Laurel & Hardy: The Essential Collection

"Pardon Us" (1931), Laurel and Hardy's first feature-length film, finds the duo causing chaos behind bars after selling bootleg beer to a cop. Ex-soldiers Stan and Ollie try to reunite a war buddy's orphaned daughter with her grandfather in "Pack Up Your Troubles" (1932). The boys are lodge members who sneak off to a convention--minus their wives--in "Sons of the Desert" (1933). Based on an opera, "The Bohemian Girl" (1936) has Gypsies Stan and Ollie caring for a kidnapped princess. The pair play dual roles as long-lost twin brothers in "Our Relations" (1936) and help a young woman save her frontier inheritance from land grabbers "Way Out West" (1937). An Alpine lodge is the setting for music and laughs in "Swiss Miss" (1938), while Ollie brings old army pal Stan home to care for him in "Block-Heads" (1938). The boys are off to college in "A Chump at Oxford" (1940), and they take a "relaxing" ocean voyage as "Saps at Sea" (1940). This 10-disc set also features all 40 L&H sound shorts made for Hal Roach from 1929-1935--including "Berth Marks," "Brats," "Below Zero," "Our Wife" "The Music Box," and others--plus Spanish-language versions, guest cameos, and more. 32 1/3 hrs. total. Standard; Soundtrack: English.