AWARDS & HONORS

In a 2005 poll, Laurel and Hardy were voted the seventh greatest comedy act ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. They were the highest-ranked double act on the list.

In 1996, Laurel and Hardy were rated number 45 in Entertainment Weekly's list of the 100 greatest movie stars of all time.

Stan Laurel was given an honorary Academy Award in 1961 and a Life Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild in 1964.

The Music Box won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Comedy Short Subject. It was given a certificate instead of the Oscar® statuette (which were not yet given to shorts), and Roach later privately presented it to Stan Laurel, insisting the actor was the one who really deserved the award.

In 1997, The Music Box was chosen by the National Film Preservation Board to be one of the movies preserved in the Library of Congress National Film Registry.

Sons of the Desert was one of the top ten moneymakers of 1934.

REVIEWS & PRAISE "I love them and I love all their films. I don't have an out-and-out favorite, but I particularly like The Music Box.... I prefer their short films, and I love to see Stan cry." - Paul McCartney, in Bowler Dessert, a Scottish Laurel and Hardy fanzine

"Laurel and Hardy...supplying an unusual number of laughs for all and sundry....an exceptionally amusing comedy...worth the extra length." – Motion Picture Herald, March 12, 1932, on The Music Box

"Any pair of clowns can make haw-haws out of roughhouse; this pair have reached distinction by reason of a comic quality within themselves." – Variety, November 22, 1932, on The Music Box

"The Music Box is a marvel of pacing; it shows how Laurel & Hardy built to a veritable crescendo of laughter through artful repetition and an unhurried tempo that for all its steadiness was never slow. ... One of the funniest three reels ever filmed." – critic and film historian Leonard Maltin

"A thoroughly fresh and delightful comedy, quite certainly the best and the subtlest of all their features." – William K. Everson, The Films of Laurel and Hardy (Citadel, 2000), on Sons of the Desert

"The film's premise tickles me. ... The idea is delicious and so well done, I can fully understand why it's their most popular film and probably their best." – Playboy magazine publisher Hugh Hefner on Sons of the Desert

"[Sons of the Desert] is as good as any of the Laurel & Hardy comedies, with the exception, of course, of The Devil's Brother [1933]. At times it goes pretty slapstick, but it's new slapstick and not at all hard to take." – Hollywood Reporter, November 10, 1933

"William Seiter has handled the team well, has managed to keep them in hand where they might have gone overboard on mugging. Mae Busch and Dorothy Christy as the wives give good support, particularly Miss Busch who can take it with the best of the male comics." – Daily Variety, November 10, 1933, on Sons of the Desert

"A miniature sandstorm of mirth...continuous merriment and hilarity." – Box Office, January 20, 1934, on Sons of the Desert

"If the thought occurs that Laurel & Hardy in a feature-length movie may be too much of a good thing, dismiss it. The boys prove again that they can provide laughs in six reels just as readily and easily as in two." – Los Angeles Examiner, January 20, 1934, on Sons of the Desert

"Let it be said that this new picture, Sons of the Desert, is just about the funniest they have ever done. The audience at Loew's Orpheum yesterday howled, roared and all but toppled into the aisles." – Boston Globe

"A Quixote and Panza in a nightmare world, where even the act of opening a door is filled with hideous perils, they fumble and stumble in the heartiest manner." – New York Times on Sons of the Desert

Compiled by Rob Nixon