TOO FUNNY FOR WORDS, A Contrarian History of American Screen Comedy from Silent Slapstick to Screwball (2019) David Kalat
American silent film comedies were dominated by sight gags, stunts and comic violence. With the advent of sound, comedies in the 1930s were a riot of runaway heiresses and fast-talking screwballs. It was more than a technological pivot—the first feature-length sound film,
The Jazz Singer (1927) changed Hollywood. Lost in the discussion of that transition is the overlap between the two genres. Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd kept slapstick alive well into the sound era. Screwball directors like Leo McCarey, Frank Capra and Ernst Lubitsch got their starts in silent comedy.
From Chaplin’s tramp to the witty repartee of His Girl Friday (1940), this book chronicles the rise of silent comedy and its evolution into screwball—two flavors of the same genre—through the works of Mack Sennett, Roscoe Arbuckle, Harry Langdon and others. (Book Cover)
Mr. Kalat’s writing is thought provoking and engaging and can be supplemented by his outstanding film audio commentaries, particularly on the Criterion DVD of the screwball masterpiece To Be or Not to Be (1942). Aliece Pickett
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The History of the History of Silent Comedy
Hey, Down in Front!
Mack Daddy, Daddy Mack
Irony and the Fat Man
First Things First, but Not Necessarily in That Order
Slapstick While Black
@RealCharlieChaplin
Cruel and Unusual
Life, Police and Trouble
Mutual Appreciation Society
Serious Business
The Other Chaplin
Buster Keaton vs. the History of Comedy
Out the Window Backwards
Eureka
What, What No Beer?
Keaton International
Fake News
Why Don’t You Say Something to Help Me?
Harold Lloyd 101
Mustache, Glasses and Suit
The Sin of Harold Lloyd
When Harold Met Lucy
Lucy vs. Lucille Ball
Artists and Models
Duck Soup
Eat Your Apple After Now
The Back of Joan Crawford’s Head
Downton Valley, or Ruggles Conquers the West
The $30,000 Question
F. W. Murnau’s Comedy Masterpiece
Jean, Clara, Bombshell and It
Miscasting for Fun and Profit
Girls! Girls! Girls!
I Won’t Back Down
The Unexpected Comedy Stylings of Alfred Hitchcock
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
Divorce American Style
Magic Pixie Dream Grampa
Ernst Lubitsch Forgives Himself
Sturges Before Sturges
The Trouble with Mitchell
Ginger Rogers, Sad Saks of Fifth Ave.
The Careless Cinderella
Katharine Hepburn vs. Herself
Me vs. Capra
Preston Sturges Origin Story
The Love Song of Captain McGloo
Sturges After Sturges (or, the Keystone Pipeline)
Meet Charley Chase
Modern Love
Meet Cary Grant
The Worst People in the World
Slut Fabulous
Filmography
Notes
Bibliography
Index