The Boys: The Cinematic World of Laurel and Hardy - Hardcover

Nollen, Scott Allen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0899503837 ISBN 13: 9780899503837

Publisher: McFarland Publishing, 1989

Synopsis

The Boys provides new ways to view and evaluate the work of this famous comedy team. The initial chapter summarizes the critical reception of the two and compares Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy to other contemporary comedians. Brief biographies analyze their early solo films and the development of the team. Special attention is given to the team's cinematic and comic style, use of camera techniques, early sound practice, and gag development. The comics' complex relationship is detailed and analyzed. A complete filmography, including a rating and an indication of contents, covers each film. The team's final film, Atoll K (1951), is discussed in depth. Throughout the text quotes from such persons as Laurel and Hardy themselves, Buster Keaton, George Stevens, Dick Van Dyke, and Woody Allen enlighten and entertain. Great stills and posters.

About this title

About the Author:

Historian Scott Allen Nollen was educated in film and history at the University of Iowa.  Since 1986, he has written and edited more than 40 books on the history of film, literature and music, including volumes on Boris Karloff (now finishing his third), Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, John Ford, John Wayne and Ward Bond, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, Louis Armstrong, Paul Robeson, Frank Sinatra, Takashi Shimura and (with his wife, Yuyun Yuningsih Nollen) Chester Morris.

From Library Journal:

The boys of Nollen's 1989 volume are the comedy team of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, who entertained audiences from the era of silent films through the early 1950s. The author offers both a biography of the two and an analysis of their work. Unlike most noted Hollywood teams (e.g., Abbott and Costello), Stan and Ollie were close friends, having as complex a relationship off screen as on. Surprisingly, the professionally vacuous Stan was actually the brains of the outfit, designing most of the gags, while Ollie followed his lead. In addition to background information and a filmography, this sports numerous monochrome photos of the boys at work.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: McFarland Publishing
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0899503837
• ISBN 13: 9780899503837
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 167