SilentComedyMafia.com

I'm posting this as I'm hoping someone can give me some advice. I am an avid Laurel & Hardy fan and collect all of their films; I have most of their available solo works including all of the Larry Semon films that have Oliver Hardy in them (except 'The Head Waiter') but these are typically of fairly poor quality - incomplete and missing the original titles (I think they came from Spanish or Italian television prints). I recently found a series of Larry Semon film on DVD on Ebay (they are produced by Silent Hall Of Fame who have their own website) and purchased one of them as it includes 'The Stage Hand', which is a film I didn't have. However I was a little disappointed as the picture quality wasn't any better than that of the other Larry Semon films I already have and the original titles are missing. I had been considering buying a number of these as my copies of 'The Agent', 'The Barnyard', 'Trouble Brewing' and a few others are particularly poor but before I do (they are quite expensive when you add shipping to the UK) I was wondering if anyone can advise if there are better quality copies available elsewhere or if these are indeed worth acquiring?

Beware of Silent Hall of Fame because they offer overpriced DVD’s that were bootlegged from other other DVD’s or YouTube. There is no comprehensive set derived from the best quality materials, but I would try Grapevine Video who released two sets of his shorts and two of his features. Kino Lorber’s solo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy DVD’s have some of the films in which they supported Semon. There may be others that I have forgotten.

Here are the two Grapevine sets:

http://www.grapevinevideo.com/larry_semon_1.html

http://www.grapevinevideo.com/larry_semon_2.html

And I second the "stay away from the Silent Hall of Fame" comment from Mr. Farr, they are gouging on product that can be gotten better and cheaper elsewhere, and they're full of Bullshit.

Unfortunately, there has been no comprehensive restoration of Larry Semon material undertaken as of yet, what is amazing is that so much exists at all. You can thank his popularity in Europe and Central and South America and those strange, chopped-up reissues for preserving the films at all. Vitagraph had a terrible track-record for survival, and the Semon films were saved literally because the populations in those countries loved him so.

Actually, if you want to see lots of Larry Semon material, I recommend Youtube as the place to start, just enter his name, and you'll see a heck of a lot of films, some even patched together with recreated titles, some in various languages. You'll most likely see all the stuff you just paid the Silent Hall of Fame big bucks for.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

Here is a set from Alpha Video that has some titles not on the Grapevine sets. Alpha’s quality peaks out at “just OK”, but at least you’re only out $6.

Many thanks for the info guys, really glad I asked the question as you've saved me a load of disappointment and a lot of money! Will now explore the Grapevine and Alpha collections instead.

David, please DO stay away from this seller.

The seller took advantage of the generosity of a long-time Larry Semon collector in Germany and appropriated many rare films that were on personal loan. He also broke an agreement to use them for research purposes only. The owner had every intention of doing a Larry Semon DVD collection the right and professional way but, along comes 'Silent Hall of Fame' who sweeps up many loaned lo-res files and beats the owner out of all good intentions. He'd been collecting these films for years, but I pity the bootlegger because the said owner/collector is in actuality, a professional lawyer who will see that this pirate gets his.

- Steve Rydzewski

The long overdue Kino Lorber/Library of Congress/Lobster double BluRay will be out in the Fall and will have a couple of Larry Semon comedies on it that were sourced from 35mm nitrate.

Also the double BluRay of Vitagraph comedies coming from Kino Lorber/Library of Congress will have a hour or so Semons also sourced from 35mm nitrate.

WOW! That sounds great, Rob! I'll be in line for those! Thanks for the good news.

- SteveR

Yes, I'm also looking forward to those Kino BluRays; just hoping they will be region free

Rob Stone wrote:The long overdue Kino Lorber/Library of Congress/Lobster double BluRay will be out in the Fall and will have a couple of Larry Semon comedies on it that were sourced from 35mm nitrate

I hope some Roach films will be also included in that double Blu-Ray.