Laurel and Hardy films or shorts on DVD?
 

Any word or news on when these classics will be coming to DVD? All I have been able to find are the "Lost" films series and the hardly watchable end of their career public domain films: Flying Duces and Atoll K. There was a collection in the late eighties/early nineties on VHS that collected three shorts per tape, but I have yet to see anything on DVD. Any one else out there a fellow L&H fan?

march of the wooden soldier shows up at christmas for ten bucks...in color, blah.

Nothing here in the U.S., but there's a huge DVD box set in Region 2.....

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...hreadid=355128

Unfortunately, it seems that some of them are <i>colorized</i> - what a stupid thing to do!

Clarification: The R2 box set has the original black & white versions on the same DVDs with the colorized versions (not instead of).

I picked up a L&H dvd a couple of months ago and I'm quite happy with it. It's called "Laurel & Hardy" and it was released by Artisan. There are 5 shorts on it, and has been remastered. I'm sure I saw it on Amazon. Released in 2003. Also several extras.

I have this release and it's very good. The video and audio is quite good for such old films. The DVD contains a documentary, biographies of Laurel & Hardy and five features:

Sons of the Desert
Busy Bodies
Another Fine Mess (funniest in the lot, IMHO)
County Hospital
Music Box

The DVD can be had for under $10 if you look hard enough. I think DigitalEyes has it for $7.

Hey, it was done over here, so it's colourised!

But if they hadn't done this, they could have probably put the set on just 10-15 discs.

Try this site for more info on the R2 versions:
http://www.blotto.nl/index.php/international/

They compare the German, Dutch and UK sets, which all blow away the pathetic effort of Hallmark/Artisan in the US. That single disc mentioned above is not acceptable, in my opinion. They retained fade in/outs in the feature designed for commercials to be inserted on tv, and several soundtracks have added background music --- and the transfers were done 20 years ago and THEN "digitally remastered" -- they aren't fresh transfers -- there are some pretty good droupouts along the way. So, get that all region setup going and buy one of the R2 sets!

The Hallmark disc is ok if you have low standards, however I was greatly disappointed that the TV version of "Sons of the Dessert" was used and that VHS masters of the shorts were simply put on DVD.

From what several fans have been able to determine, Hallmark has no interest whatsoever in doing proper releases on L&H. Indeed they apparently have no interest in ensuring that the original elements are preserved!! (This is very, very scary).

Fortunately the European rights holders have stepped up to the plate very nicely and one has several viable options to chosse from in the multi-region market.

I have the first four volumes of the Hal Roach tapes from the 80's and would love to see all these shorts properly released.

It looks like the imported box set would be the way to go. I don't know if I would be able to justify buying it though because of all the colorized content though. It looks like a lot of the films are presented in both, but that just seems like wasted space to me. Who actually prefers watching an old B&W film in "color" anyway? I tried once with the March Of The Wooden Soldiers, as that was the only one available, and to me it was unwatchable. It was so poorly done and just seemed to rob the original of any joy that the film once held.

Sad really that these films haven't seen a proper U.S. release. I'm sure that the people (the film buffs) on this board aren't the only ones who enjoy these films. There have got to be enought people out there who would enjoy these timeless classics.