Standing tall alongside Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin as pioneers of cinematic comedy, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are two of the most beloved comedians in the history of moving pictures. Having acted alongside each other for the first time in 1921, they officially teamed up later in the decade in a series of shorts made for producer Hal Roach – launching a wildly successful partnership that would survive into the sound era and last for another quarter of a century.

This collection captures the duo’s earliest (mis)adventures on screen, chronicling their journey from their first films together – The Lucky Dog and the aptly titled 45 Minutes to Hollywood– to the dawn of their official partnership in thirteen shorts produced throughout 1927. From Duck Soup and Sailors Beware! to Do Detectives Think?, Putting Pants on Philip and The Battle of the Century (once available only in incomplete versions until its missing scenes were rediscovered in 2015), these films show the development of two independent comedians into the most influential and celebrated comedy duo of all time.

The Masters of Cinema series is proud to present the early works of Laurel & Hardy – painstakingly restored from the best available materials held by collectors and archives around the globe – in a special two-disc Blu-ray edition for the first time in the UK.

The set contains the following shorts: Lucky Dog, 45 Minutes from Hollywood, Duck Soup, Slipping Wives, Love ‘em and Weep, Why Girls Love Sailors, With Love and Hisses, Sailors, Beware!, Do Detectives Think?, Flying Elephants, Sugar Daddies, The Second 100 Years, Call of the Cuckoo, Putting Pants on Philip, and The Battle of the Century.

FEATURES:
Limited edition O-card slipcase featuring new artwork by Scott Saslow 
1080p HD presentations on Blu-ray from new 2K restorations 
Scores by a variety of silent film composers including Neil Brand, Antonio Coppola, Eric le Guen and Donald Sosin 
Alternate scores on select shorts 
Audio commentary tracks on all films 
New interviews with silent film experts 
Image galleries 
Archival recordings and interviews 
PLUS: A collector’s booklet featuring newly written notes on each film by writer and comedian Paul Merton, and a new essay by silent cinema expert Imogen Sara Smith