Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film

In a valuable insight on the nature of comedy as a genre,
Jim Leach suggests that any genre that included the
comic visions of both Jerry Lewis (b. 1926) and Ernest
Lubitsch (1892–1947) was already headed for trouble
(Leach, 1977). Leach was encouraging a more ambitious
look at multiple comedy genres, noting what most disciples
of laughter have long believed—that if a genre such
as comedy is classified too loosely, it loses any critical
value. In the years since Leach’s prophetic observations,
the study of comedy has broken away from this tendency
to jam everything into one generic category. Indeed,
movie comedy can best be examined as six distinct
genres: personality or clown comedy, populism, dark
comedy, parody, romantic comedy, and screwball comedy.
Additionally, individual film comedies occasionally
embrace more than one type of humor, further complicating
their generic categorization.
CLOWN COMEDY
Having changed the least since the beginning of cinema,
the clown genre is both the most basic and the most
obvious of comedy types. Unlike other, more thematicoriented
comedy approaches, the clown model is dependent
upon a central comic figure or figures, such as Charlie
Chaplin (1889–1977) or the Marx Brothers (Chico
[1887–1961], Harpo [1888–1964], Groucho [1890–
1977], and Zeppo [1901–1979]). Around them is fashioned
the loosest of storylines, for clown comedy is character-driven.
The story line merely provides the pretext
upon which the comedian can hang his comic ‘‘shtick’’—
specific routines and/or variations of them, which lend
themselves to the establishing of the all-important screen
comedy persona. This has been so since the pioneering
COMEDY
days of Max Linder (1883–1925) in France and John
Bunny (1863–1915) in the United States. For example,
Chaplin invariably showcased his underdog Tramp’s
ability to work a comic metamorphosis on inanimate
objects. In The Pawnshop (1916) an alarm clock in his
examination becomes everything from a medical patient to
a can of beans. Chaplin himself becomes a lamp in The
Adventurer (1917), a tree in Shoulder Arms (1918), and a
laughing mechanical figure in The Circus (1928). In
discussing Chaplin’s use of pathos, Gerald Mast points
out Chaplin’s poignant use of flowers as metaphors—
surrogates for beautiful heroines Charlie cannot possess,
and as fragile and transitory as love. While these memorable
sequences may serve a metaphoric or thematic
function, they do little to advance the plot.
Other classic shtick associated with a specific comic
persona includes the surrealist sight gags of Harpo Marx,
such as when he pulls a blowtorch from a magic coat in
Duck Soup (1933); Stan Laurel (1890–1965) and Oliver
Hardy’s (1892–1957) tit-for-tat exchanges of comic violence
with any number of antagonists, as when they
destroy the house of frequent nemesis James Finlayson
in Big Business (1929); and Bob Hope’s (1903–2003)
spoofing romantic banter with Dorothy Lamour (1914–
1996) in the Road pictures: ‘‘Do you want me to kiss you
now, or should I tease you for a while?’’ (Road to Rio,
1947). The comic word games of Danny Kaye (1913–
1987) are a key to his comedy shtick, especially in the
delightful The Court Jester (1956), one of the best comic
films ever made, in which he must remember, ‘‘the pellet
with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle.’’ In contrast,
essential to Harold Lloyd’s (1893–1971) persona is
visual ‘‘thrill comedy,’’ exemplified by his hanging from
SCHIRMER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM 353