LAUREL & HARDY: FROM THE FORTIES FORWARD

About the Book

Scott MacGillivray is the author of The Soundies Book (with Ted Okuda), Gloria Jean: A Little Bit of Heaven (with Jan MacGillivray), and Castle Films: A Hobbyist’s Guide.

Scott MacGillivray’s Laurel & Hardy: From the Forties Forward was the first book to fully chronicle the later careers of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and everything that followed, from theatrical reissues to home videos. If you enjoyed the book the first time, you’ll like this new edition even more. The author has expanded the original text by more than 50 percent, to include new insights, new information, and new discoveries in Laurel & Hardy history, never before published. (Which Laurel & Hardy comedy of the 1940s was withheld from release for almost four years? Which “forties” movie was their all-time biggest hit? Which movie was almost shut down by federal intervention?) You’ll read much more about Stan and Ollie’s unrealized projects, including five more feature films, two TV series, and two Broadway shows. A must-read for Stan and Ollie’s fans everywhere, Laurel & Hardy: From the Forties Forward is better than ever!

Praise for the first edition of Laurel & Hardy: From the Forties Forward…

“What a marvelous book! I read it straight through, getting happier by the minute to think that more and more material is being set into history about the boys. The writing is so lucid — and that in this day of film books that aren’t is high praise. Really wonderful!”
— JOHN McCABE, Laurel & Hardy’s authorized biographer

“Scott MacGillivray has accomplished something that most historians can only dream of doing: overturning the conventional wisdom… he rewrites the book on the movie-comedy team.”
— BOSTON HERALD

“All the world’s admirers of Laurel & Hardy will now forever be indebted to Scott MacGillivray for providing so much new information about two of the world’s most beloved figures.”
— STEVE ALLEN

“Displays a knowledge and affection for its subject that one would be hard pressed to find in most academic texts.”
— CLASSIC IMAGES

“To write a book about screen performers as well covered as these two and still present a wealth of heretofore unpublished information is quite an accomplishment.”
— FILM QUARTERLY

“MacGillivray takes great pains to provide the context necessary to reassess these films after so many years of knee-jerk dismissal and neglect… His book will remain the definitive study of the late years of the Laurel and Hardy phenomenon.”
— ARNE FOGEL, Minnesota Public Radio

About the Author

Scott MacGillivray is the author of The Soundies Book (with Ted Okuda), Gloria Jean: A Little Bit of Heaven (with Jan MacGillivray), and Castle Films: A Hobbyist’s Guide.