everything you have heard about this movie is true.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are the most famous comedy duo in history, and deservedly so, so I am happy to see any of their films. In a boxing ring, the predicted winner Thunder-Clap Callahan (Noah Young) is about to fight less impressive looking Canvasback Clump, aka The Human Mop (Stan), and the audience blow raspberries at him and his Manager (Ollie). If they win they get $100, and if they lose they get $5, but it is obvious Clump is very slow witted, he doesn't move from the middle after the Referee (Sam Lufkin) explains the rules to them. Clump sees Callahan jumping in his corner to warn up, he assumes he's dancing, so he improvises some ballet-like stuff in his corner, till he falls. Then Clump is jumping around and swinging his fists ready to fight, his Manager advising him to use his left fist, and when the bell goes, he manages to unintentionally knock Callahan out with his left holding his arm out. The Referee can't finish the countdown till Clump is sat down, and the misunderstanding turn into a little scuffle between them, till he does sit down and Callahan comes round. After a quick fall and near countdown, Clump is ready for another round, but it ends very quickly when Callahan knocks him out, and his Manager faints too, and when he comes round, the whole audience has left, and Clump is sleeping on the ring floor. In the missing footage, a man at the fight recognises Clump, and his Manager buys accident insurance on his behalf, and they try to get money from this insurance by the Manager placing a banana peel on the floor for Clump to slip on. Instead, a Pie Delivery Man (Charlie Hall) slips on it, and presses one of his custard pies in the Manager's face, and when he throws two back, one hits the backside, and the second the face of a woman (Dorothy Coburn). She throws one back, and hits a man having his shows shined, and soon many other people, including a man in a top hat, a dentist patient, a sewer man hole guy, a pie shop customer and a barber shop customer are joining in, while a postman and a man posing for a photo get some pie too. Eventually the boys move away from the chaos, and Stan's last pie goes on the floor, for a woman (Anita Garvin) to slip on, and the rest of the missing film would have the boys questioned by a policeman about how the fight going all the way down the street started, and him chasing them away getting a pie in the face. Filled with good slapstick and all classic comedy you want from a black and white silent film, it is easily the shortest, but it is an enjoyable film. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were number 7 on The Comedians' Comedian. Worth watching!

The title of this comedy is based on the situation at the beginning: Stan's boxing match (Ollie is his manager) against Noah Young (the heavy they shared with fellow Hal Roach alumnus Harold Lloyd). In 1927 the American sports loving public was fully aware of what was "the battle of the century". It was a reference to the second boxing match between Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey (the one that again ended with Tunney's victory, but has lasted in sports controversy because of the notorious "long count" that may have denied Dempsey his victory). The idea of comparing any boxing match that Stan Laurel is in with the likes of one between Tunney and Dempsey is laughable in itself, but it sets the stage here.John McCabe gave a brief description of the boxing match in his biography MR.LAUREL AND MR. HARDY. But seeing it on the recently restored Video, one can appreciate it all the more. Young is ready for real boxing business, but Stan is all weird business (some at the expense of manager Ollie). After about ten minutes Young sees a chance, and lands one punch, and Stan falls down.What adds to the comic beginning is that one sees in the nearby bleachers a dozen or so boxing fans. One of them is young - and thinner than he subsequently looked. It's Lou Costello. I don't know if Costello was working alone in Hollywood at the time, or if he knew someone at Roach's studio, but he gives an interesting little performance in a way he never showed in his own comedies with Bud Abbott. He reacts incredulously at the antics of Stan (and Ollie) in the ring - in fact he acts fairly realistically. It is a curious moment in film history, as it unites Stan and Ollie with half of the film comedy team that slightly eclipsed them in the 1940s, and it presents that half in a quieter manner than as the "baaad boy!".The rest of the film dealt with insurance and pies. Ollie has a real boxing loser, and he has to recoup his financial loss. So he meets Eugene Palette, an insurance salesman, who sells him an accident policy on Stan's life. Now all Ollie has to do is organize some accident. Unfortunate, he's Oliver Hardy, so we know he will keep bungling it (especially when he tries to get Stan to trip on a banana peel). This is the straw that breaks the wrong camel's back. Charlie Hall is delivering pies, and he trips on the peel. He happens to see Ollie trying to hide the tell tale banana peel, so he knows who is responsible. Soon he puts a pie in Hardy's face. But Stan doesn't like that, and he takes a pie and puts it into Hall's face. Soon what McCabe calls "reciprocal destruction" spreads over the street, involving all types of people (including Palette, who tries to use the fight as an opportunity to sell more insurance policies!). The culmination is when Anita Garvin slips on a pie, sitting on it. She does not realize it is a pie, and her embarrassment is priceless.It was their second film - and it was one of their best ones.

The two parts of the movie have absolutely nothing to do with each other but that's no complaint, since the two part each are absolutely hilarious and well constructed. The timing is perfect.It is especially the second part of the movie, the huge pie fight, which most people will remember. Basically everyone in town gets involved in the pie fight; the mayor, a costumer at the barbershop, a sewer worker, a person at the dentist. It's silly, it makes no sense that everybody in town gets hit perfectly in the face with a pie but it works oh so hilarious! I don't know why but pie and food fights in movies are always hilarious. Just think about movies like "The Great Race" and "Blazing Saddles".But really, the first part of the movie is also more than great, in which Stan is in a boxing match against Thunder-Clap Callahan played by Noah Young. That guy is great! He is so intense and has great scary eyes. I think he would had done great in horror movies but I don't know whether or not he ever appeared in one? Don't think so, because to my knowledge he only ever worked for the Hal Roach studio's.A must see 2 part silent comical short with Laurel & Hardy in top-form.9/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

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."