Book Description
Long recognized as America's most brilliant jazz writer, the winner of many major awards--including the prestigious National Book Critics Circle Award--and author of a highly popular biography of Bing Crosby, Gary Giddins has also produced a wide range of stimulating and original cultural criticism in other fields. With Natural Selection, he brings together the best of these previously uncollected essays, including a few written expressly for this volume. The range of topics is spellbinding. Writing with insight, humor, and a famously deft touch, he offers sharp-edged perspectives on such diverse subjects as Federico Fellini and Jean Renoir, Norman Mailer and Ralph Ellison, Marlon Brando and Groucho Marx, Duke Ellington and Bob Dylan, horror and noir, the cartoon version of Animal Farm and the comic book series Classics Illustrated. Giddins brings to criticism an uncommon ability, long demonstrated in his music writing, to address in very few words an entire career, so that we get an in-depth portrait of the artist beyond the film, book, or recording under review. For instance, Giddins offers a stunning reappraisal of Doris Day, who he terms "the coolest and sexiest female singer of slow ballads in film history." He argues eloquently for a reconsideration of the forgotten German-language novelist Soma Morgenstern. In a section on comedy, he offers fresh perspectives on the three great silent film stars--Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd--while resurrecting the legendary Jack Benny and reevaluating the controversial Jerry Lewis. There's also a memorable look at Bing Crosby's film career (he calls Crosby's blockbuster Going My Way "a neglected masterpiece") and a close examination of Marcel Carne's beloved Children of Paradise. Of course, Giddins also supplies excellent commentary on jazz: major and underrated figures, and especially the uses of jazz in film. A wonderful gathering of little-known treasures, Natural Selection will broaden the perception of Gary Giddins as one of our most important cultural critics.
Customer Reviews:
More Praise.......2006-08-30
Sunday August 27's NY Times review, while positive, seemed somewhat cold - here's another review that might help!
***
July 23, 2006
A master craftsman by Richard Schickel, film critic for Time and the author of many books, including "Elia Kazan: A Biography" and "The Essential Chaplin."
TO write seriously about topics - movies, jazz, popular fiction - that many people regard as peripheral or totally irrelevant to their lives is among the least gratifying of occupations. That's particularly true now, when the pendulum seems to be permanently stuck at the burbling end of the spectrum, where the bloggers - history-free and sensibility-deprived - weekly blurb the latest Hollywood effulgence and are rewarded by seeing their opinions bannered atop movie display
ads in type sizes elsewhere reserved for the outbreak of wars and the demise of presidents.
Even in the dwindling realm where critics still attempt to make fine distinctions, there are problems, mostly of tone. For my sins, I enjoy the wise-guy riffs of Anthony Lane in the New Yorker, but I have to admit that his manner is not well-suited to the middle range, where many of the movies that are most interesting to write about uneasily reside. At the spectrum's other end is Stanley Cavell - the professor Irwin Corey of film studies - who has never met a movie he cannot obfuscate with a viscous prose style that reaches ever higher levels of unintended risibility. Where, I've often wondered, is a critic who wears his erudition lightly, writes with an impeccable combination of verve and sobriety and, above all, makes you see (and hear) the objects of his ruminations? Is it possible to find such a critic whose medium is prose (always slow-footed in comparison, say, to a Bryan Singer movie) and topics evanescent: a perfect cut between scenes in a movie, for example, or a four-bar melodic fragment in an arrangement of Gil
Evans' song "La Nevada."
I think I've finally found my man. His name is Gary Giddins, and he has, of course, long been known as a premier jazz critic (even by tin-eared me). I took to reading him on that subject purely for the pleasure of his company, long before I actually met him. (Full disclosure: We enjoy a pleasantly collegial relationship, tempered by the fact that we live at opposite ends of the continent.) He has previously written occasionally about the movies but in recent years has started regularly reviewing DVDs for the New York Sun while contemplating larger cinematic topics for other publications. These pieces are mainly about the "classics" - a kiss-of-death word - but they bring him into a world I know at least a little about, and they
offer a vitality of insight that's inspiring. You read Giddins and you start adding to your Netflix queue.
DVDs represent a technology that is a boon (in image quality) and a nuisance - they are often stupidly manufactured, technically speaking, and are still too fussy to handle without damaging. But they are vital to Giddins' critical practice, for he is a master of the rewind and pause buttons, which give him the ability to move back and forth, studying his material and making up his mind at leisure. (Actually, of course, the remote is available to all of us, but few of us have Giddins' passionate thumb.)
The results of his devotion are immediately apparent in the first two sections of "Natural Selection" (to be published early next month), one consisting of long essays on great comedians, the other of pieces about older movies and their stars and directors. The first thing you notice is the casual comfort with which Giddins introduces lofty critical references into his considerations of humble popular culture. He smoothly eases Henri Bergson and Ralph Waldo Emerson into his superb
essay on Jack Benny, for instance. But he also introduces us, via a quotation from Larry Adler, the harmonica player who toured with Benny, to a radical conception of what Benny was actually up to: Adler said the comedian "not only epitomized Jewish storytelling and intonation, but showed everyone else how to do it." The high-low range of Giddins'references never fails to stir me to envy and despair.
I don't mean to imply that Giddins is more reliant on his research than he is on his own questing eye. Here he is on Charlie Chaplin: "There is a difference between sentimentality, which is almost always crass and phony, and pathos, the comedian's acknowledgment of tragedy. Chaplin has ruined numerous comedians who wanted his tears but didn't possess
his equilibrium.... Movies always try to manipulate our emotions. We are pleased to admit that a filmmaker can make us laugh or keep us in suspense, but we are reluctant to credit one who makes us cry. Yet the latter effect requires as much precision and perhaps even more taste."
This bold and provocative generalization is, typically, contained in a very close reading of "City Lights," in which Giddins carefully demonstrates the balance Chaplin maintains between hilarity and a sadness that always stops short of the bathetic. He also gives this care to the DVD extras, which he holds to high standards, and this treatment is an extension of his greatest critical virtue, his patience. He will get a movie right even if it is 60 years old and probably unknown to most of his readers.
Take, for example, his piece on the nine nonhorrific horror films that Val Lewton produced at RKO during World War II. From the start, they were praised for the subtle way they suggested the unspeakable without showing it, but only Giddins has the sense to observe that "Lewton's films, like certain books, ought to be experienced in childhoods that they can be returned to later in life, the indelible moments now cast amid subtler evocations and themes." And he alone, of the critics I've read on the filmmaker, notices that these pictures reverse the genre's previous stress on masculine issues and "are keyed to mother-daughter disorders, sisterhood crises, sexual assertion and repression,lesbianism, romance, loneliness, vulnerability and suicide."
In other words, Lewton at least briefly feminized horror - and it takes an awful lot of back-and-forthing with your clicker to catch that invaluable point. And that says nothing about Giddins' shrewd references in the same piece to a Jean Rhys novel, a Richard Dix performance and the witty homage to Lewton in "The Bad and the Beautiful." This is typical of Giddins, whether he's doing an ironically tolerant (and manically detailed) history of lip-syncing, devastating a Norman Mailer novel or finding the value (previously unobserved by me) in Steve McQueen's sullen silences.
Indeed, the more I read (and reread) "Natural Selection," the more I thought of Edmund Wilson, when he was reviewing "Classics and Commercials" on a regular basis in the 1940s. A lot of the literature Wilson was obliged to evaluate was no more "important" than the movies and discs Giddins grapples with. But he took the job seriously - people were reading this stuff, which meant that it was having some
sort of possibly permanent effect on their sensibilities, which meant, in turn, that it deserved serious, historical, cross-culturally attentive criticism. The difference between the two writers is that Giddins has a wit that Wilson only rarely mobilized. Considering the "whirring vibrato" of Alanis Morissette's "Let's Do It" on the soundtrack album of the execrable "De-Lovely," he finds "it recalls Alvin the Chipmunk, except that Alvin sang in tune." Now that's de-licious.
Does it matter in the end? Won't a peppy blurb give us all the consumer guidance we require - especially if we're talking old movies and music? I think it does matter, and not only because a good critical essay - featuring an engaging mind fully engaged with significant cultural objects in which it finds useful, surprising resonances - is its own reward. It is also a defense against lazy nostalgia. (There is no other kind.) Most important, smart readings of Garbo's (or Lon Chaney's) masks or the three distinct phases of Billie Holiday's career enrich our understanding of modern movie stardom, modern horror and modern music respectively. We see our culture more clearly because of
the force, intelligence and alertness to overlooked detail that Giddins brings to his readings of a past that remains stubbornly, if sometimes only subliminally, present in our own less acute remembrances.
Fine writing, sloppy editing.......2006-08-16
Taking nothing away from Gary Giddins' command of the English language or his encyclopedic understanding of the American cultural landscape, this collection of essays on music, books and film is nonetheless marred by some of the worst copy editing I've seen -- by Oxford University Press, of all publishers. In just the first hundred pages, the names of Brendan Behan, Jean Hagen, Henry Daniell, Darryl Zanuck, and Melvyn Douglas are all misspelled. With this many goofs, it's tough to focus on Giddins' insights; after awhile, one's attention is drawn (however unwillingly) down the page to the next name, expecting the worst.
I sincerely hope the hardbound version of Natural Selection sells enough to warrant a paperback edition; maybe by then Giddins and/or his agent will have insisted on better proofing.
A remarkably incisive collection of essays/reviews on the lively arts.......2006-08-07
Whether writing on films, TV, music, books, or comedy, Giddins displays in this volume an impressive perspective and depth of knowledge about his subject matter. Within this compendium, the author gives thoughtful discussion to an array of diverse topics: ranging from Jerry Lewis's artistic standing to an evaluation of a Doris Day DVD collection, to a nostalgic discussion of the Modern Library book series, to the impact (or lack thereof) of the Frank Sinatra TV miniseries produced by the crooner's daughter.
Giddins is proof that a critic/reviewer/essayist can be astute, articulate, amusing, and exceedingly informative.
A great read.
Natural Wonder.......2006-08-03
Gary Giddins' latest anthology of essays and reviews, "Natural Selection", is a thoroughly enthralling read that's both entertaining and intellectually enriching--not only the pieces that cover his main area of expertise, Jazz, for which he is justly renowned; but also for the enticing spectrum of cultural categories he taps, both highbrow and mainstream, with which he is every bit as comfortable and knowledgeable. I was absorbed from the moment I picked it up, first skipping among the pieces that cover subjects of primary interest to me, then branching out into less familiar territory. Both routes were enjoyable and illuminating.
Besides critical analyses and appreciations of luminaries of the Jazz world (Fats Waller, Glenn Miller, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, Paul Whiteman, Count Basie, B.B. King, Billie Holiday, et al.),"Natural Selections" encompasses a surprising (though maybe not so surprising if you're familiar with Giddins' equally eclectic "Faces In the Crowd") range of subjects, which includes comics Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, the Marx Brothers, Jack Benny (the lone holdover from "Faces", with updated footnotes), Bob Hope, and Jerry Lewis; Thomas Edison and the Invention of the Movies; directors Fritz Lang, William Wyler, Jean Renoir, Martin Scorsese, and Robert Bresson; animation pioneer Ray Harryhausen; horror films, films noir, Vitaphone and Looney Tunes shorts; actors Brando, Garbo, Lon Chaney (Sr.), Doris Day, and Steve McQueen; films "Children of Paradise", "Nightmare Alley", "La Dolce Vita", "Glory", and "The Big Red One"; folk music archivist Alan Lomax; writers Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow, Moss Hart, and Robert Christgau; even Sammy Davis Jr. and Bob Dylan are included in the mix, among several others. Mr. Giddins is well versed in each of these subjects, and his usual level of painstaking research is evident in every paragraph, while he displays that rarest of writers' gifts: authoritativeness without arrogance.
While inducing ingestion of fresh, thought-provoking perspectives on some of the artists, films, and writings with which I was already familiar, "Selection" has inspired me to pull down from the shelf a few books, DVDs, and CDs I haven't perused in awhile--and to search out and explore some of those that I never have.
Giddins gives greatness its due in his overviews of consensus geniuses: Ellington, Armstrong, Holiday, Dylan (Mr. G was the only contributor to "Studio A: The Bob Dylan Reader" who chose to write about Dylan's singing), Bresson, Brando, and the prophetic Lang (I now desperately want to see his "Spies") among them. He boldly says of Buster Keaton's masterwork, "The General", "As an evocation of American History, it is the equal of Griffith or Ford."
But he also throws us a few curves, proffering a surprising intercession for Jerry Lewis, for example, which he leads off with a possible explanation--by way of Aldous Huxley and Edgar Alan Poe, no less--for the mystifying infatuation the French have with the Nutty Patsy. Giddins argues convincingly for a reassessment of Lewis' films, but Jerry doesn't escape unscathed, as Giddins claims that the comic's ambition to be in a perpetual state of Holden Caulfield is partly responsible for "the infantilization of a culture that produces film stars like Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Tobey Maguire..."
He urges a fresh look at the oversimplified and undervalued Doris Day, who "survived more than three generations of leading men, representing three generations of style and/or beefcake; most of them quickly faded while she marched cheerfully onward." The author of the definitive bio of the grossly underrated Bing Crosby, Giddins suggests a reconsideration of "Going My Way", for which Der Bingle won a Best Actor Oscar in 1944. "Bing's performance is astonishing--convincing, appealing, and original", he persuades. (The film's Best Director Oscar winner, Leo McCarey, doesn't fare so well in Giddins' review of his ill-conceived final effort, "Satan Never Sleeps".)
In fact, there are a few less-than-complimentary musings: the Tina Sinatra-produced miniseries on her father receives a deserved drubbing, and "Ancient Evenings", Norman Mailer's "windbreaking novel" is . . . well, you get the idea. There's also a fascinating discussion of lip-synching, covering many of its practitioners, from Al Jolson to Ashlee Simpson.
All of which adds to the colorful tapestry that is this can't-put-it-down kind of book. In his appraisal of Chaplin and Keaton DVD releases, Giddins says of Buster's 46-minute "Sherlock Jr.", "its length is mandated by its content and not the reverse." Though most of the word counts were no doubt predetermined to one degree or another by available magazine or newspaper space, the statement nevertheless applies to each of the separate entities which makes up "Natural Selection"--Giddins eloquently yet efficiently tells us much in amazingly few well-chosen words, and makes it fun to boot.
Customer Reviews:
Best Intro to Silent Film Comedy.......2007-02-08
I can think of no better introduction to silent screen comedy than this book. Walter Kerr was born in 1913, so as a movie-crazy kid in the 1920's, he saw many of the films discussed in the book at the time of their release. However, all of his comments are based on re-viewings of each film, because, as he confesses, certain scenes and stunts and gags did not always occur in the way he remembered. But his first-hand experience does give us a whiff of the excitement that was felt when the films were released.
Some say Kerr is overly analytical. He certainly does analyze to an incredible degree, but in doing so, he makes plain the differences in approach of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd. He also explains why certain silent comedians lacked what the "Big Three" had, and why they were not as funny. He also points out when even one of the Big Three made a film that somehow violates their own principles, is therefore, not successful.
Besides the lion's share of attention to Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd, he also devotes a great deal of space to Harry Langdon. Langdon was hugely popular, but his rise was meteoric, and in the space of a few short years, he was largely forgotten. He also covers the silent years of Laurel and Hardy, and explains how their basic characters were formed before their jump to even greater success in sound films.
When I first read this book, it was around 1980, and most of the films were not available on video (though some of Chaplin's were). Even still, one could feel the excitement these films must have engendered without even being able to see them. Now that pretty much all of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd's major works are available on DVD (and even Langdon's best films), the book will prove to be even more valuable (if you can find it). I read it every few years, so I have already worn out my copy of the original paperback version (the one with Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd and Landon on a white cover).
An eloquent, magnificent celebration of silent comedy.......2003-09-24
Walter Kerr was one of the premiere theater critics of his generation, but he managed as well to write beautifully, movingly, and fascinatingly about the Golden Age of screen comedy. Although he does in the course of his book write about many comedians, much of the focus of the book is on who he considers the four great silent comics or clowns: Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Harry Langdon.
Kerr has never quite sold me on his own evaluation of these four great figures of silent comedy. Clearly he loves Buster Keaton, and I will admit that my own high regard of Keaton comes in large part from Kerr's discussion of his comedy in this work. Chaplin I have never enjoyed quite as much, despite acknowledging his genius. His famous pathos strikes me now as a relic from another age, and while I can work myself into a point of view to appreciate it, it doesn't stick with me as a way of viewing things after moving away from the film and back into normal life. In short, the emotions in Chaplin always strike me as artificial, which wouldn't be a problem except for the enormous emphasis that Chaplin himself places on them. Despite Kerr's advocacy, I have never seen the charm of Harold Lloyd. I have now seen quite a number of his films, but despite his enthusiasm and energy, and my own admiration of his performing all those astonishing stunts in spite of having lost much of one of his hands, his films simply do not move me. Keaton and Chaplin both make me laugh, but Lloyd only makes me smile at best. Harry Langdon I still have not seen, but it was reading this book that created in me a still-unfulfilled desire to see at least his three great films. The numerous stills of Langdon create a powerful impression. I still hope someday to see his films, primarily THE STRONG MAN, TRAMP TRAMP TRAMP, and LONG PANTS.
I go into detail about this because this is the kind of excitement and interest Kerr manages to generate in his book. We tragically live in an age where many cannot abide a black and white film, let alone a silent one. Yet Kerr can get you genuinely excited about these films. Buster Keaton is one of my favorite performers, and I have to thank Kerr more than anyone for that being so. He writes so passionately and intelligently about these performers that he creates an inner need in his reader to experience these films first hand. As great as the text is, the stills chosen to illustrate the book are extraordinary.
THE SILENT CLOWNS belongs in the library of any film junkie, now merely because it is a glorious depiction of a time long past, but because it is a specimen of flat out gorgeous writing. Critics now tend to be far more scholarly in their writing. Kerr, although he certainly is not unscholarly, is also a masterful prose stylist. He doesn't merely write about memorable individuals, he writes about them memorably.
A Wonderful Book.......2001-11-18
Walter Kerr's The Silent Clowns is a must. Tons of great pictures and details on Buster, Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Laurel & Hardy- but also on lesser known "clowns". It is obvious how much Mr. Kerr loved his work. At one point he talks about how he enjoyed going to Buster Keaton movies as a youth. This book lives up to the hype as the greatest book ever on silent comedy. You can read this book 50 times and still enjoy it.
*Get the HARDCOVER version. The paperback version does not do this book justice.
THE indispensable book on silent comedy.......2000-12-22
This book is not only the single best volume ever written about silent film comedy, but the best about silent film, period. Only Kevin Brownlow's The Parade's Gone By even comes close. There are chapters on the mechanics and aesthetics of silent film that should be read by everyone with an interest in the form. In addition, his chains of reasoning and perceptions are put forth with an aptness and lucidity that conceals the depth of the intellectual analysis. The elegantly straightforward prose makes this book a joy to read from start to finish. Further, in addition to covering the film work of the "big four" (Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, and Langdon) Kerr also sheds welcome light on lesser-known and even forgotten figures, such as the "unexpected" Raymond Giffith. Finally, this is a book that was well-produced on every level, right down to the layout, chapter headings, and fonts. Numerous film stills of every size (inluding some generous two-page spreads) make it a feast for the eyes as well as the mind, cogently and often playfully setting off the text. The original hardback edition published by Knopf was meant as a sort of intelligent coffee-table book (most assuredly NOT an oxymoron in this case), and the present oversized-paperback edition provided by the good folks at Da Capo should be seen in the same light. Both a celebration of silent comedy and a superb investigation of the form. Also a book that you can dip into again and again over the years with undiminished pleasure and come away with reinvigorated enthusiasm for the subject. If you don't have it, get it.
Timeless.......1999-06-20
What Kerr has essentially revealed in this book is the very pulse by which the silent comedic form remaines timeless. He manages to write his book with such a love, yet such an intellectual understanding, that much like the art form he analyzes, it is a book devoid of snootiness or cynicsm. The book has many stengths, but carries such weight because it isn't only pre-occupied with Keaton and Chaplin. The chapters on Harold Lloyd -- who remains understudied -- are very insightful, yet objective. And while other silent comedians aren't given quite space that the major four American comedians are (Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Langdon), a respectable analysis of Arbuckle, Sennett, Linder, Laurel and Hardy, and many more are presented. Valuable perspectives on "non-comedic" actors like Fairbanks, Pickford, and Gish are also hearty reading.
Kerr also give great insight into aesthetic issues, such as music composition and presentation, varying artists' cutting techniques, the roles of women in selected films, the alternate use of frame rates, and much, much, more. What makes the book so refreshing to read is how very much Kerr loves his subject, not necassarilly his subjects. Most books about the silent comedians -- Keaton and Chaplin in particular -- cannot help but devote numerous pages and even chapters to the filmmaker's vices (i.e. Chaplin's womanizing, Keaton's alcoholism). Kerr mentions such subjects when pertinent, but they do not become the book's thrust, nor are such issues presented to undercut the artist or his work in any way. Flawed men these clowns were, but their work remains relatively perfect.
Book Description
While Bud Abbott and Lou Costello are more famously known for their straight comedy routines, they did make a number of films in which horror played a crucial role. The first part of this critical reference examines the Abbott and Costello "Meet the Monsters" spoof films (Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Mummy). The second sections deals with Abbott and Costello's films with horror elements that do not follow this formula: Hold That Ghost, The Time of Their Lives and Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff.
The plot of each film is examined in detail with special attention paid to the comedians' styles of comedy, the effect of the horror scenes, and the place of the film in the Abbott and Costello canon. The reactions of critics (then and now) and the influences the films have had on the horror and comedy genres and on pop culture are also discussed. A lengthy introduction provides background on the lives of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello and the development of Universal Studios as the premier horror factory.
Customer Reviews:
Don't Expect Too Much.......2006-03-30
This book proclaims to be a "critical assessment," though what the author ends up with is little more than detailed descriptions of seven of A & C's films, personal asides and a desire to make odd homosexual allusions to scenes and characters. The vast majority of anecdotes on the making of the films are taken (though footnoted) from a number of previously published books and articles and the author provides little new information except for his own outlandish and baseless claims.
His "critical assessment" might more accurately be described as "judgmental musings." The author often repeatedly makes the same comments about various sight gags being "more suited to The Three Stooges," or gives his opinion on whether certain jokes work, or not. Critical, perhaps. "Bitchy," certainly and more accurately. What is never clearly established is his credibility or expertise to make such comments on the merits of A & C's material. Another annoying habit the author has is to make assumptions on the part of "most viewers." He proudly points out a bit of business, background action or technical flaw that he has discovered upon countless viewings of the films and makes the claim that "most viewers miss this." How does he know? Is it possible that the rest of the audience caught it on the first viewing and he is just now catching up?
The book is poorly written and, aside from the time it occasionally takes to figure out his point, is a quick read. One's time might be better spent watching the films and drawing one's own conclusions. Also, any of the sources cited in the author's bibliography provide all the behind-the-scenes information and more, making them a better value if they can be tracked down.
A GUIDE TO THEIR GREAT HORROR COMEDIES.......2005-08-03
I guess it's pretty ironic that a comedy team that did over 30 films together over 16 years is most remembered for their horror spoofs that continue to be enormously popular to this day. In "The Horror Spoofs of Abbott & Costello" author Jeffrey Miller takes a look at the horror comedies the team did, with a particular focus on horror spoofs involving classic monsters. Miller provides a complete cast and credit list along with a very lengthy and detailed synopsis of each film including many of the notable lines, gags, and scenes. It also includes comments taken from cast and crew of the day and recent comments from the likes of Sara Karloff, Bela Lugosi Jr., and Paddy Costello, who were on the set of these films as children. Miller also includes information on critical reviews of the day, box office results, as well as adding his own insightful analysis of the films.
Without a doubt the most popular A & C spoof (in fact their most popular film period) was "Abbott & Costello meet Frankenstein". Boris Karloff refused to appear in the film feeling it made a mockery of the monster. Lon Chaney Jr. felt the film would forever ruin the classic Universal Monsters. But time has proven them both wrong as the film works as both a comedy and a horror. It's at least as scary as Chaney's role as Count Alucard in "Son of Dracula". The fact that the film has legions of fans, including many famous filmmakers such as Quentin Tarrantino, is also a tribute to its staying power. For his part, Lugosi enjoyed himself on the set. One would guess he was probably just happy to be in a Universal production again as opposed to the poverty row films he had been doing in the 1940's. There was a lot of pranks pulled on the set...some of these outtakes are even captured on the A&C Meet Frankenstein special edition DVD. As has been pointed out on many occasions, this film would be Universal biggest moneymaker in years and virtually saved the studio from bankruptcy.
While Karloff refused to do that film, he did sign on for two others including "Abbott & Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Karloff would play this famous role for the first an only time but as Miller notes, the studio originally wanted Basil Rathbone for the part. Both he and the boys were surprised at how well the film did at the box office. The other films that Miller highlights in the spoof section are "Abbott & Costello Meet the Invisible Man" and the final spoof, "Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy". `Mummy' was their last film for Universal and by this time they were past their prime and not getting along well on the set. Universal knew it was the end of the road and did little to support the film and it's become regarded as one of their worst (although it isn't really all that bad).
Miller also looks as the teams other horror-comedies including "Hold that Ghost", "The Time of their Lives", and "Abbott & Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff". "Hold that Ghost" is a particular favorite as its their version of and `old dark house' style film that was so popular in the 1930's and similar in style to the very good Bob Hope film "Ghost Breakers" "Hold that Ghost" would even have Evelyn Ankers in the cast who would go on to become one of the great scream queens of the 1940's.
Miller's research into these films is outstanding and while I'm a big fan, there were a lot of new things I learned. While very detailed it's never dry and Miller does a wonderful job at conveying the great routines of Abbott & Costello. Just beware if you have somehow never seen these films as the plot is fully described from beginning to end. By all means see the films and then pickup this book. Another fantastic book by the people at McFarland Publishing who put out some of the best books on genre film and film studies around.
Reviewed by Tim Janson
Abbott and Costello Meet the Who's Who of Horror.......2003-04-06
This is a great book that goes into the plot of their various A&C meet...(fill in the blank)films as well as "Hold That Ghost" and "The Time of Their Lives". There is even a brief section on their quasi sci-fi films. Each major "horror/comedy" film is detailed and behind the scenes info is given. Actor/actress backgrounds as well as changes in scripts and plots are also added for a totally enjoyable book. A section supplying background info on Abbott & Costello is given in the introductory chapter, and then it is on to my all time favorite "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein". A must for all A&C fans!
Average customer rating:
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American Dark Comedy: Beyond Satire (Contributions to the Study of Popular Culture)
Wes D. Gehring
Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
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ASIN: 0313261849 |
Book Description
From Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush to Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Gehring presents a compelling theory of the black comedy film genre. Placing the movies he discusses in a historical and literary context, Gehring explores the genre's obession with death and the characters' failure to be shocked by it. Movies discussed include: Slaughterhouse Five, Catch-22, Clockwork Orange, Harold and Maude, Heathers, and Natural Born Killers.
Book Description
An engrossing examination of a popular box office genre--the gross-out movie-- Laughing Screaming is the first study to take this lowbrow product seriously.
Customer Reviews:
More Analysis than Lexicon - Only a few Pictures.......2000-09-29
Certainly an excellent Analysis about modern (80ties) Teencomedies and Teenhorrorfilms But if you are rather looking for a fullcolor Book with many pictures - more the lexica-type where you can look up single films - you won't be perfectly happy with it.
German: Sicherlich eine excellente Analyse der Achtzigerjahre Teeni-Komödien und Teenislasherfilme. Stehen Sie jedoch eher auf farbig bebilderte Nachschlagewerke, wo man mal rasch was zu einem einzelen Film nachlesen kann, ist dies leider nicht das richtige Buch
A Masterpiece of Film Criticism.......2000-03-28
An amazing analysis of the modern grossout film - written looking back at the the films of the late 70's and early 80's (Carrie, Animal House, etc). For a Film Professor, Paul actually appears to appreciate some of the films - at least, he doesn't lump them all together to condemn them. This is surprising. He examines them critically using Rabelais. I especially appreciated his analysis of HEAVEN HELP US - a fantastic movie that has long gone unnoticed. Many film critics talk about the collapse between "high" and "low" culture, but Paul actually takes this collapse seriously and engages critically with films that most of the elite wouldn't give a second thought. Bravo for that.
One can also appreciate how prescient Paul's book is - he anticipates both the revival of the grossout comedy (American Pie, There's Something About Mary) and the return of the horror/slasher film (Scream, I Know What You did Last Summer) written at a time when most film critics were considering these genres dead.
Only one thing - I would have loved for Paul to analyze my favorite early 80's sex comedy - THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN - perhaps, because it is not available on video, he wasn't able to find it, but LAV would've fit well with his analysis.
Amazon.com
Readers of James Agee's agile and marvelously brief essay from 1949, "Comedy's Greatest Era," remember the lyric forcefulness of the paragraphs on Buster Keaton, their acute sense of his harrowing acrobatics and ennui. In contrast, Robert Knopf's sober study of the Great Stone Face, for all its scrupulousness, looks like a footnote to Agee. His argument is not uninteresting: in Knopf's view, the family vaudeville act (called The Three Keatons) affected Buster's work forever. Out of it Keaton developed his hallmark style, an original combination of the high and the low reminiscent of Samuel Beckett and embraced by Salvador Dalì and Luis Buñuel. Knopf also maintains that a generation of commentators mugged Keaton's movies when they falsely celebrated his "classical Hollywood style." Keaton--the virtuoso acrobat, master of long shots, and ransacker of vaudeville rhythms and routines--pursues anti-narrative impulses that belong to a pre-1917 "cinema of attractions," to absurd theater and surrealism. These styles deflect attention from the plot to Buster's wringing stillness, his flat hat and flap shoes, his elaborately rigged Rube Goldberg stunts. Knopf's thesis is a narrow one, but it is solidly researched and probably true. His prose is another matter. Almost immaculately arid and inflexible, it utterly fails the improvisatory comic who could do so much with so little--for example, love: in a crowd scene in The Cameraman, Keaton leans his body so far leftward toward a girl that you wonder at his pact with gravity. --Lyall Bush
Book Description
Famous for their stunts, gags, and images, Buster Keaton's silent films have enticed everyone from Hollywood movie fans to the surrealists, such as Dalí and Buñuel. Here Robert Knopf offers an unprecedented look at the wide-ranging appeal of Keaton's genius, considering his vaudeville roots and his ability to integrate this aesthetic into the techniques of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1920s. When young Buster was being hurled about the stage by his comically irate father in the family's vaudeville act, The Three Keatons, he was perfecting his acrobatic skills, timing, visual humor, and trademark "stone face." As Knopf demonstrates, such theatrics would serve Keaton well as a film director and star. By isolating elements of vaudeville within works that have previously been considered "classical," Knopf reevaluates Keaton's films and how they function.
The book combines vivid visual descriptions and illustrations that enable us to see Keaton at work staging his memorable images and gags, such as a three-story wall collapsing on him (Steamboat Bill, Jr., 1928) and an avalanche of boulders chasing him down a mountainside (Seven Chances, 1925). Knopf explains how Keaton's stunts and gags served as fanciful departures from his films' storylines and how they nonetheless reinforced a strange sense of reality, that of a machine-like world with a mind of its own. In comparison to Chaplin and Lloyd, Keaton made more elaborate use of natural locations. The scene in The Navigator, for example, where Buster brandishes a swordfish to fend off another swordfish derives much of its power from actually being shot under water. Such "hyper-literalism" was but one element of Keaton's films that inspired the surrealists.
Exploring Keaton's influence on Salvador Dalí, Luis Buñuel, Federico García Lorca, and Robert Desnos, Knopf suggests that Keaton's achievement extends beyond Hollywood into the avant-garde. The book concludes with an examination of Keaton's late-career performances in Gerald Potterton's The Railrodder and Samuel Beckett's Film, and locates his legacy in the work of Jackie Chan, Blue Man Group, and Bill Irwin.
Customer Reviews:
More scholarly claptrap.......2007-08-28
When a man is born who only ever wanted to make people laugh, why would someone write a book that manages to suck every interesting thing about him and his work into a laborious, scholarly void? Reading this was as interesting as watching wood warp. The best book regarding this comic genius - "Buster Keaton and the Dynamics of Visual Wit," by the amazing George Wead, is impossible to find, but this junk is available in the discount bin. More's the pity for anyone who would like to read about Buster.
this wasn't a great book.......2005-06-27
buster keaton rocks my socks! the book was very complicated to read. but the pictures rocked1 THAT'S WHY I Give it a 5 out of 5. i have all his silents. but i don't have anytime to watch them anymore. oh well, but hey jesus is coming back soon!. amen.
i will be better in heaven then here.
Fun Book, Great Pictures.......2005-02-20
(...), so this book was tough to understand at times, but the stuff on Buster Keaton's childhood was great. The photos are really cool and reading about how the old movies were made got me to go through my dad's collection of videos (he has the box set) and watch my favorites again. It's a beautiful looking book, too, so I know I'll keep it and read it again.
Blows away the competition.......2004-02-26
This book is super smart and cool. It took me a while to get through it, but I learned a ton about filmmaking and theater and clowning. And the pictures are awesome! My dad raised me on Keaton, and this was like a dream with memories.
Mostly, a disappointment.......2000-03-24
_The Theatre and Cinema of Buster Keaton_ makes some interesting points -- in particular, the ways in which Keaton was able to take what he learned on the Vaudeville stage and integrate it to astonishing effect in his films. There's also a fairly interesting discussion of his affinities with the Surrealists -- an example given is the underwater scene in "The Navigator," where Buster is shown using lobster claws to cut a wire, and then getting into a sword fight with a swordfish using another swordfish as his weapon.
But overall, the writing was ponderous, and the book seemed more like the citation-filled musings of an undergraduate than a mature, cutting-edge scholarly discussion. The book might be more bearable if the author didn't beat us over the head with the same arguments.
Book Description
The nature of comedy has interested many thinkers, from Plato to Freud, but film comedy has not received much theoretical attention in recent years. The essays in Comedy/Cinema/Theory use a range of critical and theoretical approaches to explore this curious and fascinating subject. The result is a stimulating, informative book for anyone interested in film, humor, and the art of bringing the two together.
Comedy remains a central human preoccupation, despite the vagaries in form that it has assumed over the centuries in different media. In his introduction, Horton surveys the history of the study of comedy, from Aristophanes to the present, and he also offers a perspective on other related comic forms: printed fiction, comic books, TV sitcoms, jokes and gags.
Some essays in the collection focus on general issues concerning comedy and cinema. In lively (and often humorous) prose, such scholars as Lucy Fischer, Noel Carroll, Peter Lehman, and Brian Henderson employ feminist, post-Freudian, neo-Marxist, and Bakhtinian methodologies. The remaining essays bring theoretical considerations to bear on specific works and comic filmmakers. Peter Brunette, William Paul, Scott Bukatman, Dana Polan, Charles Eidsvik, Ruth Perlmutter, Stephen Mamber, and Andrew Horton provide different perspectives for analyzing The Three Stooges, Chaplin, Jerry Lewis, Woody Allen, Dusan Makavejev, and Alfred Hitchcock's sole comedy, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, as well as the peculiar genre of cynical humor from Eastern Europe.
As editor Horton notes, an over-arching theory of film comedy does not emanate from these essays. Yet the diversity and originality of the contributions reflect vital and growing interest in the subject, and both students of film and general moviegoers will relish the results.
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A Chorus of Raspberries: British Film Comedy 1929-1939 (Exeter Studies in Film History)
David Sutton
Manufacturer: University of Exeter Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Popular Spanish Film under Franco: Comedy and the Weakening of the State
Steven Marsh
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1403941173
Release Date: 2005-10-27 |
Book Description
This book constitutes the first in-depth cultural analysis of a period generally held to be the golden age of film production in Spain. Its focus on the work of five directors between 1942 and 1964 seeks to dispel the myth that movie making of early Francoism consisted exclusively of propaganda exercises. Using Gramscian hegemony theory, the volume offers an original perspective on the comic possibilities of subverting State populism and maps a filmmaking tradition that persists, in the figure of Pedro Almodvar, to the present day.
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Tears of Laughter: Comedy-Drama in 1990s British Cinema
Nigel Mather
Manufacturer: Manchester University Press
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0719070775
Release Date: 2006-02-16 |
Book Description
Nigel Mather examines the interactions of comedy and drama in three vital thematic strands of British cinema during the 1990s: comedies exploring issues of class, culture and community in British society, "ethnic" comedy-dramas engaging with complex issues of identity and allegiance in modern Britain, and romantic comedies featuring characters searching for a suitable and desirable partner. Films to be discussed in detail include Brassed Off, The Full Monty, East is East, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and a post-1990s romantic comedy, Love Actually.
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