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Author: Donald W. McCaffrey Publisher: South Brunswick [N.J.] : A. S. Barnes ISBN: Category : Performing Arts Languages : en Pages : 210
Book Description
"The Golden Age of Sound Comedy attempts to show the continuation of several comic traditions and the development of new ones in the Thirties."--The introduction.
Author: Donald W. McCaffrey Publisher: South Brunswick [N.J.] : A. S. Barnes ISBN: Category : Performing Arts Languages : en Pages : 210
Book Description
"The Golden Age of Sound Comedy attempts to show the continuation of several comic traditions and the development of new ones in the Thirties."--The introduction.
Author: Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 0520967941 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 392
Book Description
The king of radio comedy from the Great Depression through the early 1950s, Jack Benny was one of the most influential entertainers in twentieth-century America. A master of comic timing and an innovative producer, Benny, with his radio writers, developed a weekly situation comedy to meet radio’s endless need for new material, at the same time integrating advertising into the show’s humor. Through the character of the vain, cheap everyman, Benny created a fall guy, whose frustrated struggles with his employees addressed midcentury America’s concerns with race, gender, commercialism, and sexual identity. Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley contextualizes her analysis of Jack Benny and his entourage with thoughtful insight into the intersections of competing entertainment industries and provides plenty of evidence that transmedia stardom, branded entertainment, and virality are not new phenomena but current iterations of key aspects in American commercial cultural history.
Author: Kathryn Fuller-Seeley Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 0520295056 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 388
Book Description
"Jack Benny became one of the most influential entertainers of the 20th century--by being the top radio comedian, when the comics ruled radio, and radio was the most powerful and pervasive mass medium in the US. In 23 years of weekly radio broadcasts, by aiming all the insults at himself, Benny created Jack, the self-deprecating "Fall Guy" character. He indelibly shaped American humor as a space to enjoy the equal opportunities of easy camaraderie with his cast mates, and equal ego deflation. Benny was the master of comic timing, knowing just when to use silence to create suspense or to have a character leap into the dialogue to puncture Jack's pretentions. Jack Benny was also a canny entrepreneur, becoming one of the pioneering "showrunners" combining producer, writer and performer into one job. His modern style of radio humor eschewed stale jokes in favor informal repartee with comic hecklers like his valet Rochester (played by Eddie Anderson) and Mary Livingstone his offstage wife. These quirky characters bouncing off each other in humorous situations created the situation comedy. In this career study, we learn how Jack Benny found ingenious ways to sell his sponsors' products in comic commercials beloved by listeners, and how he dealt with the challenges of race relations, rigid gender ideals and an insurgent new media industry (TV). Jack Benny created classic comedy for a rapidly changing American culture, providing laughter that buoyed radio listeners from 1932's depths of the Great Depression, through World War II to the mid-1950s"--Provided by publisher.
Author: Ruth Barton Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1351995863 Category : Music Languages : en Pages : 214
Book Description
Despite their name, the silent films of the early cinematic era were frequently accompanied by music and other sound elements of many kinds, including mechanical instruments, live performers, and audience sing-alongs. The 12 chapters in this concise book explore the multitude of functions filled by music in the rapidly changing context of the silent film era, as the concept of cinema itself developed. Examples are drawn from around the globe and across the history of silent film, both during the classic era of silent film and later uses of the silent format. With contributors drawn from film studies and music disciplines, and including both senior and emerging scholars, Music and Sound in Silent Film offers an essential introduction to the origins of film music and the cinematic art form.
Author: Tino Balio Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 9780520203341 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 500
Book Description
The advent of color, big musicals, the studio system, and the beginning of institutionalized censorship made the thirties the defining decade for Hollywood. The year 1939, celebrated as "Hollywood's greatest year," saw the release of such memorable films as Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, and Stagecoach. It was a time when the studios exercised nearly absolute control over their product as well as over such stars as Bette Davis, Clark Gable, and Humphrey Bogart. In this fifth volume of the award-winning series History of the American Cinema, Tino Balio examines every aspect of the filmmaking and film exhibition system as it matured during the Depression era.
Author: James L. Neibaur Publisher: Scarecrow Press ISBN: 0810876833 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 244
Book Description
Born into a family of vaudevillians, Buster Keaton made his first film appearance in 1917 at the age of 21. By the early 1920s, he had established himself as one of the geniuses of silent cinema with such films as Sherlock, Jr. and The Navigator and his 1925 work, The General, placed at number 18 in the American Film Institute's poll of the 100 greatest features, the highest ranked silent film on the survey. But with the advent of sound in the late 1920s, silent stars like Keaton began to fall out of favor and the great comedian's career began to decline. In The Fall of Buster Keaton, James Neibaur assesses Keaton's work during the talking picture era, especially those made at MGM, Educational, and Columbia studios. While giving some attention to the early part of Keaton's career, Neibaur focuses on Keaton's contract work with the three studios, as well as his subsequent work as a gagman, supporting player, and television pitchman. The book also recounts the resurgence of interest in Keaton's silent work, which resulted in a lifetime achievement Oscar and worldwide recognition before his death in 1966. This fascinating account of an artist's struggle and triumph during the more challenging period of his career will be of interest to anyone wanting to learn about one of film's most influential performers.
Author: Richard Jewell Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell ISBN: Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 376
Book Description
This comprehensive book illuminates the most fertile and exciting period in American film, a time when the studio system was at its peak and movies played a critical role in elevating the spirits of the public. Richard B. Jewell offers a highly readable yet deeply informed account of the economics, technology, censorship, style, genres, stars and history of Hollywood during its "classical" era. A major introductory textbook covering what is arguably the most fertile and exciting period in film, 1929-1945 Analyzes many of the seminal films from the period, from The Wizard of Oz to Grand Hotel to Gone with the Wind, considering the impact they had then and still have today Tackles the shaping forces of the period: the business practices of the industry, technological developments, censorship restraints, narrative strategies, evolution of genres, and the stars and the star system Explores the major social, political, economic, and cultural events that helped to shape contemporary commercial cinema, as well as other leisure activities that influenced Hollywood production, including radio, vaudeville, theatre and fiction Written in a jargon-free, lively style, and features a number of illustrations throughout the text
Author: Joseph Mills Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing ISBN: 1443808350 Category : Performing Arts Languages : en Pages : 185
Book Description
In 1905 Julius Marx began his vaudeville career with the singing group The Leroy Trio and was abandoned in the middle of the tour. It was an inauspicious start for the person who would become "Groucho." A hundred years later, the Marx Brothers have permeated our culture from the plastic noses and glasses worn at parties to a Smithsonian exhibition which explains DNA recombination using A Night at the Opera. Although they completed relatively few films together, the brothers have become icons, recognizable even to people who have never seen their movies. Most scholarly work on the Marx Brothers has focused on biographical aspects of their careers and lives; A Century of the Marx Brothers suggests a myriad of other useful approaches to their film and stage productions. The collection's eleven essays examine the Marx Brothers' work from a number of critical perspectives ranging from reader-response theory to film semiotics. The contributors include international scholars in a variety of fields, such as literature, cultural studies, performance studies, and film history.
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.
Author: Donald W. McCaffrey
Author: Donald W. McCaffrey
Author: Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley
Author: Kathryn Fuller-Seeley
Author: Ruth Barton
Author: Tino Balio
Author: James L. Neibaur
Author: Wes D. Gehring
Author: Richard Jewell
Author: Joseph Mills
Author: Donald McCaffrey