He began his film career in 1917 and made his final appearance in 1951.įrom 1928 onwards, he appeared exclusively with Oliver Hardy, and Stan officially retired from the screen following his comedy partner’s death in 1957. He and Chaplin arrived in the United States on the same ship from the United Kingdom with the Karno troupe and were room mates as they travelled around the country.
He was a member of “Fred Karno’s Army”, where he was Charlie Chaplin’s understudy. His performances were largely as a result of polishing his skills at pantomime and music hall sketches. Stan began his career in music hall where he developed a number of his standard comic devices, including the bowler hat, the deep comic gravity, and the nonsensical understatement.
#Laurel and hardy movies ranked full#
A full Stan Laurel Biography can be found here. He appeared with his comedy partner Oliver Hardy in 106 short films, feature films, and cameo roles. Stan's extended, high-pitched laughter is so infectious that you can even see the actress performing with him struggling to control her smirk.Stan Laurel (born Arthur Stanley Jefferson, 16 June 1890) was an English comic actor, writer, and film director who was part of the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy.
#Laurel and hardy movies ranked movie#
The whole movie is chock full of great gags, particularly from Laurel - his being able to inexplicably use his thumb as a lighter or attracting a pack of wild dogs after fixing a hole in his shoe with a tough steak - but nothing compares to his performance when the ruthless wife of the saloon owner tickles him ferociously in an attempt to get him to surrender the deed to her. Another classic set piece arrives a few minutes later, when Stan and Ollie join in with a rendition of "On the Trail Of The Lonesome Pine," a song with which they will forever be associated thanks to a brilliantly funny vocal gag performed by Stan Laurel (with the aid of sound trickery). Once there, they enter a saloon, performing as they arrive an irresistibly silly dance routine to "At the Ball, That's All," with a Western-looking group of men sat on the porch outside. Stan and Ollie are heading to the Wild West on an important mission: to give the deed to a late man's gold mine to his daughter, who is lodging with "guardians" in the town of Brushwood Gulch. Here is a rundown of the finest Laurel and Hardy flicks that you need to see.
As the hit 2018 biopic "Stan & Ollie" attests, the appeal of the famous duo is as great as ever, as new audiences continue to rediscover their timeless comedies.īut even the greats can have an off day. Yet today, twice as many years away from the heyday of Laurel and Hardy as Vonnegut was when he wrote his book, "the Boys" are still remembered fondly. It is telling of Vonnegut's pessimism that he also feels the need to tell us all the way back in 1976 that Laurel and Hardy are figures from "long ago," artifacts he assumed would soon be forgotten in the ruthless future he envisioned. In 1976, the cult writer Kurt Vonnegut published his eighth novel, " Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!" It reads: "Dedicated to the memory of Arthur Stanley Jefferson and Norvell Hardy, two angels of my time." Though the names are unfamiliar, the accompanying caricatures - in their famous bowler hats and expressing their unmistakable smiles - give away who they are: Vonnegut's angels are Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, remembered today as the greatest comedy partnership Hollywood has ever known.