They dare you not to laugh.
At 2 p.m. Jan. 26, Regent Square Theater in Pittsburgh is offering guests a “Laugh Challenge”:
“Anyone who can sit through our matinee of Laurel and Hardy shorts without laughing at least once will get a ticket refund, a jumbo tub of popcorn and some super cool movie memorabilia,” says Joe Morrison, theater manager and director of programming.
About the bill, Morrison says:
• “In ‘Liberty,’ the boys are escaped convicts who end up stranded on the girders of an unfinished skyscraper, where thrills alternate with the laughs.
• “‘Blotto’ finds Stan sneaking out on his suspicious wife to join Ollie for an evening of forbidden fun at a night club (prohibition was still in force).
• “In ‘Helpmates,’ Ollie foolishly asks Stan to help him clean up after a wild party before his wife returns home.
• “Finally, in their Academy Award winning short ‘The Music Box,’ the boys struggle to deliver a piano up the longest flight of stairs in movie history.”
As a bonus, the theater will screen the pie fight finale from “Battle of the Century,” for which more than 3,000 pies were baked — the biggest pie fight in movie history, Morrison says.
Morrison says he asked two of the comedy duo’s biggest fans, Dan Kamin and David Newell, to select the program and to introduce the shorts.
Newell portrays Mr. McFeely from “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” Kamin is a comic performer who appears on stages and with symphony orchestras around the globe and has created comedy moves for Robert Downey Jr. and Johnny Depp.
The theater at 1035 S. Braddock Ave. also will show “Stan and Ollie,” the recent biopic starring Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly, beginning on Jan. 25.
Details: cinema.pfpca.org
Shirley McMarlin is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Shirley at 724-836-5750, smcmarlin@tribweb.com or via Twitter @shirley_trib.
