Billy Gilbert

A down-on-his luck actor teams up with a singing barber to do a vaudeville act. Its success eventually leads them to Broadway, but things start to go awry.

In remaking the notoriously lost film Hats Off, the boys deliver a crated player piano to the home atop a steep hill. This film won the Academy Award® as “Best Short Subject, ” the first short ever to be so honored. Critics then and now have exhausted all superlatives in celebrating The Music Box. Laurel himself conferred his personal endorsement as the best picture the partnership produced. The Library of Congress enshrined the short on its National Film Registry deeming it to be “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. ” The most famous, most askedabout shooting location in all Hal Roach comedies is the terraced staircase shown here. Official city street signs and an etched black marble plaque mark the site today in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles. Directed by James Parrott. With Billy Gilbert and Charlie Hall.

With nothing else to do, Stan pays banged-up Ollie a visit in the hospital, bringing a gift of hardboiled eggs and nuts. The wild ride at the end was intended to top the one from HOG WILD, but economic conditions dictated otherwise. After a screening at his home in 1986, Hal Roach explained, “We tried to make a gag out of the rear projection by showing we knew the thing looked phony. ” This is the last of five shorts re-released by M-G-M in 1937, when it was fitted with a lively new musical score by Roy Shield. The production credits cards and the opening gag titles (deemed a relic of the silent era) were deleted, then the main title was modernized. Only this reissue adaptation remains today. Directed by James Parrott. With Billy Gilbert.

Traveling fish peddlers — crabs a specialty — devise a big business idea: buy a dilapidated old boat to fix up and “eliminate the middle-man. ” A superb blend of relaxed slapstick and sophisticated visual humor, this short offers a concise assessment of the team’s comedic relationship when Ollie pauses during a breach of friendly relations to ask Stan, “Isn’t this silly? Here we are, two grown-up men, acting like a couple of children. ” Directed by George Marshall. With Billy Gilbert.

When a failing circus folds its tent, the assets are divided among unpaid employees, including roustabouts Stan and Ollie. One gets the flea circus, the other a chimp named “Ethel, ” who they try to conceal in their lodgings. Named to trade on the success of THE CHAMP, this lesser but still underrated short relied on dry, black humor. The now-restored original titles (the work of Louis McManus and Roy Seawright) may be the most imaginative ever devised for the team. Directed by James Parrott. With Billy Gilbert and James Finlayson.

Jeanette MacDonald portrays Nina Maria, who sings, dances and spies for Spain during the Napoleonic Wars. Early in the story, Nina is eager to discourage an amorous French officer, so she feigns interest in Don Diego (Allan Jones). Now, she has a bigger problem – discouraging Don Diego, who is actually a French counterspy. His mission: shadow Nina Maria! Rudolf Friml's 1912 work provides the basis for this memorable musical that keeps some original songs (including "Giannina Mia"), revises others and introduces a now-classic charmer: "The Donkey Serenade" (engagingly set to the clip-clop of a mule-drawn coach), which became Jones' signature song throughout his career.

Muggs and the East Side Kids are stuck in reform school and must save a wrongly accused man from being sentenced to death for a murder he didn't do.

A collection of the duo’s best colorized shorts including Night Owls and Alley Cats, The $125 Misunderstanding, A Dollar a Head, and many more.

After too much high living, the fellows rent a trailer and take to the mountains for gout-ridden Hardy’s health. There they unwittingly drink from well water laced with homemade liquor. According to Billy Gilbert, who plays the doctor prescribing a mountain-rest cure, “the fellows” is how everyone at the studio referred to the Laurel & Hardy characters. Aficionados today are still acting out the memorable, musical “pom-pom” business. The “outdoors” set was built on Stage 2 in only 16 hours after a planned scenic exterior location at the mouth of the Santa Ynez Canyon presented unfavorable weather conditions. Directed by Charley Rogers. With Charlie Hall and Mae Busch as the sullen motorist and his stranded wife.

A Jewish barber takes the place of a war-hungry dictator.

Indian scout Johnny Ware (James Craig) is determined to stop an all-out war plotted by crooked Indian Affairs agent Jim Sawyer (Dean Jagger).

A timid young man is forced to follow in his father’s footsteps as a notorious masked bandit.

The ruthless femme fatale leader of a criminal gang in San Francisco’s Chinatown will stop at nothing to obtain a priceless Chinese ceremonial dagger.

A South Seas saloon singer uses her charms to woo politicians, navy officers, gangsters, riff-raff, judges, and a ship's doctor to achieve her aims.

When the holder of their mortgage passes away, a widow and her daughter are made aware of a plot to possess and foreclose on their home.

Ellory Bugs has offered a massive donation to his old alma mater, which will only come if his son, interested in the band, becomes a football hero.