Pardon Us (Laurel & Hardy)
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Movie Reviews of Pardon Us (Laurel & Hardy)
Movie Review: Episodic and Moderately Entertaining
Summary: 3 Stars
L&H's Pardon Us was originally conceived as a typical 2 reel 20 minute short feature by Hal Roach studios, a spoof of MGM's The Big House. Hal Roach had requested the use of MGM's prison set - MGM was the distributing agent for all of Hal Roach's product in 1931, back when MGM owned and operated all of their own Loews theaters - but for whatever reason, MGM refused. Hal Roach, being the type A and stubborn personality that he was decided to build his own prison set, yet to recoup the costs of the massive set he needed to expand Pardon Us into a full length feature, which commanded a higher premium from MGM.
And therein lies the main problem with Pardon Us - it plays like a 20 minute episode with WAY too much padding in order to expand it to 64 minutes - 7 reels. To compound the problem, this DVD does not come with individual chapters - the whole movie is one big chapter, so the viewer doesn't have the option of breaking the movie up into smaller portions for better digestion. L&H's humor can get old after about 20 minutes, so to watch the whole 64 minute movie in one sitting can be tedious and tiresome.
L&H had the same problem with their second full length feature Pack Up Your Troubles (1932), but by their third, Sons of the Desert (1933), they seem to have gotten the formula right.
The print itself used in the DVD has NOT been digitized nor remastered, but is still a relatively clean print for a 77 year old film. I don't suppose that there would be enough of a market for this DVD to support the costs involved with full restoration. But as a L&H fan, I'll take what I can get.
In interviews, Stan Laurel often stated that the pacing of their sound era comedy films were deliberately slow to accomodate laughing audiences without drowning out dialogue in large movie theaters - the only medium their films were shown in during the late 1920s - mid 30s. Stan also stated that he would have loved to have re-edited the L&H films for television to shorten the long dead pauses and lengthy reaction shots between dialogue and/or physical stunts (Stanley Laurel died in 1965, so he had viewed their work often on TV before his death). Furthermore, Stan regreted that L&H ever made any full length features to begin with. He acknowledged that L&H's humor works best in 20 minute short features. I tend to agree.
L&H comedy is not like the faster pace of Columbia's The 3 Stooges - it's slow, deliberate, avoided cheap one liners, and has that warm Hal Roach charm. Also, I really enjoy the background music from Leroy Shields and Marvin Hatley that were used in most of Hal Roach's product - more commonly known as "Little Rascals music" by today's audiences unfamiliar with other Hal Roach releases.
For the price of this DVD (worth about 4 gallons of gasoline) it's a good value for L&H fans. For those unfamiliar with L&H product, it may be interesting and, in some spots, funny viewing. Not the LOL type of humor, but a warm savoring with a few chuckles thrown in.
Movie Review: A Little More is Better than Nothing More
Summary: 3 Stars
The majority of American Laurel & Hardy fans have first seen this feature in a grainy copy of a 55-minute American release that Blackhawk sold for years. When first released, the Hal Roach Studios was releasing alternate editions of their comedies to the foreign markets, usually in longer versions, with the stars themselves speaking the translated dialogue. Historians have found evidence of at least four or five variants of "Pardon Us," including an extended version of "Pardon Us" that is the content of this DVD release. This appears to be the British release version with the American titles retained (in Britain this was "Gaol Birds").
In terms of structure, longer is not necessarily better. The movie is still what Laurel called a "3-story building on a 1-story foundation." It seems like three short subjects strung together with an arbitrary climax tossed into the final 10 minutes to wrap things up. However, many scenes in this release are longer, particularly the middle sequence on the cotton farm. The added minutes help the individual scenes, relieving the choppiness that has always seemed characteristic of this feature. And while the cotton farm scene slows the feature to a halt, the singing of the Etude Ethiopian Chorus, coupled with Stan & Ollie's song and dance routines, are a pleasant diversion, in spite of the dated imagery.
The overall pictoral quality on this release is about a 1000% improvement over the film prints I grew up with, but apart from the overall quality of the feature, for which I'm grateful, this disk is very lean. There are no chapter stops, no chapters of publicity material, no chapters of alternate scenes, some of which still exist. It would have been instructive to have the leaner American release on this or a second disk for sake of comparison. But like too many other American releases of Laurel & Hardy (and Little Rascals) comedies, we're getting the bare bones and little else.
But for the Laurel & Hardy fan, this movie is essential viewing. I hope it sells well enough to give the copyright owners incentive to be more ambitious with future releases.
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