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14 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
a magnificent example of silent comedy, 27 December 2004
9/10
Author: tayandbay from United States

"Liberty" was one of Laurel and Hardy's last silent films, and clearly one of their best. Only two years into their long screen partnership, this talented duo had mastered silent comedy art by 1929, and, with this film, rendered a beautifully constructed, excellently paced, skillfully photographed short, packed throughout with incident and wit. Much credit should go to director Leo McCarey (who would later helm classics like "Duck Soup" and "Going My Way") and cameraman George Stevens (who would later direct "Woman of the Year", "Shane", and "Giant"). Part of the brilliance of this film is in the presentation of it's climax, atop an unfinished skyscraper. Yes, Laurel and Hardy were really scrambling around 10 stories over the streets of Culver City, California; but they were doing so on a wooden mock-up assembled on the roof of an already existing structure.

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9 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Laurel & Hardy Visit Harold Lloyd Territory, 9 March 1999
Author: Richard Brown (richardbrown36@compuserve.com) from Bristol, England

Laurel and Hardy escape from jail and end up wearing each other's trousers. The hilarious sequence of failed attempts to change back was intended for their previous film "We Faw Down" but was removed when that film proved too long. They finally manage to change trousers, first with Stan then Ollie having a live crab within the seat of the pants, and end up on a high building in real Harold Lloyd territory. Perhaps not as well paced as the best of Lloyd but still extremely funny. Up among the best of their silent two reelers.

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4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Funniest ever L & H film, 16 May 2007
10/10
Author: adrianwingate from United Kingdom

I know that they are an acquired taste. You either love them or hate them. Thankfully the Lord blessed me with the sense of humour that falls into the former not the later.

I LOVE Laurel and Hardy.

I do not think there will ever be a funnier duo in my lifetime. My father showed me them when I was a kid. I've loved them ever since.

Liberty is, in my opinion, the funniest ever Laurel and Hardy film made. It certainly isn't the most well known. There maybe a lot of people that don't like the golden age of the silent film. This film has it all (except sound!!!) If you get the chance to watch it grab the opportunity with both hands. The funniest sequence is when they are on the building site and a crab falls down one of their trousers.

If you enjoy this half as much as I did then you'll end up in hospital with stomach cramps from laughing too much.

They don't make them like this anymore (more the pity) Enjoy

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6 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Hilarious first halve more than compensates for lesser second., 19 December 2006
8/10
Author: Boba_Fett1138 from Groningen, The Netherlands

The first halve of the movie a textbook example of Laurel & Hardy comedy and slapstick in general. It's slapstick humor at its very best and shows Laurel & Hardy at their prime, in one of their most enjoyable and hilarious silent comedy shorts.

The entire movie basically relies on one comical premise; the boys trying to switch their pants, after they notice that they wear each other pants (that's not for the first or last time by time), after a hasted but successful prison escape (I wonder what they were in for this time?). There are some hilarious moments build around this premise, that are well thought out and even better executed by the boys and a couple of other Laurel & Hardy regulars, such as James Finlayson, Jack Hill and Jean Harlow. There are some excellent timed moments, that help to make this one of the better, as well as one of the most memorable Laurel & Hardy silent comedy shorts. At one point they even manage to get a live crap in their pants, which causes some hilarious moments. Great comedy stuff.

The sequences with the boys showing their silly antics on a construction-site, on top of an unfinished skyscraper, unfortunately goes on for a bit too long and the humor gets rather stretched thin. It's not the best or most hilarious climax thinkable but it of course also still shows some great moments of comedy brilliance.

A great and hilarious, typical, textbook Laurel & Hardy silent comedy short!

8/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
just fabulous, 22 May 2009
9/10
Author: didi-5 from United Kingdom

This is the film from Laurel and Hardy's silent days where they escape from prison, end up wearing each other's trousers, and finally are in danger stranded on steel girders high above ground. This sequence is a particular delight and unusual for the pair as it is more in Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd territory; here we see Stan and Ollie trying to get back to safety in a variety of amusing ways.

A very funny film which needs no dialogue and a minimum of title cards, 'Liberty' is probably their best effort before they went into sound. Sight gags, a range of funny situations, and perfect playing from the leads put this into a high class of comedy. Hugely enjoyable.

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Liberty is one of Laurel & Hardy's best comedies, 5 August 2011
10/10
Author: tavm from Baton Rouge, La.

Back in the '90s, I managed to buy a VHS tape of this Laurel & Hardy thrill comedy directed by the soon-to-be-legendary Leo McCarey. I laughed plenty at it then as I just did now when seeing it again on Hulu as linked from IMDb. In this one, Stan & Ollie are escaped convicts who find themselves in the wrong pants but they keep getting interrupted whenever they try to change. Not only that, but a crab managed to get into one of the clothes and they somehow end up high a construction gilder...Yes, the boys actually are up there suffering for their art and our enjoyment not unlike former fellow Hal Roach employee Harold Lloyd in Safety Last! Very funny from beginning to end especially whenever Stan or Ollie feel the pinch from that crustacean or they keep having near slip-ups. So on that note, Liberty is well worth seeing. P.S. A woman who's startled when Stan & Ollie emerge, half-dressed, from a taxi is played by Jean Harlow before her stardom. P.S. On YouTube, this is put in the middle of their last short, We Faw Down, as most of their scenes here were originally part of that one but were cut for time constraints. Update-9/24/11: This was the last of the three L & H shorts, with the others being Big Business and The Battle of the Century respectively, that I rewatched at an outdoor screening at the Baton Rouge Gallery with nice contemporary musical stylings by The Incense Merchants providing live accompaniment. At least one female audience member laughed as loud as I did. She must be an appreciative L & H fan like yours truly.

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"This is no time for nipping", 25 May 2011
7/10
Author: Steffi_P from Ruritania

Laurel and Hardy didn't go in for acrobatics much. Unlike the athletic antics of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, their comedy was based more around mannerisms, reactions and silly situations. Liberty however sees them out of their depth in Harold Lloyd/Safety Last! territory, stuck high above the city in the shell of a half-built skyscraper. The pants mix-up and skyscraper escapade that make up the bulk of Liberty were originally shot for the earlier short "We Faw Down", but was cut from that film for reasons of length. Judging the material too good to throw away, the studio commissioned this new story to showcase it.

The setting for Liberty may be inspired by Harold Lloyd, but the style of comedy is purely Laurel and Hardy's own. They were the perfect double act. Neither of them could have done too well on his own but together they are worth more than the sum of their parts. Stan's clownish clumsiness brings out the best on Oli, Hardy being so good at indignity and injured pomposity. Meanwhile Oli's continual berating of Stan brings out Laurel's nervous, put-upon displays. A lot of the humour in Liberty derives from the mismatch between the duo's ineptitude and the precarious place they find themselves in. Despite the building site location there aren't really many props or other characters for them to interact with, and you really get to see how much mileage there is in their surprised reactions and ungainly movements.

Liberty was directed by Leo McCarey, a very fine slapstick director who would soon be graduating onto full-length features. Often the most important thing he does is simply allow the players time and space to perform, and Liberty features some unusually long, static takes to allow Stan and Oli to do their thing. However he does know exactly when and how to change the shot, such as the quick close-up of the crab followed by Hardy's stunned reaction. And one very effective thing about Liberty is that the editing does get quicker the longer they are up on the skyscraper. The looming cityscape becomes ever more visible and those straight-down shots of the ground become increasingly frequent. It gives us a real feeling of danger and sets up some genuine tension. Just as in Safety Last! six years earlier, the constant will-they-won't-they situation simply makes Liberty all the more intensely funny.

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Liberty, 26 January 2010
5/10
Author: Jackson Booth-Millard from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

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. After a quick history of American liberty, from men like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, we see escaped prisoners Stan and Ollie running away from a prison guard firing his long barrelled shot gun. They are picked up by a Getaway Driver (Sam Lufkin) and change in the back seat, and the guard drops his gun in anger, which ends up firing a tree branch on his head. They manage to jump out of the car without suspicion as the police motorbike originally chasing them drives past, but then they notice they are wearing each other's pair of trousers. They try going down an alley with a screaming woman at her window, behind some descending crates, in the back of a taxi with a woman (Jean Harlow) and her husband getting in, and next to some fish crates with a crab dropping in Ollie's pair, to change. Stan wearing Ollie's pair of trousers is getting constantly snipped by the crab in his trousers, at one point it makes him push over Ollie into a chest with some cheap records on top, and the snipping continues when trying to help the Store Keeper (James Finlayson) pick them up. They eventually change their trousers standing on a construction site elevator that they activate taking them all the way to the top where there is nothing but metal beams to stand on, and the elevator goes back down before they can get down. They spot a ladder at the far end of the beams, so they balance, crawl, dangle, hold each other and shake there way across to this ladder, with the crab causing some problems for Ollie in his own pair of trousers, till he gets rid of it. The reach the ladder, and climbing downwards Stan is holding on when the ladder leans outwards with only a rope to hold on to, and he pulls it all the way to it's end, and only his balance keeps him on the below planks before he leaps off. After helping him up, Ollie with a shoe and sock gone, and Stan work their way back to the elevator, grabbing a rope and sand bag which falls and nearly hits the Police Officer (Jack Hill) below. Finally they get on the elevator and go downwards, but the officer standing underneath is squashed down, and while the boys run away in panic, the officer steps out shortened and made angry by the elevator coming down. Filled with good slapstick and all classic comedy you want from a black and white silent film, it is an enjoyable film. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were number 7 on The Comedians' Comedian. Worth watching!

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1 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
The San Francisco Silent Film Festival - David Jeffers for SIFFblog.com, 18 July 2006
7/10
Author: rdjeffers from Seattle

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Sunday July 16, 12:30pm The Castro, San Francisco

This Hal Roach, Laurel and Hardy short is built around one gag, Stan and Ollie escape prison, with help, and accidentally end up wearing each other's pants! They try in vain to switch back, but are constantly interrupted under the most embarrassing of possible circumstances. At one point Stan ends up with a live crab in his, resulting in frequent unscheduled uncontrollable fits. They demolish a phonograph and a large stack of records outside a music store, and somehow find themselves on top of an unfinished skyscraper before they finally set things straight. A very young Jean Harlow makes a brief appearance, getting in a cab.

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1 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
A decent Laurel and Hardy film, though it isn't exactly their element, 2 February 2008
7/10
Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida

This is one of Laurel and Hardy's last silent shorts, as later that year they'd begin making sound films starting with the aptly named UNACCUSTOMED AS WE ARE.

During their career as a team, Laurel and Hardy made several film in which they played prisoners, such as in THE SECOND HUNDRED YEARS, THE HOOSE-GOW and PARDON US, so it isn't unusual to once again see the boys in this setting. What makes this unusual is where they go once they escape. Much of the movie is spent on top of a building under construction as the two idiots get themselves trapped there. In many ways, this might have seemed a more natural place for Harold Lloyd, as he was well known for his building climbing stunt work, such as in his very famous film, SAFETY LAST--plus Lloyd simply did this sort of work better. Still, despite being in unusual territory, the film is pretty good, though not among their very best work. Believe it or not, although they climb on a building and almost fall off several times, this one seems a bit short on laughs.

By the way, although Leo McCarey directed quite a few of their films and George Stevens filmed several, this time the two future star directors worked together.

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