td550

This marvellous film is so much a part of my childhood that I can't really look at it too objectively. But the more I watch it as an adult, the more impressed I am by the sheer quality of the sets, the special effects and the make-up. As a child you take it for granted, but to think all this was done in 1939. For serious Oz fans I would highly recommend Aljean Harmetz's fascinating book, which contains all the background info about the shoot and the planning of the film. The DVD is also good value and contains several scenes which were taken out of the finished version (such as the well-known "Jitterbug" sequence.)

Every Christmas I sit down to watch this film, and I don't mind admitting that every time I hear "Over the Rainbow", it brings tears to my eyes. (The songs are, of course, another huge contribution to the movie's greatness.) The scene when Dorothy opens the door and walks into Oz, and the screen is filled with colour for the first time, is another memorable moment.

The proverb may say that familiarity breeds contempt, but in the case of this film I doubt I will ever tire of it. Mind you, I am a friend of Dorothy...

Question: why oh why aren't Laurel and Hardy films shown on TV at sensible times any more here in the UK? When I was a lad, they were on at 6pm on BBC2 and I spent many happy evenings as a child laughing my head off at their comedy short films. Now, you're lucky to catch them on TV at all, and they always seem to be scheduled at some unearthly hour of the morning.

Anyway, scheduling rant over. If you're a Laurel and Hardy virgin, this is a great place to start. It won them an Oscar, and it's a hilarious piece of perfectly constructed comedy. They are bungling delivery men who have to deliver a piano to a house at the top of an enormous flight of steps. (The location does exist in real life, apparently, and it's one of my aims in life one day to visit those steps and walk up 'em!) Needless to say, the piano seems to spend more time sliding back down the steps than it does going up them.

It's almost certainly their best short, and is required viewing for anyone wanting to know why Laurel and Hardy are one of the greats of movie comedy.

This is probably one of the worst films I've ever seen. Not only is it utterly formulaic and derivative, it has one of the most ludicrous endings in cinema history, so melodramatic that it's unintentionally hilariously funny. When I saw it at the cinema on release, it was one of the few times when the whole audience collapsed laughing at the truly awful ending to a truly dire film.

It's so bad that I would almost recommend seeing it, especially to savour the ending, but the trouble is you'd have to sit through the rest of it, and it's turgid, predictable, uninspired and boring.