HOME ENTERTAINMENT : ‘Lost’ Laurel and Hardy Films Restored

Thanks to film archivist Michael Agee, fans of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy can enjoy the legendary comedy team getting themselves into more fine messes.

Agee, who restored the Laurel and Hardy talkies that are on video, has spent the past two years restoring 24 more Laurel and Hardy films produced by Hal Roach Studios in the late 1920s. The “lost” films--22 of which are silents--haven’t been seen in more than 60 years.

Eight titles--”That’s My Wife,” “Their Purple Moment,” “They Go Boom!,” “Big Business,” “Liberty,” “You’re Darn Tootin’,” “Two Tars” and “Double Whoopee”--are available from Fast Forward Video ($10 each). Eight more comedies, plus several compilation videos ($20 each) will be available Sept. 15. Included in that batch will be “Unaccustomed as We Are,” their first talkie.

The two-reelers (Oscar-winning Leo McCarey was the supervising director on most) are hysterically funny. The prints are of good-to-excellent quality and each comedy features the original sound effects and music.

The highlights:

“Their Purple Moment”: The boys play henpecked hubbies who decide to have a night on the town and go to a “bowling alley,” only to end up at a fancy restaurant with two good-time gals. Watch the expression on Laurel’s face when he realizes he has no money.

“Double Whoopee”: Laurel and Hardy play a hotel’s footman and doorman who accidentally rip off the dress of a society woman (an 18-year-old Jean Harlow).

“That’s My Wife”: Laurel must pretend to be Hardy’s husband to appease Hardy’s rich uncle. A slapstick gem.

The only disappointment is “They Go Boom!”: An early talkie in which Laurel and Hardy seem encumbered by the dialogue.

“It’s as if Laurel and Hardy came back and made 24 films,” said Agee, president of Nostalgia Archive LTD.

“Once sound came in [these movies] were pretty much forgotten,” Agee explained. “When Hal Roach Studios sold them [in the late ‘60s] to the person I finally acquired them from, there weren’t any intact elements. There were pieces of them.”

After Agee acquired the rights two years ago, he went on a search to restore the films. “There’s a man named Robert Youngson who made a series of really fine compilation features during the ‘50s and ‘60s like ‘The Golden Age of Comedy,’ ” Agee says. “I managed to track down the contents of Robert Youngson’s vault. What Youngson did was copy sections of the original camera negative in the ‘50s and ‘60s, but it was extremely irritating because he copied maybe 85% of the title.”

The Library of Congress also housed some elements from the Hal Roach collection. “They had been preserving portions throughout the years,” Agee says. “They had preserved enough. I was able to take that with things I was able to get through collections from the country and around the world.”

*

Diamonds on the Screen: Baseball legend Mickey Mantle, who died Sunday, appeared in two films during his heyday with the Yankees. Mantle and teammates Roger Maris and Yogi Berra have a cute cameo in 1962’s Doris Day-Cary Grant sex comedy, “That Touch of Mink” (Republic Home Video). That same year, Mantle and Maris also starred in “Safe At Home” (Goodtimes/Kidd Klassics Home Video), a curio about a youngster (Bryan Russell) who ends up fibbing to his friends from Little League about his friendship with Mantle and Maris. Look for Whitey Ford and Ralph Houk in cameo appearances.

And “Jack Benny Show” singer and bandleader Phil Harris, who died Saturday, also made a few films during his long show biz career, including 1933’s “Melody Cruise” (Turner Home Entertainment), a moderately entertaining musical comedy that finds Harris romancing Helen Mack. Keep your eyes peeled for a young Betty Grable.

*

Spaced Out: Patrick Stewart of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” fame is the tour guide of Paramount Home Video’s new interstellar adventure “From Here to Infinity” ($15). The journey through the cosmos explores such topics as extraterrestrial intelligence, supernovae, black holes and the great wall of galaxies. Producer/director Don Barrett (“The Planets”) worked closely with NASA experts, astronomers and space scholars, and the video contains photographic plates from NASA space probes and radio observations. Science fans may enjoy it, but “From Here to Infinity” is generally slow-moving and not particularly compelling.

*

Going to the Dogs: Move over, Kreskin, and make way for “Lassie E.S.P.” (Sony Wonder, $10). In two episodes from her classic TV series, that amazing collie (Extra Sensory Pooch) proves she’s not only smarter than the average dog but smarter than the average human. Also included is the short, “Lassie’s Secret Code,” where it’s finally revealed how Timmy understood what Lassie was saying when she barked.

*

New on Video: Miranda Richardson received a 1994 best actress nomination for her acclaimed performance as Vivian Haigh-Wood, the troubled first wife of poet T.S. Eliot (Willem Dafoe) in “Tom & Viv” (Miramax Home Entertainment). Rosemary Harris also received an Oscar nomination as Vivian’s mother.

Go You and Gong Li star in “To Live” (Hallmark Entertainment), Zhang Zimou’s (“Raise the Red Lantern”) epic drama chronicling the lives of a Chinese family from the 1940s to the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. Winner of the 1994 Cannes Film Festival Grand Jury Prize.

Nicholas Turturro (“NYPD Blue”) and Anthony DeSando star in “Federal Hill” (Vidmark Entertainment), a low-budget urban crime drama set in a mob-run neighborhood in Providence, R.I. Written and directed by Michael Corrente. Vidmark is releasing “Federal Hill” in the original black-and-white as well as a colorized version.