A celebration of the world’s best loved comedy double act, Laurel and Hardy, is among the highlights of Scotland’s silent film festival next month.
The 16th annual HippFest will feature the world premiere of a new restoration of the slapstick duo’s short film With Love and Hisses (1927), together with another newly restored Laurel and Hardy rarity, Slipping Wives (1927).
HippFest showcases the early silent cinema accompanied by live music, based in Scotland’s oldest purpose-built cinema, the Hippodrome in Bo’ness in West Lothian.
This year’s festival, which runs from 18 -22 March will feature dozens of films together with tours and workshops.
Highlights include the earliest silver-screen adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped (1920); Buster Keaton’s slapstick The Cameraman (1928); and The Bat (1926) the silent horror comedy that inspired artist Bob Kane in creating Batman.
A triple bill of Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective adventures is included in “Silent Sherlock: Three Classic Cases (1921-1923)”.
And a celebration of “the roaring twenties” includes a gala screening of Why Be Good? (1929), with a champagne reception and flapper-themed after party, and Saxophone Suzy (1928), a jazz-age comedy of errors about two girlfriends chasing different dreams.
The Laurel and Hardy caper With Love and Hisses stars Hardy as a pompous sergeant in the Home Guard, driven to distraction by Laurel’s well-meaning but infuriating private.
It also features their most famous foil, Stirlingshire-born James Finlayson, best known for his “D’ohhhh?” response to frustration that later inspired cartoon character Homer Simpson’s similar outbursts.
Finlayson joins the mayhem as Captain Bustle, exasperated by the hapless recruits in his charge. It was a favourable early outing for the Laurel-Hardy-Finlayson trio, whose comedy chemistry, sparked earlier that same year, would later flourish over 13 years of filmmaking together.
Completing the Laurel and Hardy double-bill, featuring live piano and percussion, is chaotic comedy Slipping Wives (1927), starring Priscilla Dean as the neglected wife who hires Laurel’s salesman character to make her husband jealous, with farcical results.
The film includes the first instance of Laurel and Hardy in a bed together, one of their trademark scenarios later affectionately paid homage in the sketches Morecambe and Wise.
Festival Director Alison Strauss said: “This year’s programme contains a wealth of musical talent, both Scottish and international, with a spectacular selection of silent film, from rediscovered classics to revelatory new discoveries.”
Sambrooke Scott, Head of Audience Development at Screen Scotland, added: “HippFest has become one of Scotland’s most distinctive and admired film festivals, and this edition promises to be a wonderful celebration of everything that makes it so special.
“Showcasing rare and restored silent films with extraordinary live musical performances, the festival continues to bring the cinematic past thrillingly to life in its evocative home that is the Hippodrome.
Tickets here hippodromecinema.co.uk/hippfest/
