of the Century' is still worth watching and is an improvement on some of their previous short films, to me it's easily one of their best at this point of their careers and one of the first to feel like a Laurel and Hardy short rather than a short featuring them.Personally would have liked more sly wit that made their later entries better, though the slapstick does entertain and is timed well if a bit too far on the simplicity.The story is a bit busy at times and both slight and sadly incomplete-feeling and fragmented.Laurel however is very funny, and sometimes hilarious. Hardy is at least not wasted, and he does give one of his funniest and most interesting appearances of his pairings with Laurel up to this point and has much more to do in comparison to their previous outings. The chemistry is certainly much more here than in previous outings of theirs, namely because there's more of them together, if still evolving. Support is nice. 'The Battle of the Century' is well worth seeing for the funniest and one of the best pie fight scenes ever.A good deal of the humour is well timed, hugely energetic and very funny, with everything going at a lively pace, and there is a lot of charm and good nature to keep one going, as well as a surprising bizarre one that doesn't feel too much. 'The Battle of the Century' looks quite good still.To conclude, decent with a great scene. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Jackson Booth-Millard Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are the most famous comedy duo in history, and deservedly so, so I am happy to see any of their films. In a boxing ring, the predicted winner Thunder-Clap Callahan (Noah Young) is about to fight less impressive looking Canvasback Clump, aka The Human Mop (Stan), and the audience blow raspberries at him and his Manager (Ollie). If they win they get $100, and if they lose they get $5, but it is obvious Clump is very slow witted, he doesn't move from the middle after the Referee (Sam Lufkin) explains the rules to them. Clump sees Callahan jumping in his corner to warn up, he assumes he's dancing, so he improvises some ballet-like stuff in his corner, till he falls. Then Clump is jumping around and swinging his fists ready to fight, his Manager advising him to use his left fist, and when the bell goes, he manages to unintentionally knock Callahan out with his left holding his arm out. The Referee can't finish the countdown till Clump is sat down, and the misunderstanding turn into a little scuffle between them, till he does sit down and Callahan comes round. After a quick fall and near countdown, Clump is ready for another round, but it ends very quickly when Callahan knocks him out, and his Manager faints too, and when he comes round, the whole audience has left, and Clump is sleeping on the ring floor. In the missing footage, a man at the fight recognises Clump, and his Manager buys accident insurance on his behalf, and they try to get money from this insurance by the Manager placing a banana peel on the floor for Clump to slip on. Instead, a Pie Delivery Man (Charlie Hall) slips on it, and presses one of his custard pies in the Manager's face, and when he throws two back, one hits the backside, and the second the face of a woman (Dorothy Coburn). She throws one back, and hits a man having his shows shined, and soon many other people, including a man in a top hat, a dentist patient, a sewer man hole guy, a pie shop customer and a barber shop customer are joining in, while a postman and a man posing for a photo get some pie too. Eventually the boys move away from the chaos, and Stan's last pie goes on the floor, for a woman (Anita Garvin) to slip on, and the rest of the missing film would have the boys questioned by a policeman about how the fight going all the way down the street started, and him chasing them away getting a pie in the face. Filled with good slapstick and all classic comedy you want from a black and white silent film, it is easily the shortest, but it is an enjoyable film. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were number 7 on The Comedians' Comedian. Worth watching!

tavm This is the first comment of a series of films where I'm attempting to connect two legendary comedy teams: Laurel & Hardy and Abbott & Costello. For this initial one-The Battle of the Century-we're at a time when Hal Roach's duo of a thin Englishman and a heavyset Georgia man were just starting their creative chemistry to an adoring public while a young and thin man (at the time) in his twenties from Patterson, New Jersey, was just attempting to break out in Hollywood any way he can which includes stunt work and occasional extra parts. It's here that Lou Costello makes an appearance in the audience of a boxing match between Stan and Noah Young with Ollie being Stan's manager. Half the time watching I was a little distracted looking for Costello but I still managed to laugh at Stan's antics in the boxing ring. I especially loved his dance at the beginning. I half wondered if Lou thought of this sequence when he did his own comic fights in later A & C vehicles. It certainly was amusing enough for the first reel which for years afterward was considered lost until 1979 when Richard Feiner managed to find it. It's the second part with the legendary pie fight that this film's reputation rests. Good thing when compilation producer Robert Youngston was looking for clips to include in his first project on classic silent comedy-The Golden Age of Comedy-he found what was a decomposing second reel and managed to preserve the last 5 or so minutes of it. Among the classic supporting actors long associated with L & H that appeared in this sequence was Charlie Hall and, in perhaps the most iconic moment at the end, Anita Garvin. The Nostalgia Archive video tape that I watched this one on actually had two versions on it. The first presented the first reel intact before going to the pie sequence. The second had the first reel again before going to a surviving script that details another sequence with Eugene Palette in which he sells Ollie an insurance on Stan. From there, Ollie then tries to get Stan to slip on a banana peel to collect the money before a cop gets mixed up in it. With the script, some stills, and then the Youngston-edited sequence, we get an as complete as possible version of this long truncated short. In summary, The Battle of the Century is well worth viewing for L & H fans as well as Lou Costello completists. Update-9/24/11: I just watched this again at an outdoor screening at the Baton Rouge Gallery with musical accompaniment by The Incense Merchants, whose contemporary stylings add to the fun immensely, but with the stills and script pages representing the missing scenes deleted. At least one female member of the audience behind me laughed as loud as I did. She must have been as much of an L & H fan as me!

Snow Leopard In its original form, this was probably one of the best of all of the Laurel & Hardy short comedies. It's too bad that it no longer exists in complete form, but what remains is still very entertaining. It has an even better variety of gag material than usual, with excellent timing and a good supporting cast to help out. The prize fight sequence is a hilarious take-off on the controversial Dempsey-Tunney fight that at the time was still fresh in everybody's mind. The pie fight sequence is still as good as or better than the many attempts to imitate it. It combines escalating chaos with plenty of creative gags. The now-missing portions of the film seem to have tied everything else together very nicely. The Nostalgia Archive reconstruction at least gives you some idea of what it would have been like in its original form, by using the continuity scripts. And even in the fragmented form that remains, it's very funny.