Exclusive Trailer for Film Forum’s Laurel & Hardy Retrospective Celebrates Comedy Titans

Comedy icons Stan Laurel (1890-1965) and Oliver Hardy (1892-1957) will be getting a well-deserved retrospective in NYC this summer. “Laurel & Hardy,” a two-week festival featuring more than 50 comedy classics, will run at Film Forum from Friday, July 10, through Thursday, July 23. The retrospective marks the 100th anniversary of their first film for producer Hal Roach, and we’re pleased to exclusively premiere its trailer.

This first major retrospective of the duo in decades includes new restorations of many of their greatest features and short subjects, including Sons of the Desert, Way Out West, Babes in Toyland, Brats, Blotto, The Music Box (Oscar winner for Best Live Action Short Comedy of 1932), and many, many more.  

“No comedians have had more enduring appeal than Laurel & Hardy, who, 100 years after their first teaming, are still beloved in every corner of the globe,” says Bruce Goldstein, producer and programmer of the festival. “In Italy, they’re known as ‘Stanlio e Ollio,’ in Germany ‘Dick und Dorf,’ in Spanish speaking countries ‘El Gordo y el Flaco,’ in Poland, ‘Flip i Flap,’ with affectionate nicknames in Asia and Africa. When they made the transition from silent to sound films, producer Hal Roach worried about the loss of their international fans. So to serve their multi-lingual audiences in the days before subtitling and dubbing, some of their shorts, and first feature, were made in multiple languages, with Stan and Ollie speaking Spanish, French, Italian or German phonetically. The festival includes some of these fascinating international versions.”

The Laurel & Hardy festival is being presented in association with The Sons of the Desert, the Laurel & Hardy Appreciation Society founded in New York in 1965. There are now “tents” all over the world. Special thanks to Jack Roth, Grand Sheik and Keeper of the Celluloid of the New York City Founding Tent of the Sons of the Desert. And to Jeff Joseph (SabuCat Productions), Serge Bromberg (Blackhawk Film Collection), Todd Weiner and Steven K. Hill (UCLA Film & Television Archive), Kit Parker, and The Film Foundation.

See the exclusive trailer below and learn more here: