Top 5 Laurel and Hardy Movies: Entertaining Movies the Entire Family Will Enjoy

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were two of the most talented comedic actors and comedy teams of their time. They would put most of today's funnymen to shame. Laurel and Hardy movies are wholesome and entertaining; laugh-out-loud, tears-in-the-eyes-funny. I always come away from them with a sore gut for laughing so hard.

When I watch Laurel and Hardy movies, I feel like a kid again. I'm taken back to a simpler time and get a glimpse of how things were when my grandfather was young.

The movies Laurel and Hardy made are perfect for the entire family. There's no time like the present to introduce them to your children. They are going to love them!

Top 5 Laurel and Hardy Movies:

"Babes in Toyland" was released in 1934 and stars Stan Laurel as Stanley Dum and Oliver Hardy as Ollie Dee, two apprentices to the toy maker living in Toyland. This movie includes legendary fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters like Little Bo Peep, Mother Peep, the Three Little Pigs, Tom-Tom, and Mickey Mouse (played by a monkey, no less).

Of course, the movie wouldn't be complete without an evil villain - Silas Barnaby holds the mortgage on Mother Peep's house, er ... shoe. He threatens to evict her unless Bo Peep will marry him. Problem is, she's in love with the handsome Tom-Tom.

Enter Stanley Dum and Ollie Dee who are renting a room from the Peep's. They decide to ask their boss for money but are fired instead. It seems Stanley messed up Santa's wooden soldier order. Instead of the 600 soldiers standing one foot tall, he made 100 soldiers standing six-feet tall.

Of course, the wooden soldiers come in handy when Barnaby becomes enraged after learning he had been duped into thinking he had just married Bo Peep and unleashes the bogeymen on the town.

In 1940, Laurel and Hardy star as two horn testers at the Sharp and Pierce Horn Factory in "Saps at Sea" (1940). Movie critic B.R. Crisler said at the time that Hardy's character is "Driven crazy by the cacophonous G-minor horn, poor Ollie begins to tear the factory apart screaming 'Horns to the left of me! Horns to the right of me! Horns, horns, HORNS!'"

He is later diagnosed with hornophobia and on the "verge of Hornomania," the doctor tells him. He then recommends Ollie take a restful sea voyage. Only problem is, Ollie isn't keen on the high seas. Naturally, Laurel has an idea: They could rent a small boat and leave it tied up, that way Ollie would reap the benefits without having to actually set sail.

The plan doesn't go off with a hitch. After all, this is Laurel and Hardy we're talking about.

The boat is set adrift with our loveable funnymen on board, but they aren't alone. A murderer, Nick Grainger, has stowed away and orders the men to make breakfast. Thinking they'll pull one over on him, they make a meal of spaghetti made of string, sponge for meatballs, soap for cheese, and so on. When Nick catches on to what they've done, he forces them to eat the concoction.

In 1932, Laurel and Hardy starred in "Pack Up Your Troubles" with then three-year-old Jacquie Lyn. The movie didn't receive rave reviews, but I mention it because of the storyline and it really is funny.

Laurel and Hardy are picked up by a recruiting sergeant and the next thing they know, they're in uniform. After the war, they come to be in possession of a little girl - the daughter of a fallen Army buddy. They begin looking for the girl's grandparents but all they know is the last name is Smith. They end up visiting every Smith in the New York phone book.

My favorite scene is of the little girl reading a bedtime story to Laurel.

"Way Out West" has Laurel and Hardy traveling to Brushwood Gulch in search of Mary Roberts whose father has left her a deed to a gold mine worth a fortune.

Things don't start out too well as they try to flirt with a woman on the stagecoach who turns out to be the Sheriff's wife. She complains to her husband who in turn orders Stanley and Ollie out of town on the next stagecoach. Of course, that doesn't last long. When they return, they think they have found Mary and turn over the deed. When they find out it was a woman pretending to be Mary, they work to get the deed back.

One of my favorite scenes is when Stan has the deed in his possession but is trapped in the bedroom with Lola (the wife of Mary's guardian). Lola tickles his feet until he is in hysterics and takes the deed away from him.

Another favorite scene is their soft-shoe routine in front of the saloon.

"Block-Heads" (1938) has Laurel and Hardy in the trenches in France during World War I. The company is ready to go "over the top" and orders Stan to stay and guard the trench.

Twenty years later, Stan is still keeping guard - having no idea the war is over - when he is found and taken home a hero. Ollie sees Stan in the newspaper and decides to pay him a visit. When he arrives at the veteran's hospital, he finds Stan in a wheelchair - that is ... someone else's wheelchair (hey, he needs his rest!).

Ollie takes Stan home for a home cooked meal, and after climbing 13 flights of stairs (a very funny, lengthy scene), Ollie's wife leave the men to fend for their selves. Bad idea given they blow her kitchen to smithereens.

When Ollie's wife returns, he hides the neighbor under a cloth to resemble a chair. Stan sits on her and then hides her inside a trunk. When her husband arrives and brags about other women, she comes out from hiding. He takes off after Stan and Ollie shooting at them.

One of my favorite exchanges from Block-Heads:

Ollie: "Why didn't you tell me you had two legs?"
Stan: "Well, you didn't ask me."

In "Laurel & Hardy: a bio-bibliography," author Wes D. Gehring said Variety said in 1938 this movie was an "awful letdown," but I think it's one of their funniest - but then, I'm easily amused and think these are two awesome actors.

Sources:
Laurel and Hardy Fan and Researcher
Laurel & Hardy - The Official Website
Laurel & Hardy: a bio-bibliography, pg. 172, Wes D. Gehring
Saps At Sea-1940 - NYTimes.com