Download or read book Forties Film Funnymen written by Wes D. Gehring and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The twelve classic comedy films examined within these pages are distinguished by an equal number of defining comic performances. Ranging from The Great Dictator (1940) to A Southern Yankee (1948), each film focuses on the most central theme of "clown comedy": Resilience, the encouragement or hope that one can survive the most daunting of life's dilemmas--even during the war-torn 1940s. And each film can be regarded as a microcosm of the antiheroic world of its central clown (or clowns). Among the performers represented are Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields, Abbott and Costello, Jack Benny, Eddie Bracken, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, the Marx Brothers, Harold Lloyd and Red Skelton. This lavishly illustrated work includes an introduction by noted film critic and historian Anthony Slide.

Download or read book Movie Comedians of the 1950s written by Wes D. Gehring and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-10-27 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1950s were a transitional period for film comedians. The artistic suppression of the McCarthy era and the advent of television often resulted in a dumbing down of motion pictures. Cartoonist-turned-director Frank Tashlin contributed a funny but cartoonish effect through his work with comedians like Jerry Lewis and Bob Hope. A new vanguard of comedians appeared without stock comic garb or make-up--fresh faces not easily pigeonholed as merely comedians, such as Tony Randall, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. Some traditional comedians, like Charlie Chaplin, Red Skelton and Danny Kaye, continued their shtick, though with some evident tweaking. This book provides insight into a misunderstood decade of film history with an examination of the "personality comedians." The talents of Dean Martin and Bob Hope are reappraised and the "dumb blonde" stereotype, as applied to Judy Holliday and Marilyn Monroe, is deconstructed.

Download or read book Kinds of American Film Comedy written by Wes D. Gehring and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2024-01-30 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking film study begins with a survey of American print humorists from eras leading up to and overlapping the advent of film--including some who worked both on the page and on the screen, like Robert Benchley, Will Rogers, Groucho Marx and W. C. Fields. Six comic film genres are identified as outgrowths of a national tradition of Cracker Barrel philosophers, personality comedy, parody, screwball comedy, romantic comedy and dark comedy. Whether it is Mark Twain or a parody film involving Steve Martin, comedy is most often about blowing "raspberries" at the world, and a reminder you are not alone.

Download or read book Screen Ages written by John Alberti and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-11-27 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Screen Ages is a valuable guide for students exploring the complex and vibrant history of US cinema and showing how this film culture has grown, changed and developed. Covering key periods from across American cinema history, John Alberti explores the social, technological and political forces that have shaped cinematic output and the varied impacts cinema of on US society. Each chapter has a series of illuminating key features, including: ‘Now Playing’, focusing on films as cinematic events, from The Birth of a Nation to Gone with the Wind to Titanic, to place the reader in the social context of those viewing the films for the first time ‘In Development’, exploring changing genres, from the melodrama to the contemporary super hero movies, ‘The Names Above and Below the Title’, portraying the impact and legacy of central figures, including Florence Lawrence, Orson Welles and Wes Anderson Case studies, analyzing key elements of films in more depth Glossary terms featured throughout the text, to aid non-specialist students and expand the readers understanding of changing screen cultures. Screen Ages illustrates how the history of US cinema has always been and continues to be one of multiple screens, audiences, venues, and markets. It is an essential text for all those wanting to understand of power of American cinema throughout history and the challenges for its future. The book is also supported by a companion website, featuring additional case studies, an interactive blog, a quiz bank for each chapter and an online chapter, ‘Screen Ages Today’ that will be updated to discuss the latest developments in American cinema.

Download or read book Genre Busting Dark Comedies of the 1970s written by Wes D. Gehring and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-03-09 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This examination of dark comedies of the 1970s focuses on films which concealed black humor behind a misleading genre label. All That Jazz (1979) is a musical...about death--hardly Fred and Ginger territory. This masking goes beyond misnomer to a breaking of formula that director Robert Altman called "anti-genre." Altman's MASH (1970) ridiculed the military establishment in general--the Vietnam War in particular--under the guise of a standard military service comedy. The picaresque Western Little Big Man (1970) turned the bluecoats vs. Indians formula upside-down--the audience roots for the Indians instead of the cavalry. The book covers 12 essential films, including Harold and Maude (1971), Slaughterhouse-Five (1972), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and Being There (1979), with notes on A Clockwork Orange (1971). These films reveal a compounding complexity that reinforces the absurdity at the heart of dark comedy.

Download or read book Hitchcock and Humor written by Wes D. Gehring and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2019-04-23 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Woody Allen's Manhattan Murder Mystery has been described as "a kind of Rear Window for retirees." As this quote suggests, an analysis of Alfred Hitchcock's methodical use of comedy in his films is past due. One of Turner Classic Movies' on-screen scholars for their summer 2017 online Hitchcock class, the author grew tired of misleading throwaway references to the director's "comic relief." This book examines what should be obvious: Hitchcock systematically incorporated assorted types of comedy--black humor, parody, farce/screwball comedy and romantic comedy--in his films to entertain his audience with "comic" thrillers.

Download or read book Chaplin s War Trilogy written by Wes D. Gehring and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-09-17 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book examines Charlie Chaplin's evolving perspective on dark comedy in his three war films, Shoulder Arms (1918), The Great Dictator (1940), and Monsieur Verdoux (1947). In the first he uses the genre in a groundbreaking manner but yet for a pro-war cause. In Dictator dark comedy is applied in an antiwar way. In Monsieur Verdoux Chaplin embraces the genre as an individual in defense against a society out to destroy him. All three are pivotal films in the development of the genre in film, with the latter two movies being very controversial for their time.

Download or read book Robert Wise written by Wes D. Gehring and published by Indiana Historical Society. This book was released on 2012 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Born in Winchester, Indiana, Robert Wise spent much of his youth sitting in darkened movie theaters enthralled by the swashbuckling heroics of screen legend Douglas Fairbanks Sr. Through these viewings, Wise developed a passion for film—a passion he followed for the rest of his life, making movies in Hollywood. Nationally known film historian Wes D. Gehring explores Wise’s life from his days in the Hoosier State to the beginning of his movie career at RKO studios working as the editor of Orson Welles’s classic movie Citizen Kane. Wise is best known for producing and directing two of the most memorable movie musicals in cinema history, West Side Story (co-director Jerome Robbins) and The Sound of Music, for which he won four Academy Awards—two Best Picture and Best Directors Oscars. But, as Gehring notes, other than Howard Hawks, Wise was arguably Hollywood’s most versatile director of various celebrated genre films.

Download or read book Charlie Chaplin and A Woman of Paris written by Wes D. Gehring and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charlie Chaplin's A Woman of Paris (1923) was a groundbreaking film which was neither a simple recycling of Peggy Hopkins Joyce's story, nor quickly forgotten. Through heavily-documented "period research," this book lands several bombshells, including Paris is deeply rooted in Chaplin's previous films and his relationship with Edna Purviance, Paris was not rejected by heartland America, Chaplin did "romantic research" (especially with Pola Negri), and Paris' many ongoing influences have never been fully appreciated. These are just a few of the mistakes about Paris.

Download or read book Buster Keaton in His Own Time written by Wes D. Gehring and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2018-03-16 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buster Keaton "can impress a weary world with the vitally important fact that life, after all, is a foolishly inconsequential affair," wrote critic Robert Sherwood in 1918. A century later Keaton, with his darkly comic "theater of the absurd," speaks to audiences like no other silent comedian. If you thought you knew Keaton--think again!

Download or read book Will Cuppy American Satirist written by Wes D. Gehring and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2013-10-30 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Back in the golden age of humor books (late 1920s-early 1950s), when wits of the pantheon like Robert Benchley, James Thurber, and S.J. Perelman were producing their signature works, there was another singular satirist who more than held his own with such fast company: Will Cuppy (1884-1949). This factual funnyman's metier is dark comedy that flirts with nihilism. His agenda is baldly stated in such classic Cuppy book titles as How to Be a Hermit (1929), How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes (1931), and The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950). This biography doubles as a critical study of a satirist whose shish-kebabing of humanity was often done through the veiled anthropomorphic use of animals. For a biographer, Will Cuppy represents a treasure trove of possibilities. He was a great humorist, and most of his best work is still in print, but until now he has never been the subject of a book-length study. His mesmerizingly complex and eccentric private life almost trumps the comic accomplishments of his public persona.

Download or read book From Camelot to Spamalot written by Megan Woller and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-22 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For centuries, Arthurian legend has captured imaginations throughout Europe and the Americas with its tales of Camelot, romance, and chivalry. The ever-shifting, age-old tale of King Arthur and his world is one which depends on retellings for its endurance in the cultural imagination. Using adaptation theory as a framework, From Camelot to Spamalot foregrounds the role of music in selected Arthurian adaptations, examining six stage and film musicals. The book considers how musical versions in twentieth and twenty-first century popular culture interpret the legend of King Arthur, contending that music guides the audience to understand this well-known tale and its characters in new and unexpected ways. All of the productions considered include an overtly modern perspective on the legend, intruding and even commenting on the tale of King Arthur. Shifting from an idealistic utopia to a silly place, the myriad notions of Camelot offer a look at the importance of myth in American popular culture. Author Megan Woller's approach, rooted in the literary theory of scholars like Linda Hutcheon, highlights the intertextual connections between chosen works and Arthurian legend. In so doing, From Camelot to Spamalot intersects with and provides a timely contribution to several different fields of study, from adaptation studies and musical theater studies to film studies and Arthurian studies.

Download or read book S Sylvan Simon Moviemaker written by David C. Tucker and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2021-01-21 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He was Red Skelton's favorite director, and mentored Lucille Ball in the art of physical comedy. In his 15-year Hollywood career, S. Sylvan Simon (1910-1951) directed and/or produced more than 40 films, with stars like Lana Turner, Abbott and Costello, and Wallace Beery. Though he loved to make moviegoers laugh, he demonstrated his versatility with murder mysteries, war stories, and musicals. After a decade at MGM, he moved to Columbia, where he produced his own projects, including the Western melodrama Lust for Gold, and popular slapstick comedies like The Fuller Brush Girl. As head of production, reporting to irascible Harry Cohn, he produced the award-winning Born Yesterday, and was working on From Here to Eternity when his life ended tragically at the age of 41. This first-ever account of Simon's life and career draws on interviews with family and colleagues, genealogical records, archival materials, and his own annotated scripts to tell the story of a stage-struck boy from Pittsburgh whose talent and tenacity made him a Hollywood success. The filmography provides production histories, critical commentary, and excerpts from published reviews. An appendix covers books written or edited by Simon, including his anthologized plays for amateur groups.

Download or read book Siegel and Shuster s Funnyman written by Tom Andrae and published by Feral House. This book was released on 2010 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Documenting the amazing back story of the world's first Jewish superhero, Siegel and Shuster's Funnyman is an important document of comics and Jewish history. Funnyman, aka Larry Davis, is a red-haired television comedian whose agent talks him into performing a superhero-like stunt in order to obtain publicity. This stunt goes wrong when Larry finds himself in a real crime scene. Larry stops this criminal, not knowing what he is doing is real until after the fact. Discovering that he enjoys fighting crime, Larry begins a career as the costumed crime fighter Funnyman.

Download or read book Talking the Walk Walking the Talk written by Marc Shell and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that we should regard walking and talking in a single rhythmic vision. In doing so, it contributes to the theory of prosody, our understanding of respiration and looking, and, in sum, to the particular links, across the board, between the human characteristics of bipedal walking and meaningful talk. The author first introduces the philosophical, neurological, anthropological, and aesthetic aspects of the subject in historical perspective, then focuses on rhetoric and introduces a tension between the small and large issues of rhythm. He thereupon turns his attention to the roles of breathing in poetry—as a life-and-death matter, with attention to beats and walking poems. This opens onto technical concepts from the classical traditions of rhetoric and philology. Turning to the relationship between prosody and motion, he considers both animals and human beings as both ostensibly able-bodied creatures and presumptively disabled ones. Finally, he looks at dancing and writing as aspects of walking and talking, with special attention to motion in Arabic and Chinese calligraphy. The final chapters of the book provide a series of interrelated representative case studies.

Download or read book How to Laugh Your Way Through Life written by Paul Marcus and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book claims that a tragicomic outlook—the kind that echoes in black and gallows humour and the "laughter through tears" of Jewish humour—is the most effective way to manage what Freud called the "harshness" of everyday life.

Download or read book Siegel and Shuster s Funnyman written by Mel Gordon and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2011-02-02 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created two superheroes. One is Superman. The other is Funnyman, and this book details his amazing back story. Inside find reproductions from Funnyman, s rare comic books, Sunday funnies and daily strips. Revealed by au..