Before Groucho Marx and W.C. Fields, comedy was innocent. After they left their hilarious smudges on the genre, it was anything but. Groucho Marx the leering, wise-cracking, pseudo-intellectual (c.1890-1977) together with his brothers Chico, Harpo, Gummo, and Zeppo, first performed on Broadway in 1924 and took it by storm in The Coconuts (1925) and more memorably Animal Crackers (1928) which was filmed the following year. Moving to Hollywood with the advent of "talkies" for such classics as Monkey Business (1931), Duck Soup (1933) and A Night at the Opera (1935), Groucho developed his own hilarious brand of farce poking fun at convention and confronting audiences with a wealth of double-entendres. W.C. Fields "..never act with dogs or children!" (1879-1946) began his stage life as a juggler on the vaudeville circuit. By his early 20s he was already a top-billed star who performed alongside the renowned Ziegfield Follies on Broadway. His first film was Pool Sharks (1915) but it was his appearance in D.W. Griffith's Sally of the Sawdust (1925) which established him in Hollywood at the relatively late age of 46. This is a tribute to the pair and the art of filmflam comedy with both Groucho and Fields revealed as trail-blazers who dared depart from the paths laid down by the comedy of innocence.
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Editorial Reviews
From the Inside Flap
A wonderful tribute to Groucho and Fields and the art of flimflam comedy
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About the Author
Wes D. Gehring is Professor of Film at Ball State University and Associate Media Editor at USA Today magazine.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
GOOD FOR DIE-HARD FANS & SCHOLARS, BUT NOT FOR GENERAL FANS,
By A Customer
This review is from: Groucho and W.C. Fields: Huckster Comedians (Studies in Popular Culture) (Hardcover)
Gehring's book is like a text book. Like a thesis. It's good on that level; but there's always the ultimate question: Why analyze comedy at all? Once you start to explain it on a serious, scientific level, you've drained it from all it's fun. This book will help understand W.C. Fields & Groucho's worth in the history of Comedy and Satire, but it won't win them new fans. I love Groucho & W.C. Fields; I think they were brilliant, geniuses and true artists. But this book with it's text book, scientific style, is drab and makes you wonder what is so funny about them. If you really want to know and enjoy W.C. Fields & Groucho, watch their films.
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antiheroic humor, copyrighted sketches, antiheroic world, mustachioed one, greasepaint mustache, comic antihero, comic frustration, comedy theory, old army game, little chickadee, period critics Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Duck Soup, New York, Even Break, Horse Feathers, Honest Man, The Bank Dick, Animal Crackers, Never Give, Flying Trapeze, Krazy Kat, The Man, The Old Fashioned Way, Bringing Up Father, Charlie Chaplin, The Cocoanuts, The Comic Supplement, Margaret Dumont, Mark Twain, United States, Monkey Business, East Coast, The Confidence-Man, Groucho Marx, Thelma Todd, Woody Allen Browse Sample Pages:
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antiheroic humor, copyrighted sketches, antiheroic world, mustachioed one, greasepaint mustache, comic antihero, comic frustration, comedy theory, old army game, little chickadee, period critics Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Duck Soup, New York, Even Break, Horse Feathers, Honest Man, The Bank Dick, Animal Crackers, Never Give, Flying Trapeze, Krazy Kat, The Man, The Old Fashioned Way, Bringing Up Father, Charlie Chaplin, The Cocoanuts, The Comic Supplement, Margaret Dumont, Mark Twain, United States, Monkey Business, East Coast, The Confidence-Man, Groucho Marx, Thelma Todd, Woody Allen Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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