JL: A film inevitably compared to the thrill work of Harold Lloyd, and one that once again proves that Laurel and Hardy could master a form of comedy unique to them. But even though the context has changed, the characters remain the same. It is both a great thrill comedy and a great Laurel and Hardy comedy. Other performers could have made the skyscraper business thrilling and scary and dramatically satisfying; the fact that The Boys are in this situation makes it doubly satisfying. Each precarious predicament in which they find themselves is entirely of their own doing, stemming from the terror of their predicament and the bumbling, childlike ways in which they deal with it.        It's an amazing little string of circumstances, this film. Each of those circumstances is of The Boys' doing, and each takes its turn being the central conflict of the film. It's a film about being on the lam from prison, it's about getting those dang pants switched, it's about that crab in Ollie's pants (my favorite inspired touch of many), it's about eluding that cop, and, ultimately, it's about risking life and limb atop those girders. And yet it flows from one frantic incident to the next as smoothly as a beer river through your grandmother's paisley shawl. Masterfully constructed and executed, Liberty is one of the team's very best shorts. JB: It's tempting to say "Yeah, what you said," here.        In their career, Laurel and Hardy made about six absolutely perfect shorts. Liberty is one of them. Since the skyscraper business was already discussed, I will mention a few of my other favorite moments, not the least of which is the quick pantomime the Boys do as "used car salesman and potential customer" to fool the cops, who go speeding by. Stan's wrecking of James Finlayson's record player and 78's (though it is really the crab's fault) is another highlight. And one can only imagine how tastelessly a modern day film comedian would handle the pants switching business which dominates most of this film. With Stan and Ollie, it is pants down, get caught, pants up, walk away sheepishly. Funny every time.        The "thrill comedy" is handled expertly and is as funny as similar scenes in Harold Lloyd's work. The camera placement is not quite as precise as Lloyd's in SAFETY LAST, but it is convincing just the same. And Lloyd (whom I love) used "thrill climaxes" as an acceptable substitute for an inherently funny character. What he did was excellent, and only Buster Keaton could compete with him for sheer manual dexterity and athleticism, but as Walter Kerr says in THE SILENT CLOWNS, Lloyd's gags were just gags --- some good, some bad, some indifferent. We laugh because with every gag there is the possibility of Harold plummeting to his death. But Lloyd climbed that building in SAFETY LAST because he had no other choice - the entire story of SAFETY LAST has built to this grand climax - while Laurel and Hardy wind up on their skyscraper simply through their own inept clumsiness and exquisite talent, displayed magnificently throughout Liberty, at being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And the crab that makes things so difficult for Ollie is up there with them only because neither Laurel nor Hardy has sufficient brainpower to recognize a large crustacean making a home in their pants. They are the makers of their own troubles, as opposed to Lloyd, who deals with random obstacles placed in his way. In the end, Lloyd makes it to the top and wins the girl, while the Boys scramble down an elevator and away to their next misadventure, not even stopping to notice the cop they have accidentally squished down to Munchkin size.