The first outing in which they are officially billed to the public as Laurel & Hardy demonstrates the extent to which the duo were the real creative force behind their films. If Fred Guiol’s direction holds the story together, the leads seize every opportunity to build a steady crescendo of gags. In The Second Hundred Years it is a simple change of costume that determines the course of events. They begin in a novel guise as jailbirds, with haircuts that they retained for a successive cameo in the Max Davidson vehicle Call of the Cuckoo; but it only takes a change of outfit for them to pass themselves off as house painters, or the acquisition of two elegant suits for them to become unlikely French officials, playing on simple stereotypes (co-authored by the ever- faithful James Finlayson). In the midst of this orchestrated chaos, the sequence in which they attempt to prove their credentials by painting the entire city white produces in socially challenging speeches (both within and without the diegesis) awkwardly disguised as misunderstandings.

Alessandro Criscitiello

I believe that all boxing films, whether comedies or not, are great. If one accepts this premise, then the first part of The Battle of the Century cannot fail. Stan is sent into the ring to face the inevitable Goliath and makes an excellent punching bag, albeit in his own unique way, retreating from the beating into a dream world. The second part features a different kind of ring (a busy urban street) and extends the combat as an ever-expanding group of people are drawn to the chaos. And the choice of weapon? A pie in the face. This was already a trite motif at the time, but the idea was to push it as far is it could go in order to create the “pie picture to end all pie pictures”. It is unclear who was counting, but apparently about 4,000 pies were thrown. Henry Miller had no doubts about the result, calling it “a masterpiece”. Trivia lovers, take note: the boxing match was inspired by the fight between Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey on 22 September 1927, which history remembers as “The Battle of the Long Count”. Tunney ended up on the mat, but Dempsey continued to loiter around instead of retiring to his corner; consequently, there was a delay before the referee began his count, Tunney got up again, and ultimately took home the Champion’s Belt.

Andrea Meneghelli