Forthcoming Laughsmith silent collection

The Forgotten Films of Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle box set, probably Laughsmith’s signature set, contains 32 silent and sound comedies, all of which were digitally remastered from original material or the only known existing prints. Each film has restored titles, captions, and new musical scores, as well as a few films including previously lost footage. If you happened to have caught some of these restorations broadcasted on Turner Classic Movies last April, you could see that the output turned out marvelous. Paul Gierucki of Laughsmith reported that the Our Gang silents in the future collection will get similar treatment.

Robin Cook of C-W Films has a collection of silent Our Gang negatives, some of which were never made available on video, others containing more footage than in other available versions, and even a few that were missing an entire reel or was completely lost. The one Our Gang short Robin has released to the public thus far is almost 13 minutes of all the known surviving elements of the very first short that started it all in 1922, called Our Gang, which soon became the series’ title. Most of the film has been lost for many decades until recently when more parts to the film have been recovered and professionally edited back together. Robin and Laughsmith are currently working hard together to restore the films and make them look the best and as original as possible, as opposed to other companies that merely copy a print and market it as it is.

Laughsmith Entertainment

Fire Fighters
Young Sherlocks
Saturday Morning
The Cobbler
The Champeen!
A Pleasant Journey
Fast Company
July Days
No Noise
The Buccaneers
Seein' Things
The Sun Down Limited
Every Man For Himself
Dog Days
Official Officers
Boys Will Be Joys
One Wild Ride
Good Cheer
Buried Treasure
Monkey Business
Thundering Fleas
The Fourth Alarm!
War Feathers
Olympic Games
Old Gray Hoss
Fast Freight
Buster's Picnic (Buster Brown)
Buster And The Tutor (Buster Brown)
Funny Face (Big Boy)
The Klynick (Hey Fellas)
Mickey's Eleven (Mickey McGuire)
No Fare (series unknown)

C-W Films informed Laughsmith what they have in their Our Gang collection and they have responded with a list of a handful of films they wanted to archive most-

Our Gang (series debut)
Big Business
High Society
Your Own Back Yard
Uncle Tom’s Uncle
The Smile Wins
Our Gang At Home

Obviously there are some films to look forward to the most from the eyes of collectors, that is if they are included, as we have no confirmations yet. Your Own Back Yard was a Hal Roach favorite that went entirely missing for years until most of reel two was turned in to the Library of Congress in 1979. C-W Films has a copy of reel one and the beginning of reel two that was nowhere to be found, and then purchased a 35mm safety print of reel two from the Library of Congress (with original text titles) to combine and restore the film. Robert Demoss of OurGangFollies (Yahoo Group) provided them a 16mm home movie footage of Your Own Back Yard with the original text titles and two seconds to bridge the gap between C-W Films' print and the Library of Congress' print. The Smile Wins and The Cobbler are also both previously unseen on video, however The Smile Wins has been available from Blackhawk on 16mm French print but the version Laughsmith has will be more complete; they also have a Dutch print to combine, along with one or two fragments with original text titles to help re-create the titles, like for Your Own Back Yard, after translating the language. Young Sherlocks, Saturday Morning, A Pleasant Journey, Fast Company, No Noise, Seein' Things, Every Man For Himself, One Wild Ride and Buried Treasure were all already available on video but are severely cut; some are less than half of the original complete versions. Some others had poor picture quality. Hopefully these are included in the Laughsmith collection and will be a vast improvement over what we already have. Back to the first Our Gang film Robin was selling, Laughsmith should have an updated version included in the set. A bit more footage had been overlooked, beyond Robin's control, and he is now including the missing footage into the film.

You may be wondering what Our Gang At Home is all about. Apparently, Our Gang At Home is a short film shot in 1925 and contains trick photography (double exposure, miniature photography, and glass floor photograhy), like what is seen in some shorts made during that time. This unfamiliar footage is not in any of the 221 Our Gang shorts. The film is also known as "More Mischief" and it shows up on eBay once in a while.

Laughsmith has also gotten a copy of The Hal Roach Interview, which was an interview conducted by David Wyatt in 1986 when Hal Roach went to London to launch 'Video Virgin' editions of Laurel and Hardy films.

There is no release date for this exciting set yet. The latest is that Laughsmith is still working on it. Some of the films still have to be edited, which takes a lot of time, effort and patience. There will be more info posted in the future as more news surface, so stay tuned!

We have a reported list of 26 Our Gang films that Laughsmith has transferred so far, as well as 6 “rival” films. There’s no guarantee all these films will be included in the set and is subject to change, but it’s likely the majority of them will. The films are as follows-