Comedy Films 1894 1954

Author : John Montgomery
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 260 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2022-04-26
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781000579192

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Comedy Films 1894–1954 by John Montgomery Pdf

Originally published in 1954, this was the first factual history of comedy films and the men and women who had since 1894 kept us laughing in the cinema. It traces the beginning of comic motion pictures and the pioneer work of Paul, Gaumont, Hepworth, Pathe and Zecca. Then comes the picture palace craze and the success of the early Italian and French comedies and trick films. The work of Al Christie and Mack Sennett in America, and the rise of American films, is fully described, as knockabout gives way to slapstick, and salaries and box-office receipts soar. Now come Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and all the other bright figures of the Roaring Twenties, with favourites like Buster Keaton and Will Rogers to the fore. The development of sound and its effect on the comedians is explained, and the story comes up to date through the thirties and forties to 1954. Some of the hundreds of names to whom tribute is paid include Mabel Normand, Larry Semon, Roscoe Arbuckle, Monty Banks, Max Linder, Harry Langdon, Will Hay, the Marx Brothers, Bob Hope, Fernandel and Alec Guinness. These are only a few of the many whose careers are traced. The book is illustrated by a number of carefully selected photographs, many of which are unique. This edition, first published in 1968 has been revised but the period it covers remains the same, 1894-1954, sixty years of film humour.

Author : John Montgomery
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 337 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 1954
Category : Comedy films
ISBN : OCLC:436741789

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Comedy Films by John Montgomery Pdf

Author : John Montgomery
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 372 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 1954
Category : Comedy films
ISBN : UOM:39015003990762

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Comedy Films by John Montgomery Pdf

Author : Barry Keith Grant
Publisher : University of Texas Press
Page : 785 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2012-12-01
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780292745742

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Film Genre Reader IV by Barry Keith Grant Pdf

From reviews of the third edition: “Film Genre Reader III lives up to the high expectations set by its predecessors, providing an accessible and relatively comprehensive look at genre studies. The anthology’s consideration of the advantages and challenges of genre studies, as well as its inclusion of various film genres and methodological approaches, presents a pedagogically useful overview.” —Scope Since 1986, Film Genre Reader has been the standard reference and classroom text for the study of genre in film, with more than 25,000 copies sold. Barry Keith Grant has again revised and updated the book to reflect the most recent developments in genre study. This fourth edition adds new essays on genre definition and cycles, action movies, science fiction, and heritage films, along with a comprehensive and updated bibliography. The volume includes more than thirty essays by some of film’s most distinguished critics and scholars of popular cinema, including Charles Ramírez Berg, John G. Cawelti, Celestino Deleyto, David Desser, Thomas Elsaesser, Steve Neale, Thomas Schatz, Paul Schrader, Vivian Sobchack, Janet Staiger, Linda Williams, and Robin Wood.

Author : Wes D. Gehring
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 235 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2014-01-10
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780786456659

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Forties Film Funnymen by Wes D. Gehring Pdf

The twelve classic comedy films examined within these pages are distinguished by an equal number of defining comic performances. Ranging from The Great Dictator (1940) to A Southern Yankee (1948), each film focuses on the most central theme of "clown comedy": Resilience, the encouragement or hope that one can survive the most daunting of life's dilemmas--even during the war-torn 1940s. And each film can be regarded as a microcosm of the antiheroic world of its central clown (or clowns). Among the performers represented are Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields, Abbott and Costello, Jack Benny, Eddie Bracken, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, the Marx Brothers, Harold Lloyd and Red Skelton. This lavishly illustrated work includes an introduction by noted film critic and historian Anthony Slide.

Author : Adrian Wright
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer
Page : 385 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2023-03-14
Category : History
ISBN : 9781783277490

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Melody in the Dark by Adrian Wright Pdf

A comprehensive reassessment of British musical films 1946-1972 including King's Rhapsody, Beat Girl, The Tommy Steele Story, Rock You Sinners, The Golden Disc, and Oliver! Acting as a sequel to Adrian Wright's Cheer Up! British Musical Films, 1929-1945 (Boydell, 2020), Melody in the Dark offers the first major reassessment of the British musical film from the end of Second World War up to the beginning of the 1970s. In the immediate post-war world, British studios sought to reflect fast-changing social attitudes as they struggled to create inventive diversions in an effort to rival American competition. Hollywood stars Errol Flynn, Vera-Ellen, Jayne Mansfield and Judy Garland were among those brought in to provide Hollywood glamour. Embedded in the British consciousness, the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan were represented in three productions. Studios occasionally attempted adaptations of British stage musicals, among them King's Rhapsody and Expresso Bongo, and sexploitation movies turned musical via Secrets of a Windmill Girl and Beat Girl. It was left to minor studios to acknowledge the impact of rock'n'roll on social change in three early films, The Tommy Steele Story, Rock You Sinners and the iconic The Golden Disc. Through the sixties, British cinema seemed intent on flooding the market with entertainments promoting pop singers and rock groups such as Cliff Richard, Billy Fury and The Beatles. Towards the end of the period, it aspired to more grandiose projects such as Oliver! and Oh! What a Lovely War.

Author : Andrew Horton
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 1997
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0521485665

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Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr. by Andrew Horton Pdf

On the film Sherlock Jr. directed by Buster Keaton

Author : Wes D. Gehring
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 281 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 1987-07-28
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780313031878

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The Marx Brothers by Wes D. Gehring Pdf

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.

Author : Arie Sover
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 337 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2018-09-20
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781350062313

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The Languages of Humor by Arie Sover Pdf

Why are things funny? How has humor changed over the centuries? How can humor be a political force? Featuring expert authors from across the globe, The Languages of Humor discusses three main types of humour: verbal, visual, and physical. Despite the differences between them, all have a common purpose, showing us in different ways the reality that we live in, and how we can reflect on that reality. To this end, the book shows how humor has been used to address such topics as the Holocaust and the Soviet Union, and why it has been controversial in cases including Charlie Hebdo. The Languages of Humor explores a subject that is of interest in a wide range of intellectual disciplines including sociology, psychology, communication, philosophy, history, social sciences, linguistics, computer science, literature, theatre, education, and cultural studies. This volume features contributions from world-leading academics, some of who have professional backgrounds in this field. This unique research-led book, which includes over 20 illustrations, offers a top-down analysis of humor studies.

Author : Geoffrey Nowell-Smith
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 847 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 1996-10-17
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780191518188

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The Oxford History of World Cinema by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith Pdf

The Oxford History of World Cinema is the most authoritative, up-to-date history of the Cinema ever undertaken. It traces the history of the twentieth-century's most enduringly popular entertainment form, covering all aspects of its development, stars, studios, and cultural impact. The book celebrates and chronicles over one hundred years of diverse achievement from westerns to the New Wave, from animation to the Avant-Garde, and from Hollywood to Hong Kong, with an international team of distinguished film historians telling the story of the major inventions and developments in the cinema business, its institutions, genres, and personnel. Other chapters outline the evolution of national cinemas round the world - the varied and distinctive filmic traditions that have developed alongside Hollywood. Also included are over 140 special inset features on the film-makers and personalities - Garbo and Godard, Keaton and Kurosawa, Bugs Bunny and Bergman - who have had an enduring impact in popular memory and cinematic lore. With over 300 illustrations, a full bibliography, and an extensive index, The Oxford History of World Cinema is an invaluable and entertaining guide and resource for the student and general reader.

Author : Andrew A. Erish
Publisher : University of Texas Press
Page : 316 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2012-03-01
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780292742697

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Col. William N. Selig, the Man Who Invented Hollywood by Andrew A. Erish Pdf

All histories of Hollywood are wrong. Why? Two words: Colonel Selig. This early pioneer laid the foundation for the movie industry that we know today. Active from 1896 to 1938, William N. Selig was responsible for an amazing series of firsts, including the first two-reel narrative film and the first two-hour narrative feature made in America; the first American movie serial with cliffhanger endings; the first westerns filmed in the West with real cowboys and Indians; the creation of the jungle-adventure genre; the first horror film in America; the first successful American newsreel (made in partnership with William Randolph Hearst); and the first permanent film studio in Los Angeles. Selig was also among the first to cultivate extensive international exhibition of American films, which created a worldwide audience and contributed to American domination of the medium. In this book, Andrew Erish delves into the virtually untouched Selig archive at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library to tell the fascinating story of this unjustly forgotten film pioneer. He traces Selig’s career from his early work as a traveling magician in the Midwest, to his founding of the first movie studio in Los Angeles in 1909, to his landmark series of innovations that still influence the film industry. As Erish recounts the many accomplishments of the man who first recognized that Southern California is the perfect place for moviemaking, he convincingly demonstrates that while others have been credited with inventing Hollywood, Colonel Selig is actually the one who most deserves that honor.

Author : Wes D. Gehring
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 242 pages
File Size : 40,7 Mb
Release : 2018-03-14
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781476633268

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Buster Keaton in His Own Time by Wes D. Gehring Pdf

"Gehring remains supreme in film comedy scholarship"--Choice Buster Keaton "can impress a weary world with the vitally important fact that life, after all, is a foolishly inconsequential affair," wrote critic Robert Sherwood in 1918. A century later Keaton, with his darkly comic "theater of the absurd," speaks to audiences like no other silent comedian. If you thought you knew Keaton--think again!

Author : Stephen Shafer
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 285 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2003-09-02
Category : History
ISBN : 9781134988372

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British Popular Films 1929-1939 by Stephen Shafer Pdf

Challenges the conventional assumption that British feature films of the Thirties were oriented mostly towards the middle-class and demonstrates that far from being alienated, working class men and women flocked to the cinema.

Author : Andrew A. Erish
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2021-06-09
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780813181226

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Vitagraph by Andrew A. Erish Pdf

In Vitagraph, Andrew A. Erish provides the first comprehensive examination and reassessment of the company most responsible for defining and popularizing the American movie. This history challenges long-accepted Hollywood mythology that simply isn't true: that Paramount and Fox invented the feature film, that Universal created the star system, and that these companies, along with MGM and Warner Bros., developed motion pictures into a multi-million-dollar business. In fact, the truth about Vitagraph is far more interesting than the myths that later moguls propagated about themselves. Established in 1897 by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith, Vitagraph was the leading producer of motion pictures for much of the silent era. Vitagraph established America's studio system, a division of labor utilizing specialized craftspeople and artists, including a surprising number of women and minorities, whose aesthetic innovations have long been incorporated into virtually all commercial cinema. They developed fundamental aspects of the form and content of American movies, encompassing everything from framing, lighting, and performance style to emphasizing character-driven comedy and drama in stories that respected and sometimes poked fun at every demographic of Vitagraph's vast audience. The company overcame resistance to multi-reel motion pictures by establishing a national distribution network for its feature films. Vitagraph's international distribution was even more successful, cultivating a worldwide preference for American movies that endures to the present. For most of its existence America's most influential studio was headquartered in Brooklyn, New York before relocating to Hollywood. Finally, here is a historically rigorous and thorough account of the most influential producer of American motion pictures during the silent era. Drawing on valuable primary material long overlooked by other historians, Erish introduces readers to the fascinating, forgotten pioneers of Vitagraph.

Author : Adrian Wright
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer
Page : 392 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2020
Category : Musical films
ISBN : 9781783274994

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Cheer Up! by Adrian Wright Pdf

Who will remember 'Our Gracie' waving goodbye; Jack Buchanan constantly bumping into Elsie Randolph; Bobby Howes celebrating the invention of the Belisha Beacon, doing a cat duet with Wylie Watson and giving ideas to Rene Ray about ham sandwiches; John Wood and Claire Luce climbing the steps of the lighthouse and breathing on windows in Over She Goes, these accompanied by some of the most deft British and American composers of their time, their work lighter and freer than air. We catch those airs still, breathing on windows and wondering what became of it all. Book jacket.