Keeping Quiet : Visual Comedy in the Age of Sound.
Title:
Keeping Quiet : Visual Comedy in the Age of Sound.
Author:
Dutton, Julian.
ISBN:
9781909183827
Personal Author:
Edition:
1st ed.
Physical Description:
1 online resource (407 pages)
Contents:
Cover -- Front Matter -- Title Page -- Publisher Information -- Dedication -- Foreword -- Introduction -- Keeping Quiet -- Origins: From Ritual to Film -- Keeping Still: the Coming of Sound -- Slowing Down: Laurel and Hardy -- Swansong of a Pantomimist: Chaplin -- Out and Down: Buster Keaton -- Long Live Vaudeville - Harpo Marx -- Diehards: Visual Comedy on Stage & Screen 1930-45 -- At Odds with the World - Jacques Tati -- The Kid: Norman Wisdom -- The Nebbish: Jerry Lewis -- Diehards II: Visual Comedy on Stage & Screen 1945-1960 -- Television's First Genius: Ernie Kovacs -- Kid in a Sweet-Shop - Benny Hill -- Diehards III: Visual Comedy on Stage & Screen 1960 to 1970 -- Rhubarb Rhubarb - Eric Sykes and the Spoken Silents -- Chameleon Boy: Peter Sellers -- Another Outsider: Marty Feldman -- Ronnie Barker: The Grumble & Grunt Comedies -- Diehards IV: Visual Comedy on Stage, Film & TV 1970 to present -- The Alien: Rowan Atkinson -- The Human Cartoon: Matt Lucas and Pompidou! -- Back Matter -- Acknowledgements -- Bibliography -- Film Magazines & Journals Consulted -- Also Available.
Abstract:
Keeping Quiet is a love-letter to the modern sight-gag on film and television, tracing the history of physical clowning since the advent of sound. Taking up the story of visual humour where Paul Merton's Silent Comedy leaves off, Julian Dutton charts the lives and work of all the great comedians who chose to remain silent, from Charlie Chaplin - who was determined to resist the 'talkies' - right through to the slapstick of modern-day performers such as Rowan Atkinson, Matt Lucas and Harry Hill. This fascinating chronicle - spanning nine decades - shows how physical comedy, at first overshadowed by dialogue-films in the 1930s, reinvented itself and how this revival was spearheaded by a Frenchman: Jacques Tati.Julian Dutton draws on his own experience as a comedy writer and performer to give an expert analysis of the screen persona and the comedy style of dozens of the screen's best-loved performers including Laurel & Hardy, Buster Keaton, Harpo Marx, Norman Wisdom, Jerry Lewis, ...
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
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