Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Brenda The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

BJJManchester Having heard that the long lost second reel of 'The Battle of The Century' was to be screened with the present extant footage after the former's recent rediscovery,it was an opportunity as a devoted L & H buff I simply could not turn down.So I waited with baited breath for the screening at the Southbank Centre,London,on October 16th 2015.Hosts the BFI rather cleverly prepared for this very special occasion in both Laurel and Hardy and film history by showing three L & H silents (You're Darn Tootin',Double Whoopee,Big Business) with excellent live piano and flute accompaniment while we waited for the eagerly anticipated coda.It wasn't quite a full house,but nearly,and the disappointment of the still missing sequence where Eugene Palette sells The Boys an insurance policy was soon tempered by it's segue into the second reel (indicated in such terms by a brief subtitle).How exciting it was for me to see the first 'new' footage of Laurel and Hardy since previously lost films like 'Duck Soup' and 'Why Girls Love Sailors' became available on the home video market around two decades ago.The found footage begins with the well-documented scene where Ollie tries to cause Stan an accident by throwing banana skins on to the pavement,only for a cop to slip onto the ground,with Ollie blaming Stan and getting hit on the head with the cop's truncheon,developing a massive bump on the head.The famous pie fight that starts soon after is far more carefully constructed than the previous extant version which had been edited by Robert Youngson for his compilation film 'The Golden Age of Comedy',and is perhaps all the better for it.Previously,after Charlie Hall had slipped on another of Ollie's banana peels,he retaliated immediately with a pie in Ollie's face,but the full version sees some initial comic business beforehand.We see several more combatants involved around the pie wagon compared to the previous footage,most surprisingly of all Eugene Palette,who reappears and states in as many words: "...you can't throw pies without proper insurance....." before promptly getting pies in the face himself from all kinds of angles!There is one more notable variation where the pies hit their target;added to subjects like a postman handing soggy letters from a mailbox,a man getting hit by pie while being served pies and a dental patient getting a mouthful of pie,is a homely middle-aged woman getting her rug splattered by a pie while dusting it outdoors.The previous extant footage ended famously with Anita Garvin falling bottom first onto a pie thrown to the pavement by Stan,but the much vaunted final gag where a cop gets a pie in the face after asking The Boys who started the pie fight ("What pie fight?",replies Ollie) and chases them down the street is fully intact.The whole programme was heartily appreciated by the audience,though perhaps the importance of the rediscovered footage of 'Battle' was not quite fully realised with the exception of myself and other fellow Sons of The Desert (the official Laurel and Hardy appreciation society) present in the large numbers there.When that second reel did start it was just total tunnel vision from my point of view,wide-eyed in virtual amazement like a small child but having to just concentrate on footage that has not been seen in this form for nearly 90 years.It was mightily hard to avoid being too awestruck,but after the most extraordinary evening regarding Laurel and Hardy for decades,my main wish later after discussions with equally astonished friends and colleagues is that this nearly complete version of 'Battle' deserves to be shown to more Sons,the public and indeed the World as Laurel and Hardy belong to us all.And the sooner the better.Rating:7 and a half out of 10.

tavm This is the first comment of a series of films where I'm attempting to connect two legendary comedy teams: Laurel & Hardy and Abbott & Costello. For this initial one-The Battle of the Century-we're at a time when Hal Roach's duo of a thin Englishman and a heavyset Georgia man were just starting their creative chemistry to an adoring public while a young and thin man (at the time) in his twenties from Patterson, New Jersey, was just attempting to break out in Hollywood any way he can which includes stunt work and occasional extra parts. It's here that Lou Costello makes an appearance in the audience of a boxing match between Stan and Noah Young with Ollie being Stan's manager. Half the time watching I was a little distracted looking for Costello but I still managed to laugh at Stan's antics in the boxing ring. I especially loved his dance at the beginning. I half wondered if Lou thought of this sequence when he did his own comic fights in later A & C vehicles. It certainly was amusing enough for the first reel which for years afterward was considered lost until 1979 when Richard Feiner managed to find it. It's the second part with the legendary pie fight that this film's reputation rests. Good thing when compilation producer Robert Youngston was looking for clips to include in his first project on classic silent comedy-The Golden Age of Comedy-he found what was a decomposing second reel and managed to preserve the last 5 or so minutes of it. Among the classic supporting actors long associated with L & H that appeared in this sequence was Charlie Hall and, in perhaps the most iconic moment at the end, Anita Garvin. The Nostalgia Archive video tape that I watched this one on actually had two versions on it. The first presented the first reel intact before going to the pie sequence. The second had the first reel again before going to a surviving script that details another sequence with Eugene Palette in which he sells Ollie an insurance on Stan. From there, Ollie then tries to get Stan to slip on a banana peel to collect the money before a cop gets mixed up in it. With the script, some stills, and then the Youngston-edited sequence, we get an as complete as possible version of this long truncated short. In summary, The Battle of the Century is well worth viewing for L & H fans as well as Lou Costello completists. Update-9/24/11: I just watched this again at an outdoor screening at the Baton Rouge Gallery with musical accompaniment by The Incense Merchants, whose contemporary stylings add to the fun immensely, but with the stills and script pages representing the missing scenes deleted. At least one female member of the audience behind me laughed as loud as I did. She must have been as much of an L & H fan as me!

Snow Leopard In its original form, this was probably one of the best of all of the Laurel & Hardy short comedies. It's too bad that it no longer exists in complete form, but what remains is still very entertaining. It has an even better variety of gag material than usual, with excellent timing and a good supporting cast to help out. The prize fight sequence is a hilarious take-off on the controversial Dempsey-Tunney fight that at the time was still fresh in everybody's mind. The pie fight sequence is still as good as or better than the many attempts to imitate it. It combines escalating chaos with plenty of creative gags. The now-missing portions of the film seem to have tied everything else together very nicely. The Nostalgia Archive reconstruction at least gives you some idea of what it would have been like in its original form, by using the continuity scripts. And even in the fragmented form that remains, it's very funny.

proffate Unfortunately, the film is incomplete. Much of the first reel, with Stan Laurel as a prizefighter, has been lost.What remains is one of film's most inventive pie fights. As the story goes, the writers, director and cast were discussing how to end the short when somebody suggested throwing a few pies.Laurel jumped on this idea. "If we're going to throw pies, let's throw *lots* of pies!" So it began....The gags are highly creative. A dentist's patient gets hit while he's helpless with his mouth open. An attractive flapper takes a pie on her vulnerable behind while climbing into a car. When she turns to protest, she gets another in the face. The traditional dowager catches a pie as she peers through her lorgnette at the melee. The final gag has stately Anita Garvin doing a pratfall onto a dropped pie. Uncertain what she's fallen into, she darts around the corner, pausing only to shake one leg along the way.The best place to find the pie fight is on Robert Youngson's "The Golden Age of Comedy."