Author: Kliph Nesteroff Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic ISBN: 0802190863 Category : Performing Arts Languages : en Pages : 460
Book Description
“Funny [and] fascinating . . . If you’re a comedy nerd you’ll love this book.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews, National Post, and Splitsider Based on over two hundred original interviews and extensive archival research, this groundbreaking work is a narrative exploration of the way comedians have reflected, shaped, and changed American culture over the past one hundred years. Starting with the vaudeville circuit at the turn of the last century, the book introduces the first stand-up comedian—an emcee who abandoned physical shtick for straight jokes. After the repeal of Prohibition, Mafia-run supper clubs replaced speakeasies, and mobsters replaced vaudeville impresarios as the comedian’s primary employer. In the 1950s, the late-night talk show brought stand-up to a wide public, while Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, and Jonathan Winters attacked conformity and staged a comedy rebellion in coffeehouses. From comedy’s part in the civil rights movement and the social upheaval of the late 1960s, to the first comedy clubs of the 1970s and the cocaine-fueled comedy boom of the 1980s, The Comedians culminates with a new era of media-driven celebrity in the twenty-first century. “Entertaining and carefully documented . . . jaw-dropping anecdotes . . . This book is a real treat.” —Merrill Markoe, TheWall Street Journal
Author: Loyal Jones Publisher: University of Illinois Press ISBN: 0252033698 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 450
Book Description
This volume is an encyclopedia of country music performers who have used comedy as a central component of their presentation. Loyal Jones offers a conversational and informative biographical sketch of each performer, often including a sample of the musician's humor, a recording history, and amusing anecdotal tidbits. In an entertaining style, Jones covers performers throughout the twentieth century, from such early stars of vaudeville and radio barn dances as the Skillet Lickers and the Weaver Brothers and Elviry, to regulars on Hee Haw and the Grand Old Opry, continuing to current comedians such as the Austin Lounge Lizards, Ray Stevens, and Jeff Foxworthy.
Author: James Feibleman Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000579239 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 212
Book Description
First published in 1939, the original blurb reads: We have learned much lately concerning theories of laughter, yet laughter is only what we do about comedy. What is comedy itself? In this work the history of comic instances is combed in the search for the truth about comedy. Today, when laughter is stifled in so many countries, an exposition of comedy shows it to have a universal and necessary character. Comedy, as its natures reveals, is one criterion of the state of human culture; it is highly contemporary and requires freedom – but freedom for adventure, not for routine. After a chapter devoted to the explanation of a logical theory of comedy, the modern comedians are examined, and the humour of every one, from the Marx Brothers to surrealism, from Gertrude Stein to Mickey Mouse, from James Joyce to Charlie Chaplin, is shown to be a constant, inherent in the same set of unchanging conditions.
Author: Matthew C. Farmer Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0190492074 Category : Drama Languages : en Pages : 289
Book Description
Aristophanes' engagement with tragedy is one of the most striking features of his comedies. Tragedy on the Comic Stage contextualizes this engagement with tragedy within Greek comedy as a genre by examining paratragedy in the fragments of Aristophanes' contemporaries and successors in the fifth and fourth centuries.
Author: Charlie Chaplin Publisher: University of Missouri Press ISBN: 0826273335 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 244
Book Description
Film star Charlie Chaplin spent February 1931 through June 1932 touring Europe, during which time he wrote a travel memoir entitled “A Comedian Sees the World.” This memoir was published as a set of five articles in Women’s Home Companion from September 1933 to January 1934 but until now had never been published as a book in the U.S. In presenting the first edition of Chaplin’s full memoir, Lisa Stein Haven provides her own introduction and notes to supplement Chaplin’s writing and enhance the narrative. Haven’s research revealed that “A Comedian Sees the World” may very well have been Chaplin’s first published composition, and that it was definitely the beginning of his writing career. It also marked a transition into becoming more vocally political for Chaplin, as his subsequent writings and films started to take on more noticeably political stances following his European tour. During his tour, Chaplin spent time with numerous politicians, celebrities, and world leaders, ranging from Winston Churchill and Mahatma Gandhi to Albert Einstein and many others, all of whom inspired his next feature films, Modern Times (1936), The Great Dictator (1940), Monsieur Verdoux (1947), and A King in New York (1957). His excellent depiction of his experiences, coupled with Haven’s added insights, makes for a brilliant account of Chaplin’s travels and shows another side to the man whom most know only from his roles on the silver screen. Historians, travelers, and those with any bit of curiosity about one of America’s most beloved celebrities will all want to have A Comedian Sees the World in their collections. Available only in the USA and Canada.
Author: Dan Kamin Publisher: Scarecrow Press ISBN: 0810877813 Category : Performing Arts Languages : en Pages : 245
Book Description
From his early shorts in the 1910s through his final film in 1967, Charlie Chaplin's genius embraced many arts: mime, dance, acting, music, writing, and directing. The Comedy of Charlie Chaplin: Artistry in Motion examines Chaplin's fusion of these arts in his films, providing new understanding of how movement communicates, how comedy routines are structured, and how stage skills can be translated to the screen. An acclaimed comic performing artist himself, Dan Kamin brings a unique insider's perspective to the subject. He explores how Chaplin's physical virtuosity led him to create the timeless visual comedy that brought silent films to their peak. Kamin uncovers the underlying principles behind the filmmaker's gags, illuminating how Chaplin conjured comedy from the fundamental physical laws of movement. He then presents provocative new interpretations of the comedian's sound films, showing how Chaplin remained faithful to his silent comedy roots even as he kept reinventing his art for changing times. Kamin also offers new insights into how Chaplin achieved rapport with audiences and demonstrates how comedy created nearly a century ago is still fresh today. Lavishly illustrated with many never-before-published images, The Comedy of Charlie Chaplin provides the only in-depth analysis of Chaplin as a movement artist and physical comedian. Revealing the inner working of Chaplin's mesmerizing art, this book will appeal not just to Chaplin fans but to anyone who loves comedy. This paperback edition features an annotated bibliography and a foreword by Scott Eyman, author of Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille and Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford.
Author: Donald McCaffrey Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: 0313014744 Category : Performing Arts Languages : en Pages : 216
Book Description
Although Bob Hope has been the subject of many biographies, no book yet has fully explored the comic persona he created in vaudeville and radio, brought to fruition in dozens of films from the 1930s through the 1960s, and made a lasting influence on comedians from Woody Allen to Conan O'Brien. Now, in The Road to Comedy: The Films of Bob Hope, noted film comedy authority Donald W. McCaffrey finally places Hope in his well-deserved position among the highest rank of film comedians of his era. Drawing on archival materials and interviews with collaborators, McCaffrey analyzes each major film in depth, with due attention to particular sequences that reveal how Hope created a unique comic personality that lasted over dozens of very popular films, from the Road movies with Bing Crosby through such underrated classics as Son of Paleface, Monsieur Beaucaire, and Casanova's Big Night. In so doing, McCaffrey introduces readers to a Bob Hope now overshadowed by his own reputation. We see here that Hope's significance has been greater than any USO appearance or television special might suggest. Because many of these movies have recently been made available on DVD—the first time in decades that they've been easily available to the general public—the volume will also serve as an excellent introduction for those wanting to see these films for the first time.
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Author: Peter M. Robinson
Author: Kliph Nesteroff
Author: Loyal Jones
Author: Jeffrey Ross
Author: James Feibleman
Author: Henry Schradieck
Author: Matthew C. Farmer
Author: Charlie Chaplin
Author: Dan Kamin
Author: Donald McCaffrey