Laurel and Hardy: Battle of the Century

The first reel is comprised of an hysterical bout between the emaciated Stan and real-life champion weightlifter, Noah Young. Of particular note is an unbilled extra sitting in the front row of the crowd who is easily recognizable as the young Lou Costello in perhaps his earliest screen appearance! The beginning of the second reel is still missing. It featured insurance sales man Eugene Pallette who sells Ollie a policy on Stan, which pays off should he injure himself. Naturally, Stan begins to fall down a lot as they traverse the streets of Hal Roach Studios, finally running into the surly Charlie Hall, who blames banana-eating Babe for the peel on which he has just fallen! (The missing sequence is represented on the second complete version of the film presented on this tape by rare surviving stills and the original script.) You know the rest, of course, the greatest pie fight in the history of movies. Copyright 1928.