Marxism
RMJon23
and look like an idiot, but don't let that fool you: he really is an
idiot. I implore you, send him back to his father and brothers, who
are waiting for him with open arms in the penitentiary. I suggest that
we give him ten years in Leavenworth, or eleven years in Twelveworth.
Chicolini: I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll take five and ten in
Woolworth.
-Duck Soup
Don Stockbauer
The one I like is where W.C. Fields is playing poker with 4 or 5 other
men. One of them pipes up:
"Is this a game of chance?"
W.C.:
"Not the way I play it, no."
Don Stockbauer
"Life has the form of a game."
Psmith
fifteen years, Bob Wilson came to love the Three Stooges so much.
TCBEvolver
> I love the Marx Brothers. I find it interesting that during his last
> fifteen years, Bob Wilson came to love the Three Stooges so much.
I put up a mini-essay somewhere or the t'other on the intertubes about
how far ahead of their time the Stooges were. No other comedy of that
era was fast-paced or anarchic enough to resemble Adult Swim. Only a
few others (mainly the Marx Bros., Fields and Keaton and cartoons)
come close. Almost all other comedy from much earlier than the 1960's
seems hopelessly slow and boring to modern sensibilities.
Partly, too, it may be about the film editing. I recall a documentary
about editing which explained the French New Wave as a rejection of
"padding" such as showing someone at a door, opening the door, closing
the door behind them, walking across the room to speak to someone at a
desk... when we don't need to be shown most of that. We know they must
have closed the door and walked across the room, so why waste 120
frames of film showing it? Stooges shorts are, well, short. The
editing is lean even though the French New Wave is twenty years in the
future. By comparison feature length comedy films of the '30's and
'40's often have long setups for jokes that don't work for us any
more.
Now THIS... this works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jocRd-aajW0&feature=related
Tom Buckner
Psmith
Preston Sturges, George Cukor, Charlie Chaplin, etc. move very quickly
much of the time. My film class loves films like "Bringing Up Baby,"
"Some Like It Hot," and "I Married a Witch."
RMJon23
I think you're arguing about different things. I think Buckner has a
brilliant point about editing ahead of its time vis a vis Stooges.
I mostly agree with Psmith about those classic comedies, esp the
Sturges stuff, which is so brimming with comedic language its far more
High than Low.
Wasn't RAW's appreciation of the Stooges mostly his own sort of irony?
He used the Stooges in a lot of his humor, but also seemed to think
the violence and sadism behind their stuff was part of the Planet of
the Apes Problem. (Or did he modify his stance over the years?)
TCBEvolver
Miracle of Morgan's Creek, it fairly flew.
http://thegloriousninth.blogspot.com/2011/03/preston-sturges-6-miracle-of-morgans.html
Same goes for Arsenic and Old Lace. But these are both a bit later.
I'm really thinking of older silent comedy and early talkies to a
greater degree when I complain about pacing. By the late '30's you can
already notice a little difference.
Planet of the Apes problem: well, much of the Stooges humor is lowbrow
simian dominance and humiliation games, and it's a shibboleth that
Stooge humor is guy humor few women like. I guess that makes sense: a
theater of males working out the pecking order. Not so different from
Pawn Stars, with Rick and his father as stern Moes and their younger
minions constantly jockeying for the other slots.
In RAW the Stooges reference I recall is Chinatown/Chapel Perilous,
that place where Moe pokes Curly in the eye over and over forever.
Tom Buckner
Psmith
I definitely think Bob changed his stance on that, if he ever really
held it. I loved the Three Stooges in the 90's and the 00's. I
remember he celebrated the Moses Horowitz centennial. He told me he
prefered them to the Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy.