There are two men I’ve been absolutely crazy about since childhood. I must have seen them dozens of times and yet I don’t think I’ll ever get them out of my system. One of them is F-A-T (and CHO CHWEET!!) and the other is thin. They are my all-time favourite movie comedians, ‘Laurel and Hardy’. I just can’t help adoring them. Any film critic would find it impossible to give them ‘Fair’ or ‘Moderate’ ratings-the final verdict has to be ‘Fantastic.’

They made a whole lot of two-reelers and films that can never be surpassed, exhibiting such virtuosity of comic timing and such a profound understanding of the endless dottiness of the human predicament, that I’m even apt to judge persons by the single criterion of whether they like Laurel and Hardy or not.

These two marvelous clowns died well before the world realised how great they were. At times, their comedy had a touch of pathos as in Charlie Chaplin’s movies, but they never acted- they re-acted to each other. If they had something to say, their manner of saying was unique. That’s why their films attracted large audiences although, at times, their humour was a gallows’ humour and their wit a scurrilous, cynical, nihilistic wit.

They were a unique cinematic experience and these two lovable gentlemen effortlessly enslaved hearts and captivated minds with uninhibited laughter. In fact, Hardy provoked a laugh even if the episode was an essentially tragic story of star-crossed love between him and a rich ugly Spanish widow. Laurel messed up Hardy’s dreams of romance and get-rich-quick when he confessed, “Ollie, you know the rich Spanish widow who wouldn’t marry you because you had a demented son? Well! I told her I was your son.” Instead of being hopping mad, Ollie would look straight into the camera with disgust!

In one episode, Mr. and Mrs. Hardy are newly married and neck-deep in love with each other when Laurel walks in to invite Ollie to a game of golf. When the invitation is turned down, Laurel decides to sit between the newly-weds till Ollie changes his mind (or looses it!)

The women on the screen were either pretty and unattainable or ugly and predatory. In ‘Honolulu Baby’, Hardy messes up his friend’s marriage by teaching him how to be the ‘Boss of the house – like ME’. When Stan follows the advice and is chased by his Mrs. with a gun, he utters his high-pitched whine of scared incomprehension “Ollie, I don’t want to be the boss of the house.”

In ‘Blockheads’, one of their best films, Stan turns on the gas stove in Mrs.Hardy’s new kitchen, but can’t find the match-box. Ollie has to light the stove for him and of course gets blown, flying by the resultant explosion. Even then, Stan has NO idea of what went wrong. After checking the building for an earthquake, he asks Hardy “What happened?” and Hardy says those famous words all over again,“That’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into.”

In all their films, Hardy was the self-confident superior partner, infinitely fastidious and delicate despite his size. He fell in love very easily and would take off his hat or lay his coat on the ground for a lady, or just flirt by saying ‘toodle-oo’ with his tie to the lady. When the lady slapped him (which was very often),he explained to Laurel that she was “mycousin!” Hardy had to submit to a thousand humiliations and indignities because life was too difficult to deal with. On the other hand, Laurel was the nervous grown-up baby who tried to help but always made things worse.

In real life, Stan Laurel was actually the creative half of the partnership, writing most of the scripts, creating all the gags on basis of ‘perfect timing’ (so vital for comedy). Laurel earned thrice as much as Hardy from the Hal Roche film studio. One day, on the sets, Stan said (most uncharitably) “How did Ollie even find his way into this studio?” They didn’t speak for months after that, but then, patched up and became best friends.

They were masters at doing the simplest joke with such supreme precision that it became funny and alive. Though they were in front of the camera, theirs was a perfectly natural act. Their pure, unadulterated comedy appealed to children as well as adults, since it was predicated upon the idea that none of us ever leaves behind their childhood. Hence, their comedy was comprehended on that premise.

What made this inimitable pair great was, to a great extent, Ollie’s endless variations on the theme of pratfall (at times physical, but mostly cerebral) rather than Laurel’s greater artistic ambition which, however talented, depended very greatly on his partner’s suffering.

As a partnership, it was as good as any in film comedy. Laurel and Hardy were the human approximations of the animated ‘Tom and Jerry’ (without the antagonism and the implicit cruelty it inspires). The likeable characters they created continue to be the most endearing in movies.

Their 1927 (silent movie), “The Battle of the Century “, considered by Henry Miller as ‘The greatest comedy ever made”, brought custard-pie throwing to its ultimate. A single pie had become a cliché by then, but here, everyone participated in the reciprocal destruction of receiving AND throwing pies in the face.

They were always taken for granted. They were ‘funny’, but it was easy humour. They were merely entertaining without serious purpose. Only now is it accepted that their comedy is one of the great achievements of cinema.

They were funny without strain-Laurel, the eternal innocent, a trusting baby with a child’s luck and maliciousness, baffled by the world, and Ollie, the fat extremely short-tempered Southern gentleman, gallant to ladies, flowery in language and opinionated in the extreme.

They were the only silent comedians able to make the transition from silent to sound movies without much ado. Their verbal humour is more enjoyable than their visual gags. Remember, their destruction of James Finlayson’s house in ‘Big Business’ while he destroys their X’ Mas tree and car and how Ollie looks reprovingly at the camera each time Finlayson damages his car?

In their 1937 ‘Way Out West’, they are the most enjoyable singers and dancers in the song, ‘The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine.’ Their first co-starring movie was ‘Putting Pants on Philip,’ and by 1929, they were famous all over the world. They made 24 brilliant short films between 1928-1929. Who can forget the 1932 ‘Music Box’ in which they repeatedly haul a grand piano up a long flight of steps? Or Laurel and Hardy joining the ‘French Foreign Legion’ in the ‘Sons of the Desert’because Hardy was disappointed in love.

They gave hours of innocent laughter to millions of people throughout the world for generations. I used to watch them with my grandmother and laugh my guts out. Then I watched them with my daughters and later with my grandsons and realised the potency of humour. Like love, humour never dies.

Hardy died in 1957 and Laurel in 1965. Their best films were re-released in an anthology form at Film archives in the late ‘60s and are as enjoyable today as they ever were!