Companion to Film Comedy

Andrew Horton is the Jeanne H. Smith Professor of Film and Media Studies at the University of Oklahoma, USA. An award-winning screenwriter, he is also the author of twnty-eight books on film, screenwriting and cultural studies, including Screenwriting for a Global Market (2004), Writing the Character-Centered Screenplay (2nd edition, 2000), and The Films of Theo Angelopoulos (2nd edition, 1999). His screenplays include Brad Pitt’s first feature film, The Dark Side of the Sun (1988), and the award-winning Something in Between (1983), directed by Srdjan Karanovic. He has led screenwriting workshops around the world as well as across the United States. Joanna E. Rapf is Professor of English and Film & Media Studies at the University of Oklahoma, USA. She writes regularly about film comedy, with recent essays on Woody Allen, Jerry Lewis, Roscoe Arbuckle, Harry Langdon, and Marie Dressler, and has edited books on a range of subjects including Sidney Lumet, On the Waterfront, and Buster Keaton.

“And of course, it very much is. An important subject needs an important companion.  This is it. That’s all, folks.”  (Reference Reviews, 1 January 2014)“This work is indispensible for any student or scholar who, in the spirit of Rabelais, Swift, and Chesterton, will laugh while studying film images. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; general readers.”  (Choice, 1 July 2013)

• Notes on Editors and Contributors ixComic Introduction: ‘‘Make ’em Laugh, make ’em Laugh!’’ 1Part I Comedy Before Sound, and the Slapstick Tradition1 The Mark of the Ridiculous and Silent Celluloid: Some Trends in American and European Film Comedy from 1894 to 1929 15Frank Scheide2 Pie Queens and Virtuous Vamps: The Funny Women of the Silent Screen 39Kristen AndersonWagner3 ‘‘Sound Came Along and OutWent the Pies’’: The American Slapstick Short and the Coming of Sound 61Rob KingPart II Comic Performers in the Sound Era4 MutiniesWednesdays and Saturdays: Carnivalesque Comedy and the Marx Brothers 87Frank Krutnik5 Jacques Tati and Comedic Performance 111KevinW. Sweeney6 Woody Allen: Charlie Chaplin of New Hollywood 130David R. Shumway7 Mel Brooks, Vulgar Modernism, and Comic Remediation 151Henry JenkinsPart III New Perspectives on Romantic Comedy and Masculinity8 Humor and Erotic Utopia: The Intimate Scenarios of Romantic Comedy 175Celestino Deleyto9 Taking Romantic Comedy Seriously in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and Before Sunset (2004) 196Leger Grindon10 The View from the Man Cave: Comedy in the Contemporary ‘‘Homme-com’’ Cycle 217Tamar Jeffers McDonald11 The Reproduction of Mothering: Masculinity, Adoption, and Identity in Flirting with Disaster 236Lucy FischerPart IV Topical Comedy, Irony, and Humour Noir12 It’s Good to be the King: Hollywood’s Mythical Monarchies, Troubled Republics, and Crazy Kingdoms 251Charles Morrow13 No Escaping the Depression: Utopian Comedy and the Aesthetics of Escapism in Frank Capra’s You Can’t Take it with You (1938) 273William Paul14 The Totalitarian Comedy of Lubitsch’s To Be or Not To Be 293Maria DiBattista15 Dark Comedy from Dr. Strangelove to the Dude 315Mark EatonPart V Comic Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity16 Black Film Comedy as Vital Edge: A Reassessment of the Genre 343Catherine A. John17 Winking Like a One-Eyed Ford: American Indian Film Comedies on the Hilarity of Poverty 365Joshua B. Nelson18 Ethnic Humor in American Film: The Greek Americans 387Dan GeorgakasPart VI International Comedy19 Alexander Mackendrick: Dreams, Nightmares, and Myths in Ealing Comedy 409Claire Mortimer20 Tragicomic Transformations: Gender, Humor, and the Plastic Body in Two Korean Comedies 432Jane Park21 Comedy ‘‘Italian Style’’ and I soliti ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street, 1958) 454Roberta Di Carmine22 ‘‘Laughter that Encounters a Void?’’: Humor, Loss, and the Possibility for Politics in Recent Palestinian Cinema 474Najat Rahman Part VII Comic Animation23 Laughter is Ten Times More Powerful than a Scream: The Case of Animated Comedy 497Paul Wells24 Theatrical Cartoon Comedy: From Animated Portmanteau to the Risus Purus 521Suzanne BuchanIndex 545