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Abbott and Costello Film Posters
 Rio Rita (1942)Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949)Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion (1950)Abbott and Costello Meet the...
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Random Tidbits of July, 2016
 Buster Keaton was a true comedy athlete.It was shocking for me as a kid to finally get a glimpse of Doctor Doom's disfigured face. This is issue number 182 of The Mighty Thor. The illustrator is...
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Funnyman in a Straitjacket
One of the 19th-century’s most notorious establishments was the insane asylum. Comedy can be a response to notoriety or a salve to tragedy. It was inevitable for comedians to fool with the provocative...
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Reflections in a Soap Bubble
I remember the times in my childhood when the foamy lather created by shampoo provided an irresistible opportunity to play. I could pile layers of foam on my head to create a sudsy Afro that made me...
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The Incredible Laughable Egg
Shemp Howard in Listen, Judge (1952)"We've got to speed things up in this hotel. Chef, if a guest orders a three-minute egg, give it to him in two minutes. If he orders a two-minute egg, give it to...
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An Idle Man
In the last few months, I have fallen victim to that most terrible of vices - laziness. I have nine unfinished articles that I need my attention, but I have been unwilling or unable to put forth the...
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Good Reading
Let me share a few good articles that I read recently.Ivan Shreve explores the history of a short-lived RKO comedy series, "The Blondes and the...
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Film Images from the 1920s
I want to thank Tamara Flynn for the photos used in this article.Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman take a break during filming of The General (1926).Ben Turpin is at the ready as a tough old sheriff.A...
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A Tribute to the "Sez You-Sez Me" Duo Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe
I offer today a pictorial tribute to Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe, who appeared together as rowdy and wisecracking rivals in a series of feature comedies from 1926 to 1942. What Price Glory? (1926,...
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Going Up!: Stuck in an Elevator Again
Ken Levine, who lent his many talents to creating classic episodes of M*A*S*H, Cheers and Frasier, brought up the caught-in-an-elevator comedy trope in a recent article. He wrote:It's a comedy staple...
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The Unreality of Movie Money
The Brink's Job (1978)It has always bothered me that money can look so fake in old movies. I can accept a fake baby in a scene more than I can accept fake money. Look at this scene from 13 Ghosts...
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"Put 'em up. Put 'em Up": Bert Lahr Goes to War with Joke Thieves
Bert Lahr was neurotic about other comedians stealing his material. I wrote in a previous article about Lahr threatening to sue Warner Brothers because he believed that Joe E. Brown copied his style...
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Tidbits for October, 2016
I have accumulated a large collection of tidbits for the month. Let me not waste time getting to our first item of the day. It has to do with the legendary and unstoppable mirror routine.In this...
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Pack Up Your Troubles!
Comedy can be unpacked from a standard travel bag, including a suitcase, a trunk, a duffel bag or a backpack. Filmmakers realized this fact early on.Roscoe Arbuckle and Buster Keaton and in The Bell...
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The Spirits Come Forward: The Ouija Board in Films and Television
It is farfetched to expect a flat square of pressed cardboard to be a magical threshold into the afterlife. Look at it. It has no transmitter, no speaker, no motor, no knobs, no liquid crystal...
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A Non-Leering Look at Helen Mirren's Pleasure Pillows and Blake Lively's...
 The one thing that occurs to me as I watch old movies is that actresses were so pretty back then. Yes, the ladies of Hollywood's Golden Age had exquisitely formed faces that were perfect for a...
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Where Have I Been?
 I have been working on two big undertakings since October. The first project is a film book for McFarland. The book will examine a legendary comedian whose troubled personal life too often...
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The Invisible Man Discusses Rape with Two Feminists
One of the angriest threads to come down my Facebook stream had to do with the recent controversy over whether Maria Schneider was raped on camera by Marlon Brando during the making of Last Tango in...
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The Unconscious Woman Returns
 I have discussed the unconscious woman routine many times in the past. You can click here for one of those discussions. I now present for today's post a few other examples of unconscious women...
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The Origin of the Test Screening
Irving Thalberg credited Harold Lloyd with creating the test screening, but I have my doubts that this is true. More likely, Lloyd applied his unique talents to refining the test screening, eventually...
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