Laurel & Hardy: A Tribute to the Boys

Novelist Graham Greene once said he preferred Laurel and Hardy to Chaplin and Keaton — the duo's clowning was purer, he observed; you never had the feeling that ''the Boys'' secretly longed to do Hamlet. That's the sort of insight sorely lacking in this shoddy celebration of the greatest comedy team in history. Instead, we get some celebrities (Bronson Pinchot, Rich Little) mouthing banalities talking-head style, in between randomly chosen clips from various L&H shorts and features that — as if this thing didn't have enough problems — are mostly colorized. As a matter of fact, this Tribute is perhaps the strongest argument against colorization you'll ever see: As rendered here, Laurel and Hardy romp around in a world of sickly pinks, browns, and greens that exist neither in nature nor in any movie ever made in color. Rent the originals instead. D