Great Silent Comedians

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The 100 Greatest Silent Film Comedians

Author : James Roots
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1442236507
Total Pages : 465 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (422 download)

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Book Synopsis The 100 Greatest Silent Film Comedians by : James Roots

Download or read book The 100 Greatest Silent Film Comedians written by James Roots and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-10-23 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The silent film era featured some of the most revered names of on-screen comic performance, from Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton to Harold Lloyd, Douglas Fairbanks, and Laurel & Hardy. Besides these giants of cinema, however, there are other silent era performers—both leading actors and supporting players—who left an enduring legacy of laughter. In The 100 Greatest Silent Film Comedians, James Roots ranks the greatest performers based on a scorecard that measures each comic’s humor, timelessness, originality, and teamwork. Far more than just a listing, this is an idiosyncratic and entertaining review of the men and women who created the golden age of comedy. As a critic and deaf viewer, Roots brings a truly unique perspective to the evaluation of these performers and their work. He has viewed thousands of silent comedies and offers some assessments that run contrary to the standard list of performers. While many obvious names are placed in the top echelon, the author also champions performers who have been neglected, in part because their work has not been as visible. Each entry includes a filmography a scorecard an evaluation of the artist’s overall work an assessment of representative films DVD availability With the increased availability of films on DVD, as well as Internet access, more and more silent performers are being discovered by film fans. Supplemented by an appendix of comedians who missed the cut, as well as an annotated bibliography, The 100 Greatest Silent Film Comedians will be an invaluable resource to anyone wanting to know more about the brilliant entertainers of the silent era.

100 Essential Silent Film Comedies

Author : James Roots
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1442278250
Total Pages : 301 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (422 download)

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Book Synopsis 100 Essential Silent Film Comedies by : James Roots

Download or read book 100 Essential Silent Film Comedies written by James Roots and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-05-11 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the moment films were first produced, comedy has been a key feature of cinema. From just before the turn of the twentieth century until the early 1930s, audiences celebrated the brilliant humor of cinematic clowns who left their marks forever. We still remember—and laugh at—the hilarious antics of Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and many others. In 100 Essential Silent Film Comedies James Roots identifies the major comedic motion pictures produced in the first few decades of the twentieth century. With a lucid and lively style, Roots takes a look at more than 400 silent comedies and narrows the list to 100 that viewers should consider. Each entry includes cast and crew information, a synopsis, critical evaluation, and additional commentary—all to demonstrate why that particular film is essential viewing. The films range from 70 seconds to full-length features and even include some of the earliest produced films, starting in 1894. In addition to citing Hollywood’s finest, the book profiles comedies from around the world, including selections from the United Kingdom, France, Japan and Russia. More thanseventy silent comedians from Charlie Chaplin to Max Linder are represented in these selections, and the book celebrates such established classics as The General and Safety Last—as well as relatively obscure one-reelers. Including information about DVD availability, 100 Essential Silent Film Comedies is an invaluable resource that provides both scholars and general film fans a list of entertaining films to explore.

The Silent Clowns

Author : Walter Kerr
Publisher : Alfred A. Knopf
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 392 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis The Silent Clowns by : Walter Kerr

Download or read book The Silent Clowns written by Walter Kerr and published by Alfred A. Knopf. This book was released on 1975 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A lavishly illustrated, affectionate treatment by one of the finest critics of our time...Kerr is more than a brilliant master of verbal description; he is a penetrating, lucid theorist. This book is as much about comedy as about movies, about eyes and ears and how and why we laugh.'-Thomas Wills, Chicago Tribune Book World

Silent Comedy

Author : Paul Merton
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 1409035662
Total Pages : 370 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis Silent Comedy by : Paul Merton

Download or read book Silent Comedy written by Paul Merton and published by Random House. This book was released on 2010-01-26 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the surface it may seem slightly surprising that a master of verbal humour should also be a devotee of silent comedy, but Paul Merton is completely passionate about the early days of Hollywood comedy and the comic geniuses who dominated it. His knowledge is awesome - as anyone who watched his BBC 4 series Silent Clowns or attended the events he has staged nationwide will agree - his enthusiasm is infectious, and these qualities are to be found in abundance in his book. Starting with the very earliest pioneering short films, he traces the evolution of silent comedy through the 1900s and considers the works of the genre's greatest exponents - Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and Harold Lloyd - showing not only how each developed in the course of their career but also the extent to which they influenced each other. At the same time, Paul brings a comedian's insight to bear on the art of making people laugh, and explores just how the great comic ideas, routines, gags and pratfalls worked and evolved. His first book for ten years, this is destined to be a classic.

The Silent Comedians

Author : Richard Dyer MacCann
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis The Silent Comedians by : Richard Dyer MacCann

Download or read book The Silent Comedians written by Richard Dyer MacCann and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: MacCann features Mack Sennett, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Harry Langdon in this guide to the lives and works of the most important silent comedy movie-makers in America_the fourth in his acclaimed series, American Movies: The First Thirty Years. In twenty-eight articles reprinted from various sources, twenty-five contributors show how these five artists struggled in early years to find themselves, rise above limited circumstances, and make their entries into production at a time when Hollywood was the new frontier of the twentieth century. For each artist, MacCann includes some kind of statement by the artist himself about comic goals and methods. Contributors include James Agee, Samuel Gill, Penelope Houston, Theodore Huff, Janet E. Lorenz, Donald McCaffrey, Charles J. Maland, Daniel Moews, Graham Petrie, David Robinson, Michael Roemer, Robert E. Sherwood, Anthony Slide, William Schelly, and others. MacCann's introduction eloquently discusses the value of comedy and laments the critical tendency to prefer tragedy: '...the jolly fat clowns of comedy must more than ever be critically stretched to conform with lanky and lugubrious Hamlets in order to be worthy of praise. The celebration of the sad clown is a triumph of philosophy over art.'

SLAPSTICK DIVAS

Author : Steve Massa
Publisher : BearManor Media
ISBN 13 : 9781629331331
Total Pages : 644 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (313 download)

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Book Synopsis SLAPSTICK DIVAS by : Steve Massa

Download or read book SLAPSTICK DIVAS written by Steve Massa and published by BearManor Media. This book was released on 2017-07 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Illustrated with 440 rare movie scene shots, formal portraits, candid behind the scenes photos, film frame enlargements, trade magazine advertisements, lobby cards, stage photographs, artist's renderings and caricatures, and casting guide entries.

Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes

Author : Maggie Hennefeld
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231547064
Total Pages : 359 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes by : Maggie Hennefeld

Download or read book Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes written by Maggie Hennefeld and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-27 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women explode out of chimneys and melt when sprayed with soda water. Feminist activists play practical jokes to lobby for voting rights, while overworked kitchen maids dismember their limbs to finish their chores on time. In early slapstick films with titles such as Saucy Sue, Mary Jane’s Mishap, Jane on Strike, and The Consequences of Feminism, comediennes exhibit the tensions between joyful laughter and gendered violence. Slapstick comedy often celebrates the exaggeration of make-believe injury. Unlike male clowns, however, these comic actresses use slapstick antics as forms of feminist protest. They spontaneously combust while doing housework, disappear and reappear when sexually assaulted, or transform into men by eating magic seeds—and their absurd metamorphoses evoke the real-life predicaments of female identity in a changing modern world. Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes reveals the gender politics of comedy and the comedic potentials of feminism through close consideration of hundreds of silent films. As Maggie Hennefeld argues, comedienne catastrophes provide disturbing but suggestive images for comprehending gendered social upheavals in the early twentieth century. At the same time, slapstick comediennes were crucial to the emergence of film language. Women’s flexible physicality offered filmmakers blank slates for experimenting with the visual and social potentials of cinema. Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes poses major challenges to the foundations of our ideas about slapstick comedy and film history, showing how this combustible genre blows open age-old debates about laughter, society, and gender politics.

Comedy for Animators

Author : Jonathan Lyons
Publisher : CRC Press
ISBN 13 : 1317679555
Total Pages : 212 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (176 download)

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Book Synopsis Comedy for Animators by : Jonathan Lyons

Download or read book Comedy for Animators written by Jonathan Lyons and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2015-11-19 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While comedy writers are responsible for creating clever scripts, comedic animators have a much more complicated problem to solve: What makes a physical character funny? Comedy for Animators breaks down the answer by exploring the techniques of those who have used their bodies to make others laugh. Drawing from traditions such as commedia dell’arte, pantomime, Vaudeville, the circus, and silent and modern film, animators will learn not only to create funny characters, but also how to execute gags, create a comic climate, and use environment as a character. Whether you’re creating a comic villain or a bumbling sidekick, this is the one and only guide you need to get your audience laughing! Explanation of comedic archetypes and devices will both inspire and inform your creative choices Exploration of various modes of storytelling allows you to give the right context for your story and characters Tips for creating worlds, scenarios, and casts for your characters to flourish in Companion website includes example videos and further resources to expand your skillset--check it out at www.comedyforanimators.com! Jonathan Lyons delivers simple, fun, illustrated lessons that teach readers to apply the principles of history’s greatest physical comedians to their animated characters. This isn’t stand-up comedy—it’s the falling down and jumping around sort!

Larry Semon, Daredevil Comedian of the Silent Screen

Author : Claudia Sassen
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 147662027X
Total Pages : 263 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (766 download)

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Book Synopsis Larry Semon, Daredevil Comedian of the Silent Screen by : Claudia Sassen

Download or read book Larry Semon, Daredevil Comedian of the Silent Screen written by Claudia Sassen and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-10-27 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prior to his premature death from tuberculosis in 1928, Larry Semon was one of the most popular comics on the silent screen. For a time he rivaled comedy legends Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton for fame and fortune. The son of magician Professor Zera the Great, Semon participated in many of his father's early performances. A talented youth, he worked as an illustrator and cartoonist before going into motion pictures with the Vitagraph Company. He soon became a Hollywood legend, responsible for his own stories, gags, acting and direction. The result of 30 years of research, this long overdue biography recognizes one of Hollywood's most overlooked auteurs. The author draws on numerous articles and contacts with Semon's family and friends, and screens many films previously believed to be lost.

The Silent Films of Harry Langdon (1923-1928)

Author : James L. Neibaur
Publisher : Scarecrow Press
ISBN 13 : 0810885301
Total Pages : 249 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (18 download)

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Book Synopsis The Silent Films of Harry Langdon (1923-1928) by : James L. Neibaur

Download or read book The Silent Films of Harry Langdon (1923-1928) written by James L. Neibaur and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2012-07-06 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harry Langdon was a silent screen comedian unlike any other. Slower in pace, more studied in movement, and quirkier in nature, Langdon challenged the comic norm by offering comedies that were frequently edgy and often surreal. After a successful run of short comedies with Mack Sennett, Langdon became his own producer at First National Pictures, making such features as Tramp Tramp Tramp, The Strong Man, and Long Pants before becoming his own director for Three's a Crowd, The Chaser, and Heart Trouble. In The Silent Films of Harry Langdon (1923-1928), film historian James Neibaur examines Langdon's strange, fascinating work during the silent era, when he made landmark films that were often ahead of their time. Extensively reviewing the comedian's silent screen work film by film, Neibaur makes the case that Langdon should be accorded the same lofty status as his contemporaries: Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. With fascinating insights into the work of an under-appreciated artist, this book will be of interest to both fans and scholars of silent cinema.

My Wonderful World Of Slapstick

Author : Buster Keaton
Publisher : Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1786254964
Total Pages : 413 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (862 download)

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Book Synopsis My Wonderful World Of Slapstick by : Buster Keaton

Download or read book My Wonderful World Of Slapstick written by Buster Keaton and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over half century ago the society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children complained to Mayor Van Wyck, of New York, that Joe Keaton, a vaudeville actor, was brutally mistreating his five-year old son. At each afternoon and evening performance the child, billed as “The Human Mop”, was slammed on the floor, hurled into the wings, and sometimes banged into bass drums. Unable to find a bruise or scratch on the lad, Mayor Van Wyck refused to ban the act. The “Human Mop” bounced on to worldwide fame as Buster Keaton, one of this century’s greatest comedians. In this intimate autobiography Buster Keaton tells his whole personal and professional story, beginning with his colourful and exciting childhood as the undentable tot in the “Three Keatons” whose proudest boast was having the rowdiest, roughest act in vaudeville. Buster has played with all the great ones, from George M. Cohen and Bojangles Robinson and Al Jolson to Jack Paar and Ed Sullivan and Red Skelton, during his sixty years as a star in vaudeville, silent and talking pictures, night clubs and television. Roscoe (Fatty) Arbuckle got him into the movies and taught him how to throw a custard pie. Buster could not even keep slapstick out of his eleven months as a draftee in our World War I army. He came out to help create the Golden Age of Comedy with his friends Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Arbuckle, Mack Sennett and the Keystone Cops. Marital troubles and alcoholism once got Buster down, but could not keep him down. MY WONDERFUL WORLD OF SLAPSTICK was written with the collaboration of Charles Samuels, co-author of His Eye Is On the Sparrow, Ethel Waters’ best-selling autobiography. Buster Keaton’s Life Story will enchant and thrill all those who enjoy looking past the glitter and the grease paint into a magnificent performer’s mind and heart.

Buster Keaton

Author : James Curtis
Publisher : Knopf
ISBN 13 : 0385354215
Total Pages : 833 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (853 download)

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Book Synopsis Buster Keaton by : James Curtis

Download or read book Buster Keaton written by James Curtis and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2022-02-15 with total page 833 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: **One of Literary Hub’s Five “Most Critically Acclaimed” Biographies of 2022** From acclaimed cultural and film historian James Curtis—a major biography, the first in more than two decades, of the legendary comedian and filmmaker who elevated physical comedy to the highest of arts and whose ingenious films remain as startling, innovative, modern—and irresistible—today as they were when they beguiled audiences almost a century ago. "It is brilliant—I was totally absorbed, couldn't stop reading it and was very sorry when it ended."—Kevin Brownlow It was James Agee who christened Buster Keaton “The Great Stone Face.” Keaton’s face, Agee wrote, "ranked almost with Lincoln’s as an early American archetype; it was haunting, handsome, almost beautiful, yet it was also irreducibly funny. Keaton was the only major comedian who kept sentiment almost entirely out of his work and . . . he brought pure physical comedy to its greatest heights.” Mel Brooks: “A lot of my daring came from Keaton.” Martin Scorsese, influenced by Keaton’s pictures in the making of Raging Bull: “The only person who had the right attitude about boxing in the movies for me,” Scorsese said, “was Buster Keaton.” Keaton’s deadpan stare in a porkpie hat was as recognizable as Charlie Chaplin’s tramp and Harold Lloyd’s straw boater and spectacles, and, with W. C. Fields, the four were each considered a comedy king--but Keaton was, and still is, considered to be the greatest of them all. His iconic look and acrobatic brilliance obscured the fact that behind the camera Keaton was one of our most gifted filmmakers. Through nineteen short comedies and twelve magnificent features, he distinguished himself with such seminal works as Sherlock Jr., The Navigator, Steamboat Bill, Jr., The Cameraman, and his masterpiece, The General. Now James Curtis, admired biographer of Preston Sturges (“definitive”—Variety), W. C. Fields (“by far the fullest, fairest and most touching account we have yet had. Or are likely to have”—Richard Schickel, front page of The New York Times Book Review), and Spencer Tracy (“monumental; definitive”—Kirkus Reviews), gives us the richest, most comprehensive life to date of the legendary actor, stunt artist, screenwriter, director—master.

Silent Stars

Author : Jeanine Basinger
Publisher : Knopf
ISBN 13 : 0307829189
Total Pages : 799 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (78 download)

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Book Synopsis Silent Stars by : Jeanine Basinger

Download or read book Silent Stars written by Jeanine Basinger and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2012-10-17 with total page 799 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of America's most renowned film scholars: a revelatory, perceptive, and highly readable look at the greatest silent film stars -- not those few who are fully appreciated and understood, like Chaplin, Keaton, Gish, and Garbo, but those who have been misperceived, unfairly dismissed, or forgotten. Here is Valentino, "the Sheik," who was hardly the effeminate lounge lizard he's been branded as; Mary Pickford, who couldn't have been further from the adorable little creature with golden ringlets that was her film persona; Marion Davies, unfairly pilloried in Citizen Kane; the original "Phantom" and "Hunchback," Lon Chaney; the beautiful Talmadge sisters, Norma and Constance. Here are the great divas, Pola Negri and Gloria Swanson; the great flappers, Colleen Moore and Clara Bow; the great cowboys, William S. Hart and Tom Mix; and the great lover, John Gilbert. Here, too, is the quintessential slapstick comedienne, Mabel Normand, with her Keystone Kops; the quintessential all-American hero, Douglas Fairbanks; and, of course, the quintessential all-American dog, Rin-Tin-Tin. This is the first book to anatomize the major silent players, reconstruct their careers, and give us a sense of what those films, those stars, and that Hollywood were all about. An absolutely essential text for anyone seriously interested in movies, and, with more than three hundred photographs, as much a treat to look at as it is to read.

Harold Lloyd

Author : Tom Dardis
Publisher : Viking
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 392 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Harold Lloyd by : Tom Dardis

Download or read book Harold Lloyd written by Tom Dardis and published by Viking. This book was released on 1983 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Gag Man

Author : Matthew Dessem
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781941629192
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (291 download)

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Book Synopsis The Gag Man by : Matthew Dessem

Download or read book The Gag Man written by Matthew Dessem and published by . This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A moving and in-depth biography of one of Hollywood's early, forgotten pioneers.

Silent Movies

Author : Peter Kobel
Publisher : Little, Brown
ISBN 13 : 0316069590
Total Pages : 607 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (16 download)

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Book Synopsis Silent Movies by : Peter Kobel

Download or read book Silent Movies written by Peter Kobel and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2009-02-28 with total page 607 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on the extraordinary collection of The Library of Congress, one of the greatest repositories for silent film and memorabilia, Peter Kobel has created the definitive visual history of silent film. From its birth in the 1890s, with the earliest narrative shorts, through the brilliant full-length features of the 1920s, Silent Movies captures the greatest directors and actors and their immortal films. Silent Movies also looks at the technology of early film, the use of color photography, and the restoration work being spearheaded by some of Hollywood's most important directors, such as Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. Richly illustrated from the Library of Congress's extensive collection of posters, paper prints, film stills, and memorabilia -- most of which have never been in print -- Silent Movies is an important work of history that will also be a sought-after gift book for all lovers of film.

Chaplin and Agee

Author : John Wranovics
Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan Trade
ISBN 13 : 9781403968661
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (686 download)

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Book Synopsis Chaplin and Agee by : John Wranovics

Download or read book Chaplin and Agee written by John Wranovics and published by Palgrave Macmillan Trade. This book was released on 2005-05-09 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chaplin and Agee charts the friendship between James Agee, author of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and Pulitzer Prize-winning A Death in the Family and screenwriter for American classics including The African Queen, and Charlie Chaplin, who starred in a staggering number of films from 1914 to 1967. This friendship emerged in the midst of the tumult of the 1940s and 1950s, with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, McCarthyism and blacklisting. In print here for the first time is Agee's first screenplay, The Tramp's New World, lost until recently. The striking screenplay--a comedy "so dark it was without precedent"--was written for Chaplin's tramp character and set in post-apocalyptic New York. Chaplin and Agee also features many previously unpublished letters and photographs. As the story moves from Hollywood to Greenwich Village, these two figures come to life, revealing the untold story of the great bond between two influential twentieth-century artists.