Hal Roach, one of the most formidable producers of comedies of the silent era, stumbled into pictures practically by accident. He made the leap from Hollywood extra and stuntman to producer thanks to a timely inheritance and the good fortune to team up with a young comic actor named Harold Lloyd, who developed his most famous characters with Roach as producer, writer, and often as director. The success let Roach grow, adding such talents as Harry Langdon, Will Rogers, Thelma Todd, ZaSu Pitts and Patsy Kelly to his company. He created the "Our Gang" comedies around a troupe of child actor (launching the longest-running short series in Hollywood history) and had the genius to pair gangly British comic Stan Laurel with portly American funnyman Oliver Hardy, inaugurating one of the great comedy teams in film history.

Where Mack Sennett, Roach's major competitor among American comedy producers, specialized in madcap antics and broad slapstick, Roach developed character-based comedies around a growing company of comedy stars, including Charley Chase, Edgar Kennedy, Max Davidson, and Edgar Kennedy, and he kept his studio running for decades, expanding from comedy shorts and features to try his hand at dramatic films and TV sitcoms in the early days of television. But his glory days were in the silent era and this collection of comedy shorts celebrates both famous and forgotten stars from his company.

JAILED AND BAILED (1923)

James Parrott landed in Hollywood thanks to the connections of his older brother Charlie, who made his fame as silent comedy great Charlie Chase. Variously billed as "Paul Parrott" and "Jimmy Parrott," James starred in dozens of silent shorts for Hal Roach, notably in a successful series opposite the cherubic Jobyna Ralston. Jailed and Bailed showcases the talent and chemistry of the performers before they went on to even greater success, James as one of Roach's top directors (he directed, among others, the Laurel and Hardy classic The Music Box) and Ralston as Harold Lloyd's costar in six features (including The Freshman).

THE BOY FRIEND (1928)

Vaudeville veteran Max Davidson worked his way from supporting player to star of his own series of Hal Roach comedies. Working with Leo McCarey, he created a character steeped in Jewish stereotypes, not uncommon in films of the era but rarely seen in a starring role. In The Boyfriend, he's the protective father of a young beauty (Marion Byron) who catches the eye of a college boy shoe salesman (played by future cowboy star Bill Elliot). The great Edgar Kennedy, one of the original Keystone Kops and a successful star in his own right famed for his "slow burn," co-stars as a policeman (of course) tangled up in the confusion.

CHARLEY MY BOY! (1926)

The Charley Chase comedies were the top moneymaking films from the Hal Roach studios by 1925 and this comedy shows why. Chase is in fine form as the dapper and energetic young man who is mistakenly invited to the boss's home for dinner after a coworker has spiked his milk with sleeping tablets. Chase had developed a strong friendship with his young director, the future Oscar-winner Leo McCarey, and they collaborated as creative equals on dozens of Chase shorts. It was Chase who worked out the elaborate gag in the opening scene involving an illegally parked car, a policeman, and Chase's efforts to save the girl from a ticket. "It was really Chase who did most of the directing," McCarey shared in an interview years later. "Whatever success I have had or may have, I owe this to his help because he taught me all I know."

LONG PANTS (1926)

Hal Roach recruited the athletic Glenn Tryon to take over for Harold Lloyd as the company's spunky young collegiate lead when Lloyd moved from short comedies to feature films. He starred in dozens of comedies for Roach, among them Long Pants, playing a naïve young man who unknowingly brings a worldly, "loose" woman home to meet his parents. Tryon later starred in the famous early silent / sound film hybrid Lonesome (1928) and the early backstage musical Broadway (1929), both directed by the inventive Paul Fejos, before moving behind the camera as a director, screenwriter, and producer during the sound era.

JUST A GOOD GUY (1924)

The diminutive, wide-eyed Arthur Stone was just starting out in pictures when he was made part of the Hal Roach Company. In Just a Good Guy, one of his earliest films, he plays a pawn shop owner whose resemblance to a newly-created robot gets him drafted to substitute for the mechanical man when it gets damaged. Watch for the lovely Olive Borden, the former Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty turned 1920 superstar known as "the Joy Girl," as a shoplifter and a pre-fame Fay Wray in a bit part as a girl stepping into a taxi.

By Sean Axmaker