The Second 100 Years

THE SECOND HUNDRED YEARS

Aspect ratio: 1.33:1

Sound format: Silent

(Black and white - Short film)

Two jail birds (Laurel and Hardy) escape from custody and assume the identities of French dignitaries who turn out to be prison inspectors (Otto Fries and Bob O'Conor) on their way to the very jail from which L&H have just escaped! Havoc ensues.

One of the best of L&H's silent comedies, and certainly their best collaboration with director Fred Guiol. This one features a full range of amusing set-pieces, including an inspired sequence in which The Boys elude a nosey cop by pretending to be painters (only to end up painting everything in sight, including someone's car!), and the lengthy scene in which they're mistaken for visiting VIP's and received at the prison as guests of honor by warden James Finlayson, only to cause chaos at the dinner table. The escalation of comic incidents is entirely believable throughout. However, the film also contains an offensive sight gag, when L&H accidentally slap white paint all over the face of an African-American passer-by.

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 Second Hundred Years' 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 Second Hundred Years' is still worth watching though and is an improvement on some of their previous short films, along with 'Duck Soup', 'While Girls Love Sailors' and 'Sailors, Beware!' it was up there as among Laurel and Hardy's best up to this point.

Personally would have liked more sly wit that made their later entries better.

The story is a bit busy at times and both slight and formulaic. Have to concur too with the ending sequence being too long and over-stretched.

Laurel however is very funny, and sometimes hilarious, like as was said for a few of his previous outings 'The Second Hundred Years' is worth seeing for him alone. 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 despite his persona being not as fully formed as Laurel's. The chemistry is much more here than in previous outings of theirs if still evolving. Support is nice.

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. 'The Second Hundred Years' looks quite good.

To conclude, decent. 7/10 Bethany Cox

There are some good sight gags in this silent Laurel & Hardy comedy, but there's very little plot to speak of. The boys sport shaven heads as they play a pair of convicts attempting to escape from prison and the film follows their various doomed attempts. They dig a tunnel only to strike a water pipe and end up surfacing in the warden's office. Sent to the exercise yard, they're forced to perform exercises. They eventually escape disguised as painters but are followed by a cop and end up painting half the town in their attempts to shake him off. They find themselves back in prison when they hijack the car of a pair of French dignitaries visiting the prison.

Most of Laurel & Hardy's silent films lose some of the boy's inimitable character simply because we can't hear their voices, and this one's no exception. There are a few funny moments – when the pair instantly assume the marching position, hand on the shoulder of the man in front, when the dinner gong sounds as they're pretending to be the French dignitaries, for example, but you can't help feeling it would be more enjoyable if you could just hear them speak. When Ollie can't voice his frustration and Stan can't squeakily express his distress we only really have half the act.

Generally thought to be the first official Laurel and Hardy release(although PUTTING PANTS ON PHILLIP is also put in this bracket),the boys don't wear their Bowler hats and have their heads shaved,but are very much a team in this early effort,more so than PPOP where they play against each other rather than for.There's plenty of amusing incident and situations(especially when they attempt to escape the jail as painters);one slight quibble is that as convicts,the characters they have to play here have a very slightly more unpleasing edge than they would be establishing only a few films later in the partnership.Still funny though,and Jimmy Finlayson's double take and fade away is worth a few more laughs as well here;in early publicity material the boys were sometimes billed as 'Hardy and Laurel' in this film;that soon changed.

'The Second 100 Years' is a nice silent comedy from Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, but it is only nice, nothing more. The short start in jail where the two share a cell. They are about to escape through a tunnel. Their plan fails so they have to come up with something else. They pretend to be painters to get out of jail. After that, to escape a police officer they steal clothes from two French prison inspectors. Of course the inspectors were on their way to the prison Laurel and Hardy just escaped from.

The first part of this short has some laughs. The funny thing here is that not Laurel and Hardy are that funny, but the written words on screen between scenes. The middle part, when they are painters, is the best. While the police officer is following them they paint everything white on their way, including a certain person that could be offensive to some. Unfortunately it ends with a sequence that plays too long and therefore becomes dull.

I guess this could be a nice comedy short for fans of silent films or simply Laurel and Hardy comedies. I liked it up to a point, but compared to most other films I have seen from the two comedians this was a little disappointing.