With Love And Hisses (1927)

Although starring the duo (along with their regular sparring partner, James Finlayson), this is not a Laurel and Hardy film featuring the familiar characters, but another early silent where the duo are still working out their roles. Despite the occasional blasts of crude energy, the end result is a little slow and sluggish.

There is no real story to speak of, just a selection of loosely strung together sketches featuring the misadventures of Home Guard Private Cuthbert Hope (a very effeminate looking Stan), Sergeant Banner (Olly) and Captain Bustle (Finlayson). What surprises is the earthy, coarse tone of some scenes - at one point, the sweaty, slobby soldiers are packed into a single train carriage, sticking their backsides in other people's faces, making revolting smelling food, while other gags involve skunks, swollen posteriors and (implied) nudity.

Some of the elements that would be staples of Laurel and Hardy are in place here, such as the perpetually splenetic Finlayson and the sparingly used caustic intertitles from HM Walker ("There were cheers and kisses as the Home Guards left for camp. The married men did the cheering"). Unsurprisingly, the most successful sections are the gags involving the duo working together to cause mayhem. Their combined carelessness leads to the destruction of the soldier's uniforms, and an elaborate and silly gag involving a conveniently placed and conveniently sized movie poster. They were perfectly talented on their own, but together, greater than the sum of their parts.


With Love and Hisses(B&W) 1927 - Laurel & Hardy by herbert-hueller

The Lodger (1927)

Coming before the droll British chase films of the 1930s, the glamorous Hollywood psychodramas of the 1940s and 50s and the controlled cruelty of his later work, the silent films of Alfred Hitchcock can get overlooked. Despite lacking the budget, resources and superstars of the later work, there is still much to enjoy as well as some pointers as to where the career of Mr Hitchcock was going to go, most particularly in The Lodger.

The plot sees a sinister Jack the Ripper style killer called The Avenger on the loose on the foggy streets of London, a killer who only targets blonde women. A mysterious man (Ivor Novello) arrives at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting, looking for a room to rent. The Buntings have a daughter, Daisy, who is a fashion model, and has a police detective boyfriend, Joe  - and blonde hair. As Joe investigates the murders, he begins to suspect the Bunting's new lodger - just as Daisy starts to find herself attracted to him. Does Joe have the right man? Moreover, is he about to lose his woman to him?

The Lodger was Hitchcock's third completed film but already we can see many of the themes and tropes that would crop up time and time again in his work over the next 50 years. The plot revolves not just around murder, but the murder of women, and blonde women at that. There is also a man wrongly accused of a crime, a slightly buffoonish police officer, a streak of black humour, and a twist ending. We also see in Ivor Novello, a leading man cast in a different light to how the public were used to seeing him – think of James Stewart as a neurotic weirdo in Vertigo.

In addition, Hitchcock is already starting to not just hint at sex and violence in his films, but draw a link between the two. This is most explicitly shown here, not just by the killer, but by Joe the detective, who gleefully talks of putting a ring on Daisy's finger after he has put a rope around the neck of the Avenger, implying that the perfect climax to a violent death is consummating his marriage.

However, the Lodger is more than just a dry run for Hitchcock's career, and is a great thriller in its own right. The cinematic style is at wonderfully audacious, with some brilliantly designed shots and scenes that show Hitchcock had grasped the unique power of the medium, and was also paying attention to and learning from some of his contemporaries, particularly the German Expressionists, such as Robert Wiene and his silent classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

As always with a silent film, the soundtrack that accompanies your screening will be a definite factor. While previous viewings have been on DVD with a soundtrack played by the London Symphony Orchestra, a recent watch on the big screen for me had music by drums/bass/guitar trio Minima. This was in itself an eclectic affair, moving seamlessly between jazzy noire, eerie atmosphere psychedelic noodling and loud, dramatic rhythm and may initially feel somewhat anachronistic, compared to the large ensemble or organ score of the time of the films release, However, it actually gives the film a completely different feel, one that is to my mind somewhat closer to the Giallo genre, and given that one of the progenitors of Giallo, Dario Argento, made his name with visually stunning films about sexually charged murder (with great soundtracks) this actually makes sense.

The Battle of the Century (1927)

One of a small number of missing or incomplete Laurel and Hardy films, enough of The Battle of the Century exists to watch and enjoy. What is left is a film of two very different parts, the second of which contains what may be one of the wildest custard pie fights ever filmed. There is no deep message here, just simple exuberant fun, brilliantly executed.

The story starts with Stan stepping into the boxing ring to face the terrifying Thunderclap Callahan “who will probably win” the caption card informs us. The laughs come from playing up the differences between puny thin Stan, who seems to know nothing about boxing, and his gargantuan opponent who seems to have the head of Max Schreck grafted onto the body of a pro wrestler. Standing behind him, powerless to do anything other than watch in mounting horror and exasperation, is his manager, Olly.

The familiar Stan and Olly characters are not yet properly formed, but a few of the basic ingredients are in place. Stan is weak, mentally and physically, as well as clumsy. Olly sees himself as the natural leader of the duo, and always has a get rich quick scheme on the go. What is missing, apart from the trademark hats, is any sense of intimacy and familiarity between the pair. This develops later in their career along with the feeling that whatever is happening is just the latest is an ongoing series of misfortunes to befall the duo.

The boxing sequence is not in itself side-splittingly funny, although it is interesting to see director Clyde Bruckman using varying camera angles and editing to give some sense of the energy of the fight, rather than just point the camera at the ring. Contemporary audiences may have got a hoot out of the references to the famous "Long Count Fight" of the same year where, after flooring his opponent Gene Tunny, Jack Dempsey ignored newly introduced rules requiring him to move to a neutral corner of the boxing ring during the ten second count. Here, Stan messes up in an identical fashion, costing Olly his match winnings, and leading on, albeit very tenuously, to the second part of the film.

Desperate for cash, Olly takes out a life insurance scheme on Stan, with the plan being to make sure he suffers a nasty accident. We do not get to see any of this bit, as the footage has been lost for many years, but it has been reconstructed with the help of a still photo and a title card. When the moving pictures start up again, we cut to Laurel and Hardy regular Charlie Hall performing one of the archetypal pratfalls of slapstick comedy, slipping up on a banana skin, one that was intended to cause Stan an insurance claimable injury. Of course, it's seems only right that Hall is carrying a large tray of custard pies, and what follows may well be one of the greatest examples of the pie fight ever filmed. 

Although the sequence as it stands today is missing some footage, more than enough survived to appreciate what a well crafted piece of anarchy it is. It starts off slowly and deliberately, and, like all the best Laurel and Hardy fights, has an air of ritualised violence to it, as each person gets their turn while the others wait politely for them to throw. However, each time somebody ducks and a pie causes some collateral damage, another person gets drawn into the mayhem, and as more and more pies are flung, the pace winds up and up until it feels like the whole town is involved, until finally Stan is taking orders for pies from the back of a lorry.

Not for the last time, the pair cause mayhem without intending to, or without even seeming to try too hard.