4 Clowns [Four Clowns] **** (1970, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Charley Chase, Buster Keaton) – Classic Movie Review 10,073

Writer-producer-director Robert Youngson’s 1970 97-minute cinema feature 4 Clowns [Four Clowns] is a tremendous silent-film comedy compilation with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy both together and in their days alone, Charley Chase on fine form in Limousine Love, and Buster Keaton pursued by boulders in the spectacular climax from Seven Chances.

Laurel and Hardy clips: Big Business, Double Whoopee, Putting Pants on Philip, The Second Hundred Years, Their Purple Moment, and Two Tars. Hardy clip: No Man’s Law (1927).

Charley Chase clips: The Family Group, Fluttering Hearts, Us, and What Price Goofy.

Youngson’s films sparked a revival in the interest in Laurel and Hardy, and The Keaton clip as James Shannon from Seven Chances (1925) naturally makes you want to see the whole film.

Youngson is a double Oscar-winner as director of Best Short Subjects, but it is for his tasteful and intelligent compilation of films that he is remembered, and especially The Golden Age of Comedy (1957) and Laurel and Hardy’s Laughing 20’s (1965). Four Clowns is Youngson’s last film.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,073

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