The Battle of the Century

Though parts of the movie are missing, "Battle of the Century" contains more than enough footage to establish that Laurel and Hardy are comfortable meshing together. The Hal Roach/ H. M. Walker script opens with Laurel in the boxing ring managed by Hardy. Though Stanley has his opponent down on the ground through a lucky hit, his refusal to stay in a neutral corner during the count allowed his foe to regain consciousness and quickly turn the match around. Later on, the two find themselves in the middle of an outrageous pie fight on a city street where literally thousands of pies are hurled in people's faces.

It had been reported a record 3,000 pies were tossed in that "Battle of the Century" sequence. One commentator explained the success of the film rested on the timing of the pie throws. "The camera lingers on the faces of people before they get pied. The guy in the dentist chair, the snooty lady looking through her lorgnettes. We're laughing before they get pied, because we know what's coming to them and they don't." Also, as everyone gets covered with pie goop, all social distinctions are erased. The rich, the cops, ministers, professors, all descend to the level of Laurel and Hardy, who began the entire mess. And pies, like cotton puff balls, are harmless objects to throw and be hit with.

The new pairing of an English comic and a Southerner from Georgia went on to make over 100 films together, working consistently on the stage and in film until 1950.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were comedic geniuses, individually and together, and their partnership was deservedly iconic and one of the best there was. They left behind a large body of work, a vast majority of it being entertaining to classic comedy, at their best they were hilarious and their best efforts were great examples of how to do comedy without being juvenile or distasteful.

'The Battle of the Century' is nowhere near classic Laurel and Hardy, later films, short and feature, had stronger chemistry when fully formed and used their considerable talents better. At this point, Laurel was much funnier and more interesting while Hardy in most of the previous outings had too little to do. 'The Battle of the Century' is still worth watching and is an improvement on some of their previous short films, to me it's easily one of their best at this point of their careers and one of the first to feel like a Laurel and Hardy short rather than a short featuring them.

Personally would have liked more sly wit that made their later entries better, though the slapstick does entertain and is timed well if a bit too far on the simplicity.

The story is a bit busy at times and both slight and sadly incomplete-feeling and fragmented.

Laurel however is very funny, and sometimes hilarious. Hardy is at least not wasted, and he does give one of his funniest and most interesting appearances of his pairings with Laurel up to this point and has much more to do in comparison to their previous outings. The chemistry is certainly much more here than in previous outings of theirs, namely because there's more of them together, if still evolving. Support is nice. 'The Battle of the Century' is well worth seeing for the funniest and one of the best pie fight scenes ever.

A good deal of the humour is well timed, hugely energetic and very funny, with everything going at a lively pace, and there is a lot of charm and good nature to keep one going, as well as a surprising bizarre one that doesn't feel too much. 'The Battle of the Century' looks quite good still.

To conclude, decent with a great scene. 7/10 Bethany Cox

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival screened a nearly complete nicely restored copy of The Battle of the Century this weekend (6/4/16). Except for the still-missing part of reel one (the scene with the boys and Eugene Palette in the park), the film is now complete. And the pie fight is all that all of us have hoped for all of these years! Admittedly the newly found material is more of the same, but the same is wonderful! The new print was accomplished by Lobster Films with help from MOMA, the Library of Congress and Blackhawk films. I can find no information about a release so let's start a ground swell for a DVD copy. Please? We're begging you!

This is the first comment of a series of films where I'm attempting to connect two legendary comedy teams: Laurel & Hardy and Abbott & Costello. For this initial one-The Battle of the Century-we're at a time when Hal Roach's duo of a thin Englishman and a heavyset Georgia man were just starting their creative chemistry to an adoring public while a young and thin man (at the time) in his twenties from Patterson, New Jersey, was just attempting to break out in Hollywood any way he can which includes stunt work and occasional extra parts. It's here that Lou Costello makes an appearance in the audience of a boxing match between Stan and Noah Young with Ollie being Stan's manager. Half the time watching I was a little distracted looking for Costello but I still managed to laugh at Stan's antics in the boxing ring. I especially loved his dance at the beginning. I half wondered if Lou thought of this sequence when he did his own comic fights in later A & C vehicles. It certainly was amusing enough for the first reel which for years afterward was considered lost until 1979 when Richard Feiner managed to find it. It's the second part with the legendary pie fight that this film's reputation rests. Good thing when compilation producer Robert Youngston was looking for clips to include in his first project on classic silent comedy-The Golden Age of Comedy-he found what was a decomposing second reel and managed to preserve the last 5 or so minutes of it. Among the classic supporting actors long associated with L & H that appeared in this sequence was Charlie Hall and, in perhaps the most iconic moment at the end, Anita Garvin. The Nostalgia Archive video tape that I watched this one on actually had two versions on it. The first presented the first reel intact before going to the pie sequence. The second had the first reel again before going to a surviving script that details another sequence with Eugene Palette in which he sells Ollie an insurance on Stan. From there, Ollie then tries to get Stan to slip on a banana peel to collect the money before a cop gets mixed up in it. With the script, some stills, and then the Youngston-edited sequence, we get an as complete as possible version of this long truncated short. In summary, The Battle of the Century is well worth viewing for L & H fans as well as Lou Costello completists. Update-9/24/11: I just watched this again at an outdoor screening at the Baton Rouge Gallery with musical accompaniment by The Incense Merchants, whose contemporary stylings add to the fun immensely, but with the stills and script pages representing the missing scenes deleted. At least one female member of the audience behind me laughed as loud as I did. She must have been as much of an L & H fan as me!

Only about 50%+ remains of The Battle Of The Century, which is a huge tragedy as the footage we do have indicates this is one of the best silent shorts of the screens greatest comedy team. The opening boxing bout is extremely funny, with a sly take on the famous "long count". Cue much missing footage which gives form to the basic plot - Ollie, as Stan's manager, realises the only way to earn money from his Chumpion is to deliberately injure him and collect on the insurance! The legendary pie fight, which, on viewing, can be discerned as missing several shots at least - more likely a minute or two has gone - only makes me pine for the full version. If, oh wonderful miracle, a rediscovery occurs, you can almost certainly add three stars to the above rating.

They were great, weren't they?