Comedy Classics

Treeline Films box sets are always great value for money, but this one is even better because it includes a few sets of short films from way back when, so we get even more than fifty films for our twenty bucks. There's a good deal of early slapstick, including many Buster Keatons and some Fatty Arbuckles, solo Stan Laurels and Keystone Kops. There's also a fascinating early charity film called The Stolen Jools which features more stars of the time than can be comfortably imagined.

Half way through I've rated three of these films classic. There's the screwball comedy My Man Godfrey with William Powell and Carole Lombard and the Ealing comedy Passport to Pimlico. The third is His Girl Friday, a Howard Hawks movie with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, which is solidly placed in the IMDb Top 250 even though it's a comedic remake of The Front Page, which is also here!

Unlike the SciFi Classics box set, most of the contents of this box are merely OK rather than being actively bad. The worst are the Keystone Cops shorts, one dating back to 1913 which is truly awful. Some of the Fatty Arbuckles aren't much better and there's a resounding stinker called Ghost Parade that was an early sound outing for Mack Sennett.

Far more interesting choices include It's a Joke, Son! which provided the basis for the cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn; the return of a bunch of old western stars in The Over-the-Hill Gang and its sequel; and a bunch of latter day Harold Lloyds. There's even a late Paul Muni, the fascinating Angel on My Shoulder.

Contents

Title	Year	Director(s)	IMDb
All-Star Extravaganza
La Cucaracha	1934	Lloyd Corrigan	IMDb
Ghost Parade	1931	Mack Sennett	IMDb
The Stolen Jools	1931	William C McGann	IMDb
The Amazing Adventure	1936	Alfred Zeisler	IMDb
Angel on My Shoulder	1946	Archie Mayo	IMDb
As You Like It	1936	Paul Czinner	IMDb
Beat the Devil	1953	John Huston	IMDb
Behave Yourself!	1951	George Beck	IMDb
Bowery Blitzkrieg	1941	Wallace Fox	IMDb
Broadway Limited	1941	Gordon Douglas	IMDb
Buster Keaton Classics
The Balloonatic	1923	Edward F Cline Buster Keaton	IMDb
The Electric House	1922	Edward F Cline Buster Keaton	IMDb
My Wife's Relations	1922	Buster Keaton	IMDb
The Play House	1921	Buster Keaton Eddie Cline	IMDb
Buster Keaton Festival
The Blacksmith	1922	Buster Keaton Mal St Clair	IMDb
The Boat	1921	Buster Keaton Eddie Cline	IMDb
Day Dreams	1922	Eddie Cline Buster Keaton	IMDb
The Paleface	1921	Buster Keaton Eddie Cline	IMDb
Clancy Street Boys	1943	William Beaudine	IMDb
East Side Kids	1940	Robert F Hill	IMDb
Eternally Yours	1939	Tay Garnett	IMDb
Fatty Arbuckle Festival
Fatty Joins the Force	1913	George Nichols	IMDb
Fatty's Spooning Day	1915	Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle	IMDb
Fatty's Suitless Day	1914	Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle	IMDb
The Speed Kings	1913	Wilfred Lucas	IMDb
The Front Page	1931	Lewis Milestone	IMDb
The Great Mike	1944	Wallace Fox	IMDb
The Great Rupert	1950	Irving Pichel	IMDb
Happy Go Lovely	1951	H Bruce Humberstone	IMDb
His Girl Friday	1940	Howard Hawks	IMDb
It's a Joke, Son!	1947	Benjamin Stoloff	IMDb
Keystone Cops Festival
Bangville Police	1913	Henry Lehrman	IMDb
Her Painted Hero	1915	F Richard Jones	IMDb
Love, Speed and Thrills	1915	Mack Sennett	IMDb
Wife and Auto Trouble	1916	Dell Henderson Mack Sennett	IMDb
Li'l Abner	1940	Albert S Rogell	IMDb
Love Laughs at Andy Hardy	1946	Willis Goldbeck	IMDb
Made for Each Other	1939	John Cromwell	IMDb
Million Dollar Kid	1944	Wallace Fox	IMDb
Mr Wise Guy	1942	William Nigh	IMDb
My Love for Yours	1939	Edward H Griffith	IMDb
My Man Godfrey	1936	Gregory La Cava	IMDb
One Rainy Afternoon	1936	Rowland V Lee	IMDb
Our Gang Festival
Bear Shooters	1930	Robert F McGowan	IMDb
Our Gang Follies	1937	Gordon Douglas	IMDb
School's Out	1930	Robert F McGowan	IMDb
The Over-the-Hill Gang	1969	Jean Yarbrough	IMDb
The Over-the-Hill Gang Rides Again	1970	George McCowan	IMDb
Passport to Pimlico	1949	Henry Cornelius	IMDb
Pot o' Gold	1941	George Marshall	IMDb
Pride of the Bowery	1940	Joseph H Lewis	IMDb
Sandy the Seal	1969	Robert Lynn	IMDb
The Sin of Harold Diddlebock	1947	Preston Sturges	IMDb
The Smallest Show on Earth	1957	Basil Dearden	IMDb
Smart Alecks	1942	Wallace Fox	IMDb
Something to Sing About	1937	Victor Schertzinger	IMDb
Speak Easily	1932	Edward Sedgwick	IMDb
Spooks Run Wild	1941	Phil Rosen	IMDb
Stan Laurel Festival
Just Rambling Along	1918	Hal Roach	IMDb
Mud and Sand	1922	Gilbert Pratt	IMDb
Oranges and Lemons	1923	George Jeske	IMDb
Steamboat Bill, Jr	1928	Charles F Reisner	IMDb
The Stork Club	1945	Hal Walker	IMDb
Swing High, Swing Low	1937	Mitchell Leisen	IMDb
That Uncertain Feeling	1941	Ernst Lubitsch	IMDb
Three Broadway Girls	1932	Lowell Sherman	IMDb
Three Guys Named Mike	1951	Charles Walters	IMDb
Zis Boom Bah	1941	William Nigh	IMDb