I’ve been a Laurel & Hardy fan about as far back as I
can remember. I didn’t like them as much as the Three Stooges or Abbott &
Costello, but I watched many of their movies on TV and always enjoyed them. So I
was a pretty good target audience for STAN & OLLIE, a biopic from last year
that focuses on the final year of their performing career.
This movie actually combines a couple of different European tours made by Laurel & Hardy into one storyline, but it works and is fairly accurate in other respects, as far as I know. (I’m a fan but not an expert on the duo, by any means.) Steve Coogan plays Stan Laurel and John C. Reilly is Oliver “Babe” Hardy. Reilly is an odd bit of casting, but again it works well. It’s kind of a sad film, as both men are aging, nowhere near the stars they once were, and Hardy is plagued by health problems. All of that is portrayed well, and the production values are high.
Ah, but when they start doing classic Laurel & Hardy bits, the comedy kicks in and I start to grin. No, they’re not as good at it as the real thing, but the bits are still funny. I also appreciated the fact that the script makes it clear how much of the writing and directing of their films was done by Stan Laurel, whether he received any credit for it or not. They were both really talented guys, and STAN & OLLIE does a good job of showing that.
By the way, I also really like Oliver Hardy as John Wayne’s sidekick in THE FIGHTING KENTUCKIAN and wish he had done more roles along those lines.
Anyway, I didn’t even know STAN & OLLIE existed until we watched it recently, but I’m glad we did. If you’re a fan of classic movie comedies and watched them all the time on TV while you were growing up, as I did, you might like it, too.
This movie actually combines a couple of different European tours made by Laurel & Hardy into one storyline, but it works and is fairly accurate in other respects, as far as I know. (I’m a fan but not an expert on the duo, by any means.) Steve Coogan plays Stan Laurel and John C. Reilly is Oliver “Babe” Hardy. Reilly is an odd bit of casting, but again it works well. It’s kind of a sad film, as both men are aging, nowhere near the stars they once were, and Hardy is plagued by health problems. All of that is portrayed well, and the production values are high.
Ah, but when they start doing classic Laurel & Hardy bits, the comedy kicks in and I start to grin. No, they’re not as good at it as the real thing, but the bits are still funny. I also appreciated the fact that the script makes it clear how much of the writing and directing of their films was done by Stan Laurel, whether he received any credit for it or not. They were both really talented guys, and STAN & OLLIE does a good job of showing that.
By the way, I also really like Oliver Hardy as John Wayne’s sidekick in THE FIGHTING KENTUCKIAN and wish he had done more roles along those lines.
Anyway, I didn’t even know STAN & OLLIE existed until we watched it recently, but I’m glad we did. If you’re a fan of classic movie comedies and watched them all the time on TV while you were growing up, as I did, you might like it, too.
14 comments:
For those who have Starz, the movie is on tonight.
Well, that was good timing. I didn't know, because we don't have cable of any kind. Thanks for the heads-up, Jeff.
I missed this movie as well, but I will look for it. We have cable, but not Starz, so I won't be seeing it tonight.
This is a wonderful movie! I missed it at the theater (I don't think it even played here in our little town) but wanted to see it badly -- and finally did, on cable. It was everything I hoped for and more ... the cliched "I laughed, I cried, etc." It is, as you said, James, a sad film yet still somehow uplifting in that the boys got in a final great performance. The tag-on about Stan continuing to write skits for him and Ollie, while in the Hollywood veteran stars old folks home, was heart-wrenching yet inspirational. As a youngster, I, too, was probably more caught up by the broader comedy of the 3 Stooges and Abbot & Costello. But even back then I think I always knew at some level that the work of Stan and Ollie had a bit more depth and car3eful planning.
Did you know that Jerry Lewis named his character Stanley in his first solo effort The Bellboy and that he consulted with Mr. Laurel on the some of the bits used in the film? Stanley was widely recognized as a comedy legend.
And, finally, John C. Reilly's performance in this film is so spot-on perfect that his failure to wind an Academy Award for it is nothing short of a crime and one more reason I don't watch the flippin' Oscars any more!
Lifelong L&H fan here. I've been meaning to check this out. Thanks for the review, Jim!
Loved it, too. Amazing performances all around, and it really brings the time and places alive.
Good film! We were lucky to catch it on the big screen.
I just received the DVD of this film yesterday. I was a L&H fan from childhood as their movies were often on one of the stations we received. Now I have most of them on DVD and watch them often. James I agree with you on Hardy in John Wayne's "The Fighting Kentuckian".He also had a very funny cameo in Frank Capra's "Riding High." Wayne met Hardy while both were performing in a charity production of the play "What Price Glory" a fundraiser for The Military Order of the Purple Heart" that was directed by John Ford and featured many of the Ford regulars including Ward Bond and Maureen O'Hara. The play toured five California cities and Hardy stole the show with his comic flair. James Cagney saw the play with his buddy Roland Winters and said "It was the funniest thing I think I have ever seen. Roland Winters and I had to hang on to each other, we were laughing so much." After the play Wayne recruited Hardy for Kentuckian but Hardy only agreed after getting approval from Stan Laurel.
Laurel and Hardy are our favourite comedians and we rate the duo higher than Charles Chaplin or anyone else. Their slapstick comedy is full of childlike simplicity and innocence, and so much fun. I have not seen this movie though I have heard some really good things about it.
I know this is picky, but, in the picture above, the hat on the actor playing Stan is too big. The boys were always very careful about their bowlers.
Mention should be made of John Connolly's recent L&H biographical novel he (note the lower case). A great read!
This is the most recent movie that I have actually paid my way into a theater to see.
It may well be the last …
Stan & Ollie was in and out of theaters in about the time it took me to type this sentence.
That is the way of things in AD 2019, with movies that aren't made up of CGI, MMA, and fart jokes.
I'm learning to live with this, but no one can tell me that I have to like it.
Earlier this year, when they were having the kerfuffle about who would host the Oscars, I had the notion that maybe they might persuade Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly to come on in character as L&H and read the rules - but that would have been asking a lot (especially of Reilly), wouldn't it?
Mike,
That would have been a good thing to do at the Academy Awards although, yeah, a little awkward. Reilly's performance was certainly one of the best in recent years.
Stan Laurel did receive an award from the Writer's Guild of America in 1963. Charlton Heston took the award to Laurel to present it personally to Laurel in the small ocean-view apartment where Stan spent his last 8 years with his wife (not in the motion picture retirement home at Woodland Hills, CA). Heston wrote in his diary for November 12, 1963: "I was touched by my visit to Stan Laurel. He's living in a tiny apartment in Santa Monica with his wife and the flotsam left behind by the high tide of his career. I had the feeling he's more or less content, though his poor healthy must color his reactions to his life now. It contrasts sharply to the clipping he showed me of the triumphal reception they had in London in '32. He seems happy about the award, but I doubt he'll have the strength to accept it in person." He wasn't able to accept the award in person (the first given by the WGA) but Danny Kaye accepted for him.
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