The Battle of the Century

. . . we had to play with "mud pies." We did not have 3,000 custard pies at our disposal to lob around on city sidewalks, as in THE BATTLE OF THE CENTURY. (If we'd have had ONE custard pie, Mom would have stretched it out for at least a week as dessert for all of us.) Legend has it that six or seven years after BATTLE OF THE CENTURY was released, several of its pie fight participants fell on such hard times amid America's Great Depression that they expired due to starvation. The final words of one film pie-died film thespian victim were reported as "This cannot be Real: It's all a hoax. I can still see pie in the sky . . . "

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival screened a nearly complete nicely restored copy of The Battle of the Century this weekend (6/4/16). Except for the still-missing part of reel one (the scene with the boys and Eugene Palette in the park), the film is now complete. And the pie fight is all that all of us have hoped for all of these years! Admittedly the newly found material is more of the same, but the same is wonderful! The new print was accomplished by Lobster Films with help from MOMA, the Library of Congress and Blackhawk films. I can find no information about a release so let's start a ground swell for a DVD copy. Please? We're begging you!

Only about 50%+ remains of The Battle Of The Century, which is a huge tragedy as the footage we do have indicates this is one of the best silent shorts of the screens greatest comedy team. The opening boxing bout is extremely funny, with a sly take on the famous "long count". Cue much missing footage which gives form to the basic plot - Ollie, as Stan's manager, realises the only way to earn money from his Chumpion is to deliberately injure him and collect on the insurance! The legendary pie fight, which, on viewing, can be discerned as missing several shots at least - more likely a minute or two has gone - only makes me pine for the full version. If, oh wonderful miracle, a rediscovery occurs, you can almost certainly add three stars to the above rating. They were great, weren't they?

This Laurel & Hardy silent only exists in an incomplete version which naturally makes it impossible to judge as a whole. As it exists today, it's pretty much like two separate films joined by some explanatory intertitles (featuring a still of a young and rather slim-line Eugene Palette selling the boys some insurance). The first section of the film is a boxing match between a paunchy Stan and a typically ferocious opponent. The boxing ring seemed to be a favourite location for the boys – I'm sure there's at least three movies which feature Stan involved in a hopeless mismatch in the ring. The second section of the film is the famous pie fight, but unfortunately not enough of it exists to give anything other than an incomplete impression of what the boys intended. The film's interesting as a peep through the keyhole of what remains of what has been lost (if you know what I mean) but it's not particularly satisfying in its own right.

In its original form, this was probably one of the best of all of the Laurel & Hardy short comedies. It's too bad that it no longer exists in complete form, but what remains is still very entertaining. It has an even better variety of gag material than usual, with excellent timing and a good supporting cast to help out. The prize fight sequence is a hilarious take-off on the controversial Dempsey-Tunney fight that at the time was still fresh in everybody's mind. The pie fight sequence is still as good as or better than the many attempts to imitate it. It combines escalating chaos with plenty of creative gags. The now-missing portions of the film seem to have tied everything else together very nicely. The Nostalgia Archive reconstruction at least gives you some idea of what it would have been like in its original form, by using the continuity scripts. And even in the fragmented form that remains, it's very funny.