Stan & Ollie

We screened Stan & Ollie towards the end of last year. The film looks back to the early 1950s and to a world that has long since disappeared, but as the days go by it seems that the world we lived in in 2019 has also now disappeared - hopefully not for good.

I missed the film at the cinema, was delighted to see it finally at our film club and was not in the least disappointed by it.

Stan &Ollie

UK 2018          97 minutes

Director:          Jon S Baird

Starring:            Steve Coogan, John C Reilly, Shirley Henderson, Nina Arianda and Rufus Jones

“Like the comedy greats to whom this winningly warm film pays tribute, Jon S Baird’s affectionate drama balances humour and pathos, laughter and tears. Set in Laurel and Hardy’s twilight years, it’s more melancholy love story than slapstick showbiz reminiscence. … Superb headline performances from Steve Coogan and John C Reilly are matched by equally sparkling supporting turns from Nina Arianda and Shirley Henderson as Stan and Ollie’s combative wives, providing what an astute promoter dubs ‘two double acts for the price of one!’”

Mark Kermode

Awards and Nominations

• Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor (Musical or Comedy) (John C Reilly)
• Three BAFTA nominations including Outstanding British Film and Best Actor (Steve Coogan)
• Seven British Independent Film Award nominations including Best Actor (Steve Coogan) and Best Supporting Actress (Nina Arianda)
• A further three wins and eight nominations

In 1953 Stan Laurel (Steve Coogan) and Oliver Hardy (John C Reilly) undertake a gruelling music hall tour around the UK and Ireland as they struggle to raise finance to make another film. As word of their visit spreads their audiences grow and they begin performing in more prestigious venues, including two weeks at the Lyceum Theatre in London, although ill health meant that the tour was the last time that the pair worked together.

Laurel and Hardy made their first film together in 1921, although both were already well established as film actors in their own right, and over the succeeding 30 years made 106 films together. Their films and the characters they portrayed have remained popular with both the general public and serious film fans to this day as Derek Malcolm, a former film critic of the Guardian who as a teenager actually met them on their tour of the UK, recently admitted:

“As someone who met Orson Welles, Luis Buñuel, John Ford, Satyajit Ray, Howard Hawks, Katharine Hepburn, Charlie Chaplin and many others in the course of a long stint as the Guardian’s film critic, I am often asked who was my favourite movie star. The answer is none of them. My favourites are Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Mind you, I was in my mid-teens when I met them, which probably led to the kind of adolescent hero worship I might later have abjured.”

The screenplay is by Jeff Pope who had previously co-written the Oscar-nominated screenplay for Philomena (2013) with Steve Coogan. His previous work for television includes screenplays for Mrs Briggs (2012), Lucan (2013) and Cilla (2014). Jon S Baird has had a varied career as director where his work includes Filth (2013), based on the novel by Irvine Welsh, and episodes of the series Babylon (2014) and Vinyl (2016) which included Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger as executive producers.

Here's the trailer: