New Hal Roach Studios Site is Great .

[cubear]

Being a huge fan of Our Gang Series and Laurel and Hardy almost my entire life I was happy to see the release of the 10 Volume series The Lost Films Of Laurel and Hardy that included all of the boys silent films plus a lot of other gems from the Hal Roach Studios such as Stan and Ollie’s early solo films, Charley Chase, OUR GANG, etc. In researching these DVDs I realized that they were released by Hal Roach Studios so I went to Hal Roach Studios Site. This site is a must check out: www.halroachstudios.com/I would love some more info on this company. It seems like a brand new site, a lot of it is still under construction, however it promises to be a great site. They promise to bring new and restored prints of the Hal Roach Studios films to the public. Although all they have listed now are the “Lost Film of L and H” series it is still fascinating. The site has histories of the films, original poster art, restoration info and lots more. Check it out.

On Volume 10 of the Lost Films of Land H (titled Laurel and Hardy and Friends) they have included several Our Gang Comedies: The Stolen Jools, Our Gang Follies of 1938, Schools Out and Bear Shooters. Does anybody know about the facts and quality of these prints?? Are they the Cabin Fever Prints?

Does anybody know if company is planning to release a series of restored silent Our Gang films or a re-release of the sound films? It seems like that would be logical. Check out this great site and if anybody has any info about Hal Roach Studios and their plans please let me know.
Thanks

[ymymeatemup]

My understanding of the current status of the Roach company is that they're basically into marketing videos. Unfortunately, most of their backlog was sold off to other companies, most notably Film Classics. I noticed, though, that there's a section of the site (still under construction) that deals with Film Classics, so perhaps a deal was struck between the two companies and we'll be seeing the L&H talkies released through Roach.

The Our Gang series (or the talkies anyway) is in the hands of Hallmark, which explains why Roach only has "Bear Shooters," "School's Out" and "Follies Of '38" on their releases, since those three films are in the public domain. This would also explain why the L&H videos are mostly solo films from before they were teamed, since most of that stuff would be in the public domain.

I've noticed quite a few Hal Roach Studios videos of various feature films made by other companies. A lot of sellers think that these are Roach films, but they've merely been bought or licensed by Roach, or are in the public domain.

[Hiram]

Awesome web site Cubear.The female voices you hear introducing Laurel & Hardy are that of twin girls Beverly and Bettymae Crane,who occasionally made an onscreen introduction of Hal Roach comedies,by reading the openning credits out loud,during the early 1930s.A few films to note,which recieved this treatment were Laurel & Hardy's"Another Fine Mess",The Little Rascals'"School's Out",and Charley Chase's"Girl Shock".

[zootmoney]

The twins also introduced "Doctor's Orders," a Hal Roach Boyfriends short from 1930.

[Mark]

That website isn't new. It's been around for a while and hasn't been updated in forever, either. The site is dead, sorry to say.

[cubear]

That's a real shame Mark...Sorrry to hear that
The site looked full of promise.
It is a shame that American film classics get more attention outside of the US than in it.
I just bought the Universal Laural and Hardy Box set which is only available in Europe from Amazon UK (region 2), which is a beautiful set, and I bought a region free DVD player off the web..which is the only way to go if you really want to collect. the DVD player was cheap and well worth the investment.
Anything to screw Hallmark!! Why did they buy these great films just to sit on them and distribute half-A prints!!!