La battaglia del secolo

In its original form, this was probably one of the best of all of the Laurel & Hardy short comedies. It's too bad that it no longer exists in complete form, but what remains is still very entertaining. It has an even better variety of gag material than usual, with excellent timing and a good supporting cast to help out. The prize fight sequence is a hilarious take-off on the controversial Dempsey-Tunney fight that at the time was still fresh in everybody's mind. The pie fight sequence is still as good as or better than the many attempts to imitate it. It combines escalating chaos with plenty of creative gags. The now-missing portions of the film seem to have tied everything else together very nicely. The Nostalgia Archive reconstruction at least gives you some idea of what it would have been like in its original form, by using the continuity scripts. And even in the fragmented form that remains, it's very funny.