Silent Film Comedy was a fortuitous combination of art and technology, where the physical comedy skills and artistry passed down from the Commedia dell'Arte, English music hall, and American vaudeville were captured for posterity by the newly created motion picture camera. While the Chaplins, Keatons, and Laurel & Hardys are still remembered and celebrated, this book profiles unsung practitioners such as Billie Ritchie, Marcel Perez, Lige Conley, and George Rowe, with special focus on the neglected comediennes Alice Howell, Gale Henry, Fay Tincher, and Josie Sadler. Popular icons on the order of Mack Sennett, Marie Dressler, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, and W.C. Fields are re-examined, plus detailed histories of silent comedy teams and kid's comedies are offered. The book also includes selected filmographies and is lavishly illustrated with more than 225 rarely-seen photographs and advertising images. Steve Massa is a leading enthusiast of silent comedy, who has devoted 45 years to researching the genre. A librarian in the Billy Rose Theatre Collection at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, he has organized comedy film programs for the Museum of Modern Art, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Pordenone Silent Film Festival. In addition to consulting with the Eye Film Institute, Netherlands and other archives, and writing for film journals such as Griffithiana, he is a founding member of Silent Cinema Presentations which produces NYC's Silent Clown Film Series. Steve has also contributed articles and commentary tracks to many comedy DVD collections such as The Forgotten Films of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Becoming Charley Chase, and Kino Video's Buster Keaton: The Short Films Collection.

It Takes a Naked Man to Tell a Naked Story is the true story and personal adventures of a man who discovers that decisions made in life can take you down many different paths. From Vietnam Veteran to nude model and everywhere in between, he steps outside the box late in life to find personal fulfillment. He shows that it doesn't matter how young or old you are; it is never too late to trod down a new path and see where it takes you. Humor and entertainment abound in his most unusual choices, from being sketched in the nude, to racing in the nude, to modeling with a woman with abominable, unbearable foot odor. This book will not only make you laugh, it will inspire you to make choices and go down roads you never thought of before.

A full biography and comprehensive filmography, lavishly illustrated, "Little Elf" is the definitive source for all things Harry Langdon, critically acclaimed "fourth genius" of silent comedy