Battle Of The Century......once again intact

[Gary Johnson]

The entire second reel of BATTLE OF THE CENTURY (1927) has been rediscovered in a cache of films acquired by Jon Mirsalis.
The ENTIRE reel.....not just the scraps left to us by Robert Youngston. I kept thinking this was like the annual posting of HAT'S OFF
being found. But this ain't April 1st and besides, the news was announced at the closing of Mostly Lost.
Read on....

http://silentlondon.co.uk/2015/06/15/second-reel-laurel-hardy-battle-of-the-century-pie-fight/

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2015/06/laurel_and_hardy_s_battle_of_the_century_pie_fight_reel_is_found.html

[Richard M Roberts]

As I know Jon and have been purchasing portions of the Gordon Berkow Collection , I had known about that for several months but had kept mum per his request. It has been fun watching the news go viral and get so garbled by so many just in the span of a few days.

It is indeed good news, though if Serge Bromberg is doing the restoration, we can all look forward to seeing the finished product at slo-mo speeds and with lord knows what sort of score, but at least it does indeed exist.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Gary Johnson]

Personally I've never desired watching L&H silents move at the same breakneck speed as a Sennett Turpin or Bevan short. I find they were working at their own speed even at the very beginning of their partnership. That said, if you don't like the speeds that Serge encodes it in we can always load it into Adobe and find one that suits your tastes better. At least we will have a full two reel short to play with, as opposed to the 10 min & 44 sec version which is on my laptop now.

[Richard M Roberts]

Personally I've never desired watching L&H silents move at the same breakneck speed as a Sennett Turpin or Bevan short. I find they were working at their own speed even at the very beginning of their partnership. That said, if you don't like the speeds that Serge encodes it in we can always load it into Adobe and find one that suits your tastes better. At least we will have a full two reel short to play with, as opposed to the 10 min & 44 sec version which is on my laptop now.

That;s exactly why I don;t want them slowed down further. The Laurel and Hardy shorts are all late silents, UNQUESTIONABLY meant to be run at 24 fps, to do otherwise does nothing but ruin thir already methodical pace.

You must already have a short version on your harddrive, the version I have with the 1st reel and Youngson's section of the pie fight runs longer than that, even at 24 fps.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Richard M Roberts]

Looks like the general jackassery continues, at least on Nitratevile, where some idiot just sniffed his upturned nose at the concept that the print of BOTC is merely a 16mm print, so probably not worth watching...

Okay morons, Youngson's materials are indeed 16mm printdowns from original 35mm nitrate negs, one of the things I picked up from the collection is Youngson's printdown of DO DETECTIVES THINK which is easily the best print of the damn film I have ever seen, with all original Pathe titles! Yet even if they weren't, you are damn lucky to be soon able to see the mostly complete BOTC at all! That is far better than the already-whining assholes deserve.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Gary Johnson]

My version of BOTC is from the Universal UK DVD set - which I thought was the most up-to-date version until now. I also have it hidden away somewhere on one of the LOST FILMS OF L&H vols, which I believe is the same version - about 7 mins of boxing and then 4 mins of Youngson's pie fight.

So all of this talk about the film made me go back and watch the fight scene again and I was roaring. Laurel shows off his agility with his fancy footwork in the ring. Chaplin had to of been inspired when he filmed his version for CITY LIGHTS. Stan also shows absolutely no vanity in regard to his physical build as he continually stands center ring showing off his spare tire. Only Ollie notices and keeps telling his pal to 'tuck it in'. I can't imagine Keaton ever doing such a gag after being stripped down to the waist. And even if modern audiences are not aware of the historic Tunney-Dempsey Long Count fight (it's on UTube) L&H's parody of it is still hilarious because it is so in character of Stan. Dempsey ignored the rule of returning to a neutral corner after knocking down Tunney - Stan just wasn't aware of where the neutral corner was.

And say, any idea if the Eugene Pallette scene as the insurance agent will also miraculously appear in the new reconstruction?