The Second Hundred Years (1927)

Recommended

USA

Short Film

Director: Fred Guiol

Writers: Leo McCarey, H.M. Walker

Cinematographer: George Stevens

Cast: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, James Finlayson, Stanley Sanford, Frank Brownlee, Otto Fries, Bob O'Conor, Ellinor Van der Veer

After their first escape attempt resulted only in them tunnelling up into the Warden’s office, Big Goofy and Little Goofy (Laurel and Hardy) grab the opportunity to pose as painters and walk out of the front gate, pursued only by a mildly suspicious guard, whom they shake by taking on the identities of a pair of French police chiefs who, unfortunately for them, are on their way to the prison for a tour, in this entertaining early Laurel and Hardy comedy, one of their first real collaborations, and the likely inspiration for the superior Will Hay vehicle Convict 99 (1938). Iain.Stott