Comedy is funny. I mean that it is odd in addition to being amusing. You can laugh and also wonder about why and maybe even laugh at that.
Film comedy is different than other comedy, say written comedy.
My own notions of film are that everything essential was worked out in the thirties when competing concepts elbowed each other and we ended up with the rough cinematic vocabulary we have now. Nowhere is this more true than with straight humor.
Since that time, we've developed a complex notion of the humors of irony, but what I'm talking about here is people directly depicting funny stuff.
So when you go back, you find a few innovators, something like the few jazz inventors of the 50s. What they did is pure by retrospective definition. Going back helps you discover yourself: are you a Keaton man? Chaplin, Arbuckle, Marx, Laurel?
W C Fields is one that you should experience. I liked his "Sucker" movie the best because it was his last and most mature; and the story dealt with him as Fields and the studios telling him he wasn't funny.
Here is his best early film where he does his thing. It is in the vaudeville tradition of being a bunch of loosely connected skits. But it is highly cinematic humor, just not the sight gags you see with the others. It depends all on timing.
The first sequence is the best. Our man is preparing for bed. He sneaks drinks while his witchy wife complains (in a separate bed, as this is post-code). The key joke here is him taking his socks off.
If you haven't seen it, I know this sounds odd, but Fields taking his socks off is hilarious. It takes forever. Then they hear intruders below and he puts his socks back on, taking almost as long. It is a truly precious lesson in investing in laughter. It isn't explosive. It isn't particularly subtle or clever. It is just reality bent in a complex rubato that we have to take the time to relish.
Terrific. I watched that one scene several times.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.
