In 18th Century Italy, itinerant peasants Stanlio and Ollio become the unwilling henchmen of Robin Hood-like highwayman 'Fra Diavolo' ('The Devil's Brother'). This adaptation of Auber's comic opera is nominally a vehicle for singer/romantic lead Dennis King, but of course he's outshone by Stan and Ollie as light relief all the way through.
Despite its relative obscurity alongside such features as 'Way Out West', this film was one of the duo's major works for Hal Roach, made when they were at the peak of their talents, and it features some wonderful scenes, as well as some nice music inherited from the opera on which it is based. As such, it's surprising that the film doesn't feature in the the series of discs of Laurel and Hardy / Hal Roach films recently released by Universal - evidently the film has lapsed into the public domain, along with the concurrently released 'Babes in Toyland'.
Eureka appear to have timed this release to coincide with the wave of interest generated by those discs, but it has to be said that it's not up to the standard of their best DVDs in that it is clearly copied from an old video master - therefore the picture, although perfectly watchable, is not of the best possible quality. As one of the duo's best features, this film deserves a better release - for that reason alone I give it four stars rather than five. Hopefully we'll see a better transfer in the future. In the meantime, this represents good value for money, and as compensation features a pretty comprehensive text filmography of both Stan and Ollie's films, as well as a few fascinating pages of biographical and movie trivia about the pair.
Finally, it's worth noting that this release features a scene missing from the version normally seen on TV - a darkly comic sequence of Stan, under duress from Diavolo, preparing to hang Ollie. (Some lines of dialogue appear to make no sense in the BBC cut - the reason is that it contains references to this missing scene.)