American Laughter demonstrates the immigrant and ethnic vision that informed Hollywood comedies, and by extension American mass culture, of the 1920s and 1930s. Beginning with a pre-history of American comedy that ranges from the Spanish explorers to Moss Hart, the author then discusses the refashioning of slapstick, team, and romantic comedy by an immigrant Hollywood for a predominantly urban, ethnic audience. With observations on more than three hundred films - many of which have never been studied - the three main chapters uncover an unexamined immigrant and ethnic aesthetic in the films of Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, and William Powell and Myrna Loy. In the process, Winokur employs a broad range of contemporary concepts in film history and culture studies, while intertwining subjects as diverse as Balkan politics, Art Deco, the Jewish landsmanshaft, psychoanalysis, vaudeville, Sicilian peasant life, orientalism, the stage Irishman, and `body' criticism. Winokur includes over 50 black and white photos, stills, and reprints of promotional pieces that illustrate and complement his analysis of Hollywood film in the '20s and '30s.
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
Though their accounts of where and when vary, Americanists return again and again to the time at which the New World reconfigures our sense of geographical space. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
ethnic filmmakers, perceived cultural mainstream, tramp persona, ethnic theater, sotweed factor, literary comedy, total cinema, vaudeville aesthetic, ethnic woman, sound comedy, film moguls, comic literature, immigrant audience, mirror scene, film comedy, ethnic change, screwball comedy Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Marx Brothers, Art Deco, Modern Times, New World, United States, Myrna Loy, New York, Duck Soup, William Powell, The Black Watch, Davy Crockett, Margaret Dumont, Manhattan Melodrama, Animal Crackers, Cary Grant, Godfrey Smith, Love Me Tonight, Connecticut Yankee, Clark Gable, Charlie Chaplin's Own Story, Lower East Side, Roy Export Company Establishment, The Pawnshop, Culver Pictures, Ellis Island New!
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Though their accounts of where and when vary, Americanists return again and again to the time at which the New World reconfigures our sense of geographical space. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
ethnic filmmakers, perceived cultural mainstream, tramp persona, ethnic theater, sotweed factor, literary comedy, total cinema, vaudeville aesthetic, ethnic woman, sound comedy, film moguls, comic literature, immigrant audience, mirror scene, film comedy, ethnic change, screwball comedy Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Marx Brothers, Art Deco, Modern Times, New World, United States, Myrna Loy, New York, Duck Soup, William Powell, The Black Watch, Davy Crockett, Margaret Dumont, Manhattan Melodrama, Animal Crackers, Cary Grant, Godfrey Smith, Love Me Tonight, Connecticut Yankee, Clark Gable, Charlie Chaplin's Own Story, Lower East Side, Roy Export Company Establishment, The Pawnshop, Culver Pictures, Ellis Island New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 100
books:
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- What Made Pistachio Nuts? by Henry Jenkins on 5 pages
- The Comic Irishman by Maureen Waters on 4 pages
- Bread Givers: A Novel by Anzia Yezierska on 4 pages
- Venus in Furs (Erotic Classics) by Sacher-Masoch on 4 pages
- The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act by Fredric Jameson in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
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