Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde

DR. PYCKLE is one of the Holy Grails of silent comedy...for years it was thought lost, until poor quality French prints turned up on video. Now it has been magnificently restored on DVD by Kino (bravo to them) and the original titles restored. Stan Laurel's solo comedies featured genre parodies that were far different from the dim-bulb act he perfected with Oliver Hardy. Here, Stan is a veddy British scientist who turns into the horrific Mr. Pryde.

The story follows Stevenson very closely, except for the 'dire deeds' that Pryde does; this is the best part of the picture, with Stan having a wonderful time terrorizing the townsfolk. (He actually succeeds in being funny and scary at the same time.) I'll never look at a Chinese finger trap in quite the same way again...