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Interview: Eighteen Comedians of Silent Film
I enjoyed talking to Derek McLellan for his Dream Factory podcast. We had a lively conversation about the comedians featured in Eighteen Comedians of Silent Film. I thank Derek for his cordiality...
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"Jajajajja. I luv my life!!!!"
Nikki Finke, the editor of Deadline.com, ruffled a few feathers when she protested Julie Bowen scoring an Emmy win for her comedy work on Modern Family. Finke cut straight to the point when she...
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The Swing Game
One of Max Linder's early films was a morbid 1906 comedy called Le Pendu, which translates as The Hanged Man. The film begins, as many Linder films begin, with Max in love. Max wants to marry a baron's...
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Up a Wall
In 1902, Georges Méliès created a comical little film that showed a dancer running up a wall and performing handsprings in mid-air. The film, titled The Human Fly, can be viewed below. The film...
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Woodley
Australian comedian Frank Woodley has brought his affection for silent film comedy to the fore on his new television series, Woodley. The series, which involves a newly divorced man trying to cope...
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You Got to Have Friends
Ever since I wrote The Funny Parts, I have remained fascinated with the free manner in which creative works are often recycled. Lewis Gilbert's 1971 teen romance film Friends has more than a little in...
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Birds of a Feather
The Gale Storm Show episode "Singapore Fling" (1957) starts out with cruise ship chief, Captain Huxley (Roy Roberts), assigning his cruise director (Gale Storm) to teach his mynah bird to talk. Storm...
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Tonight's Episode: The Awkward Squad or Shell Mock
It's great to be back! My time in the last few months has been occupied with health issues, an ill-fated romance, and professional study. But now, my friends, it's time to get back to the comedy.I...
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Eighteen Articles in Eighteen Days
I have had a bunch of half-finished articles sitting on my hard drive for months. I actually thought at one point that I could get away with posting an unfinished article by giving it a funny title...
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For Art's Sake: The Biography & Filmography of Ben Turpin
It's here! Steve Rydzewski's long-awaited biography of Ben Turpin has been released for the pleasure and enlightenment of film comedy enthusiasts everywhere. The book had me hooked as soon as I got to...
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A Stinky Prank
A common routine in silent films had a sloppy eater accidentally dropping a sardine into someone's shoe, causing the person to be pursued by cats, or a prankster slipping Limburger cheese into...
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"Hey, Beertender, Give me another Martoonie!"
According to Twentieth Century Fox publicists, a highlight of the upcoming comedy The Heat (2013) is a drunk scene performed by Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy. Here is a snippet that appears in...
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The Lethal North American Spitting Woodpecker
I wrote in Eighteen Comedians of Silent Film about Larry Semon's obsession with squirting critters. I recently discovered two more instances in which these wildlife anomalies turned up in a Semon...
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Lame Brains and Lunatics
Steve Massa's Lame Brains and Lunatics, which brings to light an assortment of talented, hardworking and groundbreaking film comedians that long ago vanished into the mists of time, is sure to deliver...
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Now Playing: Adultery!
As hard as it might be to believe, a silent film melodrama once used a silly plot twist that would later become crucial to Laurel & Hardy's Sons of the Desert (1933). In Louis Feuillade's Tragic...
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The Incredible Inedibles
A memorable scene in Saps at Sea (1940) features Laurel and Hardy cooking up an impromptu meal for a snarling gangster who insists on being fed. Lacking actual food, the boys make a spaghetti and...
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I Love Sushi
The Nickelodeon sitcom Drake and Josh staged a homage to I Love Lucy's famous chocolate factory routine in a 2006 episode called "I Love Sushi." I Love Lucy ("Job Switching," 1952)Drake and Josh ("I...
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The Horse in the Floral Print Dress
Buster Keaton's Our Hospitality (1923) includes many great gags, but the following gag has always been one that stood out.A rowdy slapstick version of the gag, which ends with the horse kicking the...
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The Brides Wore Blue
I recently discovered a 1920 Roach comedy called Money to Burn. This film, which lasts under 9 minutes, is a succession of stock gags and routines. Take, for example, this routine in which Snub...
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