The Laurel & Hardy Movie Scripts: 20 Original Short Subject Screenplays (1926 – 1934) Paperback – 18 Jun. 2018

My wife is a fan of them and thinks the book good for the first one and will read the second one later.

I got this as as gift for my brother and he lives it. Its a nice size and great for any Laurel and Hardy fan.

Next day delivery... excellent book for the Laurel And Hardy aficionado... another definitive work by Randy Skretvedt !!

Brilliant for a collector

fantastic

Unfortunately, the newest version of Randy Skretvedt's book on the careers of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy is well outside my price range. (Besides that, my wonderful wife could very easily turn into a movie version of Mrs. Hardy and bounce crockery and cookware at my head if I actually bought it - when money is kind of tight right now!) However, this book of 20 scripts from LAUREL AND HARDY short subjects is affordable and worth every penny. At first I was disappointed that these ancient scripts were more like plot summaries than what you would expect movie scripts to be, but as historical artifacts they are wonderful in that you can almost here the gag writers or someone like Stan Laurel dictating the plot, camera shots and dialogue to a stenographer - with c. 1920s slang and that enthusiasm that a gag writer would have in constructing a story for a film.Most fascinating is the first script in the book for a short that was never filmed, which would have been a full-fledged early LAUREL AND HARDY comedy, and the scripts which deviated quite a bit on what was actually filmed. The changes from the later 1920s to the early "Talkie" period - as far as these "scripts" were concerned - were minimal at best, which shows that at the Hal Roach Studio, Stan Laurel, the director and the writers and performers, still had freedom to improvise and improve on what was in the script as the cameras "rolled." This joyful sense of improvisation explains why these short subjects still hold up so well today, and - more importantly - why both Stan and Ollie (especially Stan) had so much trouble keeping their characters and comedy timing intact when working at a larger movie factory later at 20th Century-Fox and MGM. The "stock company" of actors and comedians at Roach had their training in silent comedies and vaudeville and didn't need many takes and rehearsals. They knew comedy, which is why their films are still so popular today.Skretvedt goes beyond "the call of duty" by not only presenting the scripts and explaining the gag writers terminology, but in giving us mini-biographies on some of the writers and actors, actresses in the shorts (along with rare photos), he makes these scripts come alive for fans of Stan and Ollie. Wonderful job! I hope more volumes (maybe on some of the Roach features?) are in the works!

I'm late getting to this review,but better late than never.This is yet another piece of the Laurel and Hardy puzzle filled in by Mr.Skretvedt.Here are 20 scripts collected by him that he reproduces here,with spelling mistakes and all.The first is a script unfilmed and unknown to most,which could have been their first ever Roach film together.They all vary wildly from script to film;some carrying over more of the written word than others.More often than not I found myself laughing at the routines that Stan and the other writers came up with.And it is a testament to Stan as a gag man to see that he not only contributed to the scripts,but the improvements he made in front of the camera as he went along.The book has an intro,outro and every one has a blurb before hand briefly discussing the film,script and differences,which many times included differing cast members.One may not always agree with the conclusions the author comes to,such as his assessment of Early To Bed,which in this book and his other "Laurel and Hardy-The Magic Behind the Movies",he rates as inferior to most other L&H product,which I totally disagree with,but he is never boring and always informative.This book should be a welcome addition into any L&H collectors library.

Fantastic book, the author Randy is very well known throughout the Laurel and Hardy appreciation society as one of the best researchers on the planet.

Randy Skretvedt shares his research on and collection of rare original script material in this great book. Twenty of their best are examined here through the writers original intent and the differences as finally committed to film. A treasure to see and a pleasure to read. Skretvedt has spent his life on this topic and we are all the beter for it. A must own for any Laurel and Hardy or short film fan.

Randy Skretvedt, who has done so much ... excavation in the cause of getting the history of Laurel & Hardy into book form has now gifted us with this collection of original Laurel & Hardy scripts. People have written for years about how much ad libbing would take place during the filming of Laurel & Hardy shorts. Now we know. Thanks, Randy!