"The biography is as good an introduction to Chaplin's life and films as has been published. The bibliographical essay . . . offers clear and reliable evaluations of the works considered. The filmography carefully lists everyone involved in each Chaplin film." Choice

Parody is the least appreciated of all film comedy genres and receives little serious attention, even among film fans. This study elevates parody to mainstream significance. A historical overview places the genre in context, and a number of basic parody components, which better define the genre and celebrate its value, are examined. Parody is differentiated from satire, and the two parody types, traditional and reaffirmation, are explained. Chapters study the most spoofed genre in American parody history, the Western; pantheon members of American Film Comedy such as The Marx Brothers, W. C. Fields, Mae West, and Laurel and Hardy; pivotal parody artists, Bob Hope and Woody Allen; Mel Brooks, whose name is often synonymous with parody; and finally, parody in the 1990s. Films discussed include Destry Rides Again (1939), The Road to Utopia (1945), My Favorite Brunette (1947), The Paleface (1948), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Blazing Saddles (1974), Young Frankenstein (1974), Hot Shots Part Deux (1993) and Scream (1996).

This examination of parody will appeal to scholars and students of American film and film comedy, as well as those interested in the specific comedians discussed and the Western genre. Gehring's work will also find a place in American pop culture studies and sociological studies of the period from the 1920s to the 1990s. The book is carefully documented and includes a selected bibliography and filmography.

The success of clown comedy is dependent on the comic or comics who take center stage. These comics are usually identified with a specific comedic shtick, physical or visual humor, and their underdog status. This study by film scholar Wes Gehring presents a brief, historical overview of major figures in the genre, including W. C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, Bob Hope, and Woody Allen. The comedians discussed are drawn from four genre periods: the silent era, the depression era, the post-World War II period, and the modern era.

From Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush to Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Gehring presents a compelling theory of the black comedy film genre. Placing the movies he discusses in a historical and literary context, Gehring explores the genre's obession with death and the characters' failure to be shocked by it. Movies discussed include: Slaughterhouse Five, Catch-22, Clockwork Orange, Harold and Maude, Heathers, and Natural Born Killers.

Traditionally identified with screwball comedies, Frank Capra has seldom been considered a conduit for populist concerns and issues. In this book, Gehring examines the influence of both Will Rogers and Frank Capra on modern populist movies, providing important background on Capra's links to the crackerbarrel personality of Rogers. He follows this theme forward, examining the populist roots in such films as "The Electric Horseman," "Field of Dreams," "Dave," "Grand Canyon," and others. A final chapter is a close-up of the contemporary, Capra-like director, Ron Howard. The inclusion of a bibliography and selected filmography makes this book an important contribution to film studies, popular culture, and American humor.

This book presents a combined biographical, critical, and bibliographical estimate of Laurel & Hardy's significance in film comedy, the arts in general, and as popular culture icons. Of the two, Laurel decidedly evolves as the central player in this duo biography. The reasons for this are several, but mainly stem from Laurel's role as team spokesman; his late life accessibility; media coverage given to his private life; and the fact that he outlived Hardy by eight years--from 1957 to 1965--a period in which the ever burgeoning public fascination with the team reached new proportions. Hardy's artistic input, however, is currently being given a revisionist upgrading, which Gehring addresses.

The book is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 is a biography of Laurel & Hardy, exploring the public and private sides of their lives. Chapter 2 is a critique of four broad influences of Laurel & Hardy--as special icons of comic frustrations; as developers of a change in film comedy pacing (which also eased their transition from silent to sound film); as movie pioneers in the innovative early use of comic sound; and, most importantly, as key participants in the evolution of the comic antihero into American mainstream humor. Chapter 3 is composed of two very early reprinted Laurel & Hardy articles and a special Encore collection. Chapter 4 is a very ambitious Laurel & Hardy bibliographical essay, assessing key reference materials and locating research collections open to the student and/or scholar. This involves many obscure, often early and/or untranslated articles drawn from research in Ulverston England--Laurel's birthplace--London and Paris. Chapter 5 is a bibliographical checklist of all sources recommended in Chapter 4. This volume should be of special interest to all Laurel & Hardy aficionados, and students/scholars of comedy.

"All students of the Great Man's'career will have to rely on this work. . . . Perhaps Gehring's greatest contributio here is his discussion of 23 sketches that Fields copyrighted that are now in the Library of Congress." Choice

This bio-bibliography was designed to present a combined biographical, critical, and bibliographical portrait of the Marx Brothers. It examines their significance in film comedy in particular, and as popular culture figures in general. The book is divided into five sections, beginning with a biography which explores the public and private sides of the Marx Brothers. The second section is concerned with the influences of the Marx Brothers as icons of anti-establishment comedy, as contributors to developments in American comedy, as early examples of "saturation comedy," and as a crucial link between silent films and the "talkies." Three original articles, two by Groucho and one by Gummo, comprise part three. A bibliographical essay, which assesses key reference materials and research collections, is followed by two bibliographical checklists. Appendices containing a chronological biography with a timeline, a filmography, and a selected discography complete the work.

With the cooperation of Benchley family members, and using diaries and correspondence and much archival material, Gehring has written a fresh and lively biography of humorist Robert Benchley. Known for his development of the comic anti-hero in essays, columns, film scripts, as a screen actor, and on stage and radio, Benchley emerges as a fascinating individual whose significance as a pivotal American humorist is fully documented.

Benchley's times and places--including New York's Algonquin Round-Table set of the 1920s and Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s--are colorfully depicted, and there are interesting glimpses of friends and colleagues such as Dorothy Parker, S. J. Perelman, Donald Ogdon Stewart, and Groucho Marx. The flavor of Benchley comes through not only in observations and anecdotes but in a section reprinting ten of his letters, six of his Life Drama columns, and a collage of his published comments on favorite comedians. Author Gehring also provides an annotated bibliography of Benchley's books and selected shorter works and a bibliography of books and articles about him, a chronology of events highlighting his life and career, an annotated filmography, and a selected discography. Illustrations include photographs spanning Benchley's career and reproductions of his own sketches and cartoons. Mindful of Benchley's warning not to get too serious over laughter, Gehring has produced a thorough critical and bibliographical examination of a comic persona, which is also a fond celebration of a great humorist.

This unusual film study begins with a survey of American print humorists from eras leading up to and overlapping the advent of film--including some who worked both on the page and on the screen, like Will Rogers, Groucho Marx and W.C. Fields. Six comic film genres are indentified as outgrowths of a national tradition of cracker barrel philosophers and country store raconteurs--personality comedy, populism, parody, screwball comedy, romantic comedy and dark comedy. Tracing a rambling lineage from Ben Franklin to Mark Twain to Bob Hope to Steve Martin, the author presents a genealogy of glib antiheroes blowing raspberries at the world.

The examination of 1950s film clowns suggestions this decade was the 20th century's most volatile for the genre. Besides McCarthyism and TV and their potential for the dumbing down of pictures, this was the first decade when all major screen clowns were not so easily pigeonholed as comedians. Plus, the text contests the era's phrase ""dumb blondes"" as it applies to Judy Holliday and Marilyn Monroe. It also iconoclastically deflates the significance of Jerry Lewis in order to better celebrate the neglected early comic gifts of Dean Martin. Moreover, it provides the most insightful look at the decades most important neglected director of personality comedians - Frank Tashlin. Finally, the book is a telling look at the 20th century's greatest entertainer - Bob Hope. Ultimately, Movie Film Clowns of the 1950s is a decoder ring to a misunderstood decade.

If you thought you knew Buster Keaton's silent features, think again. By keying on 1920 period texts one sees how a popular but yet cult star (yes cult star ) is now on a par with Charlie Chaplin. Why? Because his dark comedy anticipation of the Theater of the Absurd speaks to a modern audience like no other silent comedian. Only one Jazz Age critic, Robert Sherwood, seemed to understand why he was ahead of his time: "...he can impress a weary world with the vitally important fact that life, after all, is a foolishly inconsequential affair." Take a look at why The General was a groundbreaking dark comedy but not Keaton's greatest film. Plus, discover why this inspired film really failed in the nineteen twenties. Amazing new period discoveries are also showcased about Sherlock, Jr. Read the revisionist case for The Navigator being the Keaton film. Plus, discover why James Agee's groundbreaking "Comedies Greatest Era" should really have keyed on Chaplin and Keaton. Explore why one of Keaton's period nicknames was "Zero," or why Go West can be seriously mentioned in the same sentence with Krazy Kat and and Edward Albee. If you love silent comedy-if you thought you knew silent comedy-here is the text to reconfigure your understanding of Keaton and nineteen twenties comedy. Don't miss out.

The book examines Chaplin's evolving perspective on dark comedy in his three war films, Shoulder Arms (1918), The Great Dictator (1940), and Monsieur Verdoux (1947). In the first he uses the genre in a groundbreaking manner but yet for a pro-war cause. In Dictator dark comedy is applied in an antiwar way. In Verdoux he actually embraces the genre as an individual in defense against a society that's out to destroy him. All three are pivotal films in the development of the genre in film, with the latter two movies being very controversial for their time.

As a young boy in the depths of the 1890s depression, Joe E. Brown had a job: making faces at the firemen on passing coal-burning trains so they would throw coal at him. As a child he also worked as a circus acrobat and newsboy. His inventiveness and spunk helped his family get through hard times, but also fuelled his fascination with entertainment and prepared him for a stage and screen career. Joe Evan Brown built up a repertoire of rubber-faced expressions and funny antics that would make his stage and screen work memorable. Baseball was a favourite pursuit in his life and thus a recurring theme in his films and skits. In his personal life he was a family man and humanitarian who forever loved to be in front of an audience. The first chapter introduces Joe's cavernous mouth, his signature howl of dismay and other likeable features that commanded attention on the screen. The reader learns of Joe's challenging childhood and how it prepared him for later screen roles, and how his love of baseball translated into screen successes. Subsequent chapters trace his early career in vaudeville, his work as a Broadway comedian in the ""Roaring Twenties"", his road to movie stardom (which the author calls ""a compendium of ironies""), his life as a top box office star, and how he parlayed his love of sports into big hits like 1930's ""Elmer the Great"". The year 1935 gets its own chapter; its films are considered the pinnacle of Brown's career, including ""Alibi Ike"", ""Bright Lights"" and ""A Midsummer Night's Dream"". Those were such tough acts to follow that anything afterward was called a decline, though Brown had many successful roles after 1935. The final chapters reveal what happened after he left Warner Bros., details his busy life with growing children, and chronicles the bittersweet 1940s in which entertained troops around the globe while mourning a son lost to the war. The last chapter, 'The Last Act,"" rounds up his awards and kudos, his final roles, and his family life. The book concludes with a comprehensive filmography of his features from 1928 to 1963. A foreword is by Conrad Lane, a professor emeritus who remains active as a film essayist and movie history instructor.

Early in his Hollywood career, Leo McCarey honed his skills by working with some of the great names of comedy, including Laurel and Hardy, W.C. Fields, and The Marx Brothers, whose 1933 classic, Duck Soup, McCarey directed. Later, as a writer and/or director, McCarey was responsible for a number of classic films, including Ruggles of Red Gap, The Awful Truth, Love Affair, Make Way for Tomorrow, My Favorite Wife, and An Affair to Remember. McCarey's 1944 film Going My Way was nominated for ten Academy Awards and won seven, including the first triple crown awarded to the same person for writing, producing, and directing. Its sequel, The Bells of St. Mary's, would receive eight nominations, including Best Picture and Director. Despite all of his commercial and artistic successes, McCarey has been sadly neglected by film historians and scholars. While many of his contemporaries have been elevated to auteur status, McCarey's contributions to film have not sparked the same level of interest or esteem. Film scholar Wes Gehring seeks to rectify this with Leo McCarey: From Marx to McCarthy, the first full-length biography of this underappreciated artist. By exploring the director's life as filtered through his art, Gehring maintains that McCarey's films were often a reworking of his antiheroic self. In addition, the apparent diversity of his films actually represents an interrelated web of various comedy genres and a pattern of antiheroic characters and themes. The author makes the convincing case that throughout his life and career, McCarey was driven to entertain any audience, from a single person to movie millions, always trying to tell a better story. McCarey's own, long overdue story is finally revealed in this biography about one of the most fascinating figures to ever come out of the Hollywood dream factory.

This examination of dark comedies of the 1970s focuses on films which concealed black humor behind a misleading genre label. All That Jazz (1979) is a musical...about death - hardly Fred and Ginger territory. This masking goes beyond misnomer to a breaking of formula that director Robert Altman called ""anti-genre."" Altman's M.A.S.H. (1970) ridiculed the military establishment in general - the Vietnam War in particular - under the guise of a standard military service comedy. The picaresque Western Little Big Man (1970) turned the bluecoats vs. Indians formula upside-down - the audience roots for the Indians instead of the cavalry. The book covers 12 essential films, including Harold and Maude (1971), Slaughterhouse-Five (1972), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and Being There (1979), with notes on A Clockwork Orange (1971). These films reveal a compounding complexity that reinforces the absurdity at the heart of dark comedy.

This is the first full-length biography of Irene Dunne, one of the most versatile actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age. A recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors award in 1985, Dunne's acting highlights include five Best Actress Oscar nominations, occurring in almost as many different genres: the Western Cimarron (1931), the two screwball comedies Theodora Goes Wild (1936) and The Awful Truth (1937), the romantic comedy Love Affair (1939), and the populist I Remember Mama (1948). Her other memorable films include My Favorite Wife (1940), Penny Serenade (1941), Anna and the King of Siam (1946), and Life with Father (1947). After delving into Dunne's childhood and early acting forays, the book reveals details about key events in her life and career, including a difficult, bi-coastal marriage. The author also examines Dunne's pivotal roles on stage and in film, her movement among the genres of melodrama and screwball comedy, her ties to director Leo McCarey, and her post-war film career. Gehring's research and insightful analysis shed light on what made Irene Dunne so unique and her performances so memorable. Includes 16 pages of photos.

Woody Allen's Manhattan Murder Mystery has been described as "a kind of Rear Window for retirees." As this quote suggests, an analysis of Alfred Hitchcock's methodical use of comedy in his films is past due. One of Turner Classic Movies' on-screen scholars for their summer 2017 online Hitchcock class, the author grew tired of misleading throwaway references to the director's "comic relief". This book examines what should be obvious: Hitchcock systematically incorporated assorted types of comedy-black humor, parody, farce/screwball comedy and romantic comedy-in his films to entertain his audience with "comic" thrillers.

Before Groucho Marx and W. C. Fields American comedy was innocent. After they left their hilarious smudges on the genre, comedy was anything but. Here in a captivating book comparing and contrasting these two premier American comics is the history of how flimflam came to prevail as a major comic form. These two comic geniuses excelled at a new brand of shtick, antiheroic humor that killed off the tame demeanor of their many predecessors in show business. By derailing the comedy oof innocence, Groucho and Fields brought film comedy to its Golden Age.

Famous co-stars such as Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant to Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, have made screwball and romantic comedies a big seller at the box office. These seemingly timeless genres are as popular today as ever This book takes a closer look at the precise meanings of the terms screwball and romantic. Film fans and scholars alike tend to lump film with laughter and love under a screwball/romantic umbrella and use the terms screwball and romantic interchangeably. In reality, there is a distinction; the screwball variety places its emphasis on "funny," while the more traditional romantic comedy accents "love." Covering over 60 titles each of romantic and screwball comedy dating from the 1930s to the present, this research tool not only demonstrates how screwball and romantic comedy are two distinct genres, but also highlights pivotal social and artistic changes which impacted both genres. Includes 24 black and white movie stills, countless quotations from selected films, an annotated bibliography, and a two-part filmography. Not only an informative resource for film students and scholars, but also an interesting read for film buffs.

In the style of Stuart Kaminsky, Wes D. Gehring of Ball State University has written an intriguing murder mystery involving a lost Chaplin film and a host of nefarious characters who want it. Using his vast knowledge of all things Chaplinian, Gehring perfectly captures the mindset of the little tramp and has produced a short novel worthy of the subject.

"I find myself always being drawn into Wes' comedic research and storytelling by its insights into the history, politics and sociology of the period explored. In that context, his gift is not only that of a researcher but also a "decoder" of what leads a reader to exclaim. 'Oh, so that's how he (the subject) got that way.'" - Steve Bell, former anchor for ABC News and Good Morning, America

Charlie Chaplin's A Woman of Paris (1923) was a groundbreaking film which was neither a simple recycling of Peggy Hopkins Joyce's story, nor quickly forgotten. Through heavily-documented "period research," this book lands several bombshells, including Paris is deeply rooted in Chaplin's previous films and his relationship with Edna Purviance, Paris was not rejected by heartland America, Chaplin did "romantic research" (especially with Pola Negri), and Paris' many ongoing influences have never been fully appreciated. These are just a few of the mistakes about Paris.

Back in the golden age of humour books (late 1920s-early 1950s), when wits of the pantheon like Robert Benchley, James Thurber and S.J. Perelman were producing their signature works, there was another singular satirist who more than held his own with such fast company. Named Will Cuppy (1884-1949), this factual funnyman's metier is dark comedy that flirts with nihilism. His agenda is baldly stated in such classic Cuppy book titles as How to Be a Hermit (1929), How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes (1931), and The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950). This biography doubles as a critical study of a satirist whose shish-kebabing of humanity was often done through the veiled anthropomorphic use of animals. Whether Will Cuppy directly derails man or lesser creatures on the evolutionary chain, there is always a generous helping of dark comedy. For a biographer, the man represents a treasure trove of possibilities. Cuppy is a great humourist, with most of his best work still in print, yet he has yet to be profiled in a book-length study. The interest factor of a mesmerisingly complex and eccentric private life can actually trump the accomplishments of a high achieving public persona.