Laurel & Hardy - The Collection (21-disc Box Set) [DVD]

As the real gems of this collection are not so very much the feature films but the two-reelers between 1928-1934, I have made a list of all films included in this collection with disc-reference (bracketed) and in order of the first release date:

Thundering Fleas (21) 04.07.1926
Along Came Auntie (9) 25.07.1926
45 Minutes from Hollywood (12) 26.12.1926
Duck Soup (12) 13.03.1927
Slipping Wives (10) 03.04.1927
Jewish Prudence (21) 08.05.1927
Love 'Em and Weep (8) 12.06.1927
Fluttering Hearts (21) 19.06.1927
Why Girls Love Sailors (16) 17.07.1927
With Love and Hisses (7) 28.08.1927
Sugar Daddies (8) 10.09.1927
Sailors Beware (16) 25.09.1927
The Second 100 Years (12) 08.10.1927
Call of the Cuckoo (12) 15.10.1927
Do Detectives Think? (20) 20.11.1927
Putting Pants on Philip (15) 03.12.1927
The Battle of the Century (19) 31.12.1927
Leave 'Em Laughing (2) 28.01.1928
Flying Elephants (17) 12.02.1928
The Finishing Touch (14) 25.02.1928
From Soup to Nuts (1) 24.03.1928
You're Darn Tootin' (11) 21.04.1928
Their Purple Moment (13) 19.05.1928
Should Married Men Go Home? (7) 08.09.1928
Early to Bed (8) 06.10.1928
Two Tars (16) 03.11.1928
Habeas Corpus (20) 01.12.1928
We Faw Down (13) 29.12.1928
Liberty (20) 26.01.1929
Wrong Again (20) 23.02.1929
That's My Wife (9) 23.03.1929
Big Business (12) 20.04.1929
Unaccustomed As We Are (7) 04.05.1929
Double Whoopee (14) 18.05.1929
Berth Marks (6) 01.06.1929
Men O'War (16) 29.06.1929
Perfect Day (2) 10.08.1929
They Go Boom! (2) 21.09.1929
Bacon Grabbers (20) 19.10.1929
The Hoose-Gow (19) 16.11.1929
Angora Love (20) 14.12.1929
Night Owls (12) 04.01.1930
Blotto (18) 08.02.1930
Brats (5/21) 22.03.1930
Below Zero (11) 26.04.1930
Hog Wild (14) 31.05.1930
The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case (6) 06.09.1930
Another Fine Mess (1) 29.11.1930
Be Big! (18) 07.02.1931
Chickens Come Home (8) 21.02.1931
Laughing Gravy (10) 04.04.1931
Our Wife (4) 16.05.1931
Come Clean (8) 19.09.1931
Pardon Us (19) 15.10.1931
One Good Turn (3) 31.10.1931
Beau Hunks (4) 12.12.1931
On the Loose (9) 26.12.1931
Helpmates (4) 23.01.1932
Any Old Port! (16) 05.03.1932
The Music Box (14) 16.04.1932
The Chimp (17) 21.05.1932
County Hospital (2) 25.06.1932
Scram! (12) 10.09.1932
Pack Up Your Troubles (15) 17.09.1932
Their First Mistake (15) 05.11.1932
Towed in a Hole (16) 31.12.1932
Twice Two (5) 25.02.1933
Me and My Pal (4) 22.04.1933
The Midnight Patrol (20) 03.08.1933
Busy Bodies (14) 07.10.1933
Dirty Work (14) 25.11.1933
Sons of the Desert (13) 29.12.1933
Oliver the Eighth (6) 13.01.1934
Going Bye-Bye! (20) 23.06.1934
Them Thar Hills (2) 21.07.1934
The Live Ghost (16) 08.12.1934
Tit for Tat (2) 05.01.1935
The Fixer Uppers (10) 09.02.1935
Thicker Than Water (3) 16.03.1935
The Bohemian Girl (9) 14.02.1936
On the Wrong Trek (13) 18.04.1936
Our Relations (5) 30.10.1936
Way Out West (3) 16.04.1937
Swiss Miss (17) 20.05.1938
Block-Heads (7) 19.08.1938
A Chump at Oxford (1) 25.01.1940
Saps at Sea (11) 29.04.1940

(if there's a mistake in the list please let me know)

Not included in my list are:
- Hats off (only stills)
- documentary
- all the spanish and french versions which are quite interesting, since they often vary strongly from the original version, but unfortunately they are not subtitled.

Picture and sound are good. Packing is very good (slimcase).

At last a DVD boxset available in the UK containing nearly all the Hal Roach classics from 1926-1940.

Packing is fantastic with silver lettering complementing the black and white drawings of L&H. Each disc has a 3-4 page leaflet with production notes and photos.

20 DVDs of classic shorts and feature films plus a bonus disc containing the rarely seen original 1930s version of Brats and the 1991 documentary.

The B&W versions are the newly restored prints, which are the same as the renowned German Kinowelt series. Also included are colour versions, which although derided by film buffs and L&H historians are not as bad as has been said. Sure the clarity is not as high on the colour versions but some are fine and are certainly not a waste of disc space as has been suggested.

For completists this set is missing the feature films Fra Viavolo, Bonnie Scotland and Flying Dueces and Babes in Toyland. But the 3 of these are I think owned by MGM and did not appear on the Kinowelt boxsets either. Whilst babes in Toyland is far from a L&H classic and is mostly one good scene with musical filler material. If you want to argue that the boxset is not complete then you might as well complain that it contains none of their 1941 -1 954 features.

As it is what you get here is all the material that's worth having in a great package with a documentary bonus disc and rare foreign language versions of Murder Case, Blotto, Laughing Gravy and more which because L&H performed these phonetically contain slightly different scenes from the English spoken ones.

This box set is the best collection of films ever to be released on DVD, and really deserves ten stars it is that good.
Being a life long fan I purchased both the original video series by Virgin video and the re-mastered Vision video's a few years later. While the re-mastered editions editions had excellent picture quality the VHS format did not really do them justice. The DVD transfer however makes most of the films look pristine, and it is hard to believe that some of these films are over seventy years old given their picture quality. The sound, particularly on the silents with their stero sound track played by the Dutch band 'Beau Hunks' is truly outstanding. Also the sound on the talkies has been cleaned up to give the best sound quality available.
Why is the set so good?. The simple reason is that with the exception of the features 'Bonnie Scotland', 'The Devils Brother' and 'Babes in Toyland', this box set contains all the Laurel and Hardy starring shorts/features produced by Hal Roach, and that means the very best of Laurel and Hardy. Laurel and Hardy only ever approached the same artistic quality they achieved on one feature away from Hal Roach 'The Flying Deuces'.
As well as the classic films the set has a number of special features such as foreign language and colourised editions. The foreign language editions are worth watching because they are often longer, featuring additional scenes, different casts and best of all Laurel and Hardy actually speaking French, German or Spanish. A lot has been written about the colourised versions, while it is not up to the quality seen in 'Babes in Toyland', it is not really that bad. The only really bad thing about them is that being made for American TV they have a number of annoying scene cuts. Having said that I do not feel that they are a waste of disc space, indeed I know a number of people who will not sit through a black and white film - this may be one way to introduce them to the magic of Laurel and Hardy.
The box set also features a bonus disc featuring a documentary and a number of non - Laurel and Hardy shorts. The best thing on this disc is the Charlie Chase short 'Fluttering Hearts'. Charlie Chase was Hal Roach's top comedian before he was eclipsed by Laurel and Hardy in the late 1920's and today is nearly forgotten, this is a real shame because Chase's films are highly entertaining, as you will see by watching this short. It can only be hoped that Universal's next box set will feature the films of Charlie Chase.
The only real disappointment in the set is the horrible picture quality on 'Along Came Auntie', a Hardy solo effort, much better quality material does exist for this short (see the film on the Stonevision series volume 3). I was also a bit disappointed that the original vitagraph sound tracks were not used on the silents 'Habeas Corpus', 'Angora Love' and 'Bacon Grabbers'. Although I loved the new music, it would have been closer to how the films were originally shown if the surviving disc's had been used.
This is a truly outstanding set and everybody seriously interested in screen comedy, Laurel and Hardy or classic films should not be with out it.