Comedy Films 1894–1954

John Montgomery

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000579192
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Sozialwissenschaften
• Categoría: Medienwissenschaften

Originally published in 1954, this was the first factual history of comedy films and the men and women who had since 1894 kept us laughing in the cinema. It traces the beginning of comic motion pictures and the pioneer work of Paul, Gaumont, Hepworth, Pathe and Zecca. Then comes the picture palace craze and the success of the early Italian and French comedies and trick films. The work of Al Christie and Mack Sennett in America, and the rise of American films, is fully described, as knockabout gives way to slapstick, and salaries and box-office receipts soar.

Now come Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and all the other bright figures of the Roaring Twenties, with favourites like Buster Keaton and Will Rogers to the fore. The development of sound and its effect on the comedians is explained, and the story comes up to date through the thirties and forties to 1954.

Some of the hundreds of names to whom tribute is paid include Mabel Normand, Larry Semon, Roscoe Arbuckle, Monty Banks, Max Linder, Harry Langdon, Will Hay, the Marx Brothers, Bob Hope, Fernandel and Alec Guinness. These are only a few of the many whose careers are traced. The book is illustrated by a number of carefully selected photographs, many of which are unique.

This edition, first published in 1968 has been revised but the period it covers remains the same, 1894-1954, sixty years of film humour.

Chapter One The First Comedies

what was the first comedy film? Nobody knows for certain, but it may well have been Fred Ott’s Sneeze, filmed in 1894 by William K. L. Dickson for Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope Company in the ‘Black Maria’ Kinetographic Theatre which Dickson had built for Edison in West Orange, New Jersey. Fred Ott was a member of the staff, and his appearance on the little piece of film—sneezing—probably gives him the right to be called the world’s first film comedian.

Comic incidents of this kind were no novelty, even on the screen. For many years audiences in American and European towns and villages had enjoyed them in magic lantern shows which were the forerunners of film performances. Usually presented by travelling showmen, they often included moving figures, achieved by ingenious devices.

Fred Ott’s Sneeze was never intended to be shown on a screen, but had been filmed simply for the Kinetoscope peep-show cabinet which Edison had invented. Although at the close of the century considerable research was being carried out in Britain, France, America, and Germany, in an effort to discover the secret of projected movement, Edison saw no future in projecting figures, and preferred the ‘coin in the slot’ principle. This had the disadvantage of allowing only one person at a time to view the moving pictures; looking through a narrow slit in a rotating shutter at a continuously running strip of film which moved in front of an electric light bulb, the spectator watched a short comedy sequence or a familiar street scene, filmed by the Edison Company.

Before tracing the history of film comedy from the first sneezing film of 1894 to the modern Mr Magoo cartoons it is necessary to know something about the early days of films.

The actual discovery of motion pictures as we know them has been attributed to pioneers in America, France, Britain, and Germany, and is still disputed.

On February 20, 1896, firms were first publicly projected to an audience in Britain, having already been seen in France. The occasion was the presentation by the brothers Louis and Auguste Lumière of a performance of their Cinématographe at the Marlborough Hall in Regent Street, London, on the site of the modern Polytechnic. In the first programme there was sandwiched between a short film taken at Lyons and a picture showing the arrival of the mail boat at Folkestone, a brief comic interlude entitled Teasing the Gardener. In this a child was seen stepping on a hose. The gardener, looking into the hose, suddenly got wet.

This little film, taken in the Lumières’ garden and lasting only a few seconds on the screen, was to set the pattern for millions of feet of celluloid in the years to come, in an endeavour to keep people laughing. Every clown in every comic film was to owe something to Teasing the Gardener.

The fun had started. While Félicien Trewey, on behalf of the Lumière brothers, was introducing the programme at the Marlborough Hall, a London instrument maker named Robert W. Paul was demonstrating his Theatrograph projector privately. A few months later he showed his first coloured pictures, hand tinted by a lantern slide colourist.

To feed the Cinematograph, the Theatrograph, and the many rival machines which soon appeared, large numbers of new films were required. At first, familiar scenes and brief incidents were captured by the cameras; the novelty of ‘the pictures’ was so great that almost anything—a gale at Brighton or a lion at the zoo—was considered entertaining. The first comedies were therefore simple comic incidents enacted either by hired players or friends of the ‘film manufacturer.’ From the earliest days of the film up to 1910 the average moving picture took from one to fifteen minutes to show. The first films were merely brief glimpses, but people flocked to see the new marvel, to watch the endless parade of familiar scenes and everyday subjects on the screen in a local hall, a converted shop, or a circus side-show tent.

William Friese-Greene ‘s claim to have invented the motion picture has been disputed by the champions of many other pioneers. Birt Acres, Marey, Skladanowsky, Le Prince, the Lumières, Edison and his English assistant Kennedy Dickson, Robert W. Paul, and many others—all were in fact contributors to the final solution and the development of the invention. In October 1889 Dickson presented to Edison what was probably the world’s first ‘talkie.’ Dickson himself was seen in the new Kinetophone peep-show cabinet, walking across a room and raising his hat, while his voice was heard to say ‘Good Morning, Mr Edison. Glad to see you back. Hope you will like the Kinetophone. To show the synchronization I will lift my hat and count up to ten.’

It was four years later that Dickson built the famous ‘Black Maria’ studio, a dark shed mounted on a revolving platform to catch the sun. And it was here, in 1894, that the mechanic Fred Ott was filmed in his brief comic sneezing episode, a picture which was seen but not heard in hundreds of peep-show machines all over the world.

In June 1895, five months after the first Lumière show in France, Thomas Armat of Washington discovered the principle of modern film projection, and successfully demonstrated an improved machine at the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, in the following September. The films which he used were those issued by Edison for his peep-show, and his projector was afterwards called the Vitascope. Soon afterwards Armat showed his pictures at Köster and Bial’s music hall in Herald Square, New York, including in his programme two of Lumière’s films, Mammy Washing Her Child, and Teasing the Gardener. In the same year Max Skladanowsky exhibited a programme of films at the Winter Gardens, Berlin.

In 1896 Bert Bernard took the first film of the Lord Mayor’s Show in London, and a year later he filmed about 1,200 feet of stock during the passing of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee Procession. This film was exhibited for five months at the Alhambra Theatre, Leicester Square, by Robert W. Paul, who started showing pictures at this famous theatre in 1896. Paul’s rivals were at the Empire and the Palace, and he was constantly seeking novelty in his programme, to beat his competitors. Often he went out into the streets or the countryside to photograph everyday events and ‘actualities,’ which were the forerunners of the elaborate modern film and television newsreels. Paul made film history by filming the Derby at Epsom and showing his film that same night at the Alhambra.

Topical subjects were easy to find, but what were called ‘the comics’—the humorous items—required more care and attention. As people had grown accustomed to the novelty, so the comic items had to be longer. It was no longer enough to show a brief picture of a man falling into a lake. Audiences were beginning to ask ‘Well, what happened to him after he came out ?’ In fact, they demanded to see the further adventures of the unfortunate man. And because Paul was a good showman with plenty of ideas he hit on the happy notion of making short comedy films on top of the flat roof of the Alhambra. With the aid of some of the scenery from the stage, and a few members of the cast and some friends, he filmed a whole series of comedy subjects high above the noisy traffic of London. The plots were thin, but the laughs were loud, and one of his first successes was The Soldiefs Courtship, filmed in 1896, only two years after Mr Ott’s simple Sneeze. In this comedy a soldier and a nursemaid were discovered sitting on a park bench—the roof of the Alhambra being slightly disguised. The courting couple were suddenly interrupted by the arrival of an old lady, who sat down on the seat and began to edge them off the end. The soldier and the girl, finding no space left, then rose suddenly and tipped the seat so that the old lady fell heavily onto the ground with the seat on top of her.

The whole incident was filmed without a break, the camera being set up in front of the performers as though a stage play was being filmed. Even in its infancy the film had little respect for old age, but this hilarious effort no doubt caused much laughter, for no one had seen anything quite like it before.

Paul’s contract at the Alhambra had originally been for a fortnight, after which the management presumed the novelty of the animated pictures would die, leaving a space in the programme for another variety act—perhaps a Swedish acrobat or a flame swallower. However, Paul stayed on for four years, and with the help of Sir Augustus Harris of Drury Lane gave performances at Olympia and in many London theatres and music halls. Soon the Alhambra roof became cramped, and a ‘stage’ for filming was erected at New Southgate. Here comedies, tragedies, melodramas, and many trick or ‘magic’ subjects were produced, to confound and delight the millions who were now flocking to see the new wonder of the age.

As early as 1899 Paul’s studio was equipped with a camera trolley, a moving stand fitted with wheels, on which the camera could be moved to achieve tracking and zooming scenes, although for some further fourteen years the static camera was generally used both in Europe and America.

*

Film shows were first given in music halls, circus and fair booths, converted shops and public halls. Later came the Bioscopes, the Electric Theatres, and then the Picture Palaces, with their bright lights, their red plush seats and their smell of stale tobacco. Much later came the cinemas. In the early days of the century ‘going to the pictures’ was quite an ordeal, and was regarded as hardly a suitable pastime for a well-brought-up girl.

It was France, Italy and Britain—not America—who first led the comedy race. By 1903 comedy was playing an important part in every programme, and at the Egyptian Hall in London Mr Neville Maskelyne was delighting audiences with a special comedy show made up of short films taken in Britain and France. Raymond’s Bio-Tableaux was touring Britain, presenting shows to packed halls, and there was seldom a month when two or three travelling showmen did not visit each town, complete with a programme lasting from thirty to forty-five minutes, but often less—for another audience had to be packed into the hall as soon as possible.

Typical of the brief comic films which these showmen presented was The Short-Sighted Cyclist, in which an unfortunate man, being unable to see much further than his nose, collided with everyone and everything in his path, finally ending up in the village pond. A comedy of this type, together with some scenes of the fleet at Weymouth, a horse race, the launching of a liner, and a glimpse of railway engines being cleaned at Swindon, would probably complete the act in a music hall, where the Mammoth Bioscope Show would be at the top of the bill. Later, when motion pictures were no longer a novelty, films dropped to the bottom of the bill and remained there merely as ‘chaser outs’ between performances.

When it was realized that each film should have a theme, and be a sequence of events telling a story or relating action, the comic films began to develop a craziness of their own. A man would be seen running wild—perhaps in a nightshirt—dashing downhill on roller skates, through barrels and past dray carts and cabs, miraculously avoiding danger, while the audience gasped a series of ‘Ooooohhs!,’ knowing that soon he would finish up in the lake, or in a bin of flour, oil, soot, molasses, glue, paint, dough or treacle. These were the ‘chase comic’ films, which are still with us today, with variations.

As the film was no respecter of old age or dignity, audiences soon became used to the hilarious spectacle of the infirm, the blind, the rich, and the poor (but more especially the rich and haughty), the parson, and the policeman—all being caught out in ridiculous circumstances. Mothers-in-law now found themselves not only on the stage, but also on the screen. Elderly gentlemen with ear trumpets now became the object of ribald mirth, for could not all the flour, oil, soot, molasses, etc., be poured down the ear trumpet ? The misfortunes of others were from the first infant flickerings a cue for hearty laughter, as absurdity was piled on top of absurdity. Meanwhile the hazards of the chase included animals, the lame and the halt, the drunk and the sober, the pursued and the pursuer. The heroine’s gouty uncle, chasing the hero, would receive little sympathy either in the film or from the audience. He would almost certainly end up with his gouty foot firmly stamped on and his niece stolen from him; and he could consider himself lucky to escape the dreaded flour, oil, soot, molasses, and other devilish ingredients of the average comedy.

While these light-hearted ‘comics’ were being ‘manufactured’ (as the film trade said) in America, Britain, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and Holland, many of the more advanced humorous pictures were being made in France, where a whole team of versatile stage clowns was engaged in making films. Onesyme, Dranem, Polycarpe, Bourbon, Zigoteau, Bataille, Marcel Levesque, Little Moritz, and Boncot were among the comedians whose films were exported in hundreds, to delight audiences who did not care—and often did not know—which country was entertaining them. Many of the funniest were from France and Italy. André Deed was one of the world’s first knockabout film comedians, starring in Itala Films, and known in Britain as ‘Foolshead’. His comedies combined chase, tricks, and slapstick of every description. Tweedledum, Polidor, Bloomer (domestic farce) and Tontolini (chase comic) were all Italians, and were in their day the most popular of film comedians. Gaumont of France had Calino, Simple Simon, and Léonce making one-reelers before 1914, and in England their midget comedian Bout-de-Zan scored an immediate success, and was christened ‘Tiny Tim’ by his London sponsors. Named after a stick of liquorice popular with French children, he appeared to be a child, but was really a dwarf of advanced years. In Bout-de-Zan as an Author he was seen writing a love letter on behalf of his nurse. Having substituted the time of 8 a.m. for 8 p.m. he caused a fireman to arrive at the house to see the nurse early in the morning, instead of at night. Answering the door, the terrible infant told the fireman to hide in the cellar, where a coal merchant dumped sacks of coal on him.

Charles Prince—known as Rigadin—was another early French comedian with international appeal. In Italy he was called Tarfutini, and in Britain he was ‘Wiffles’. His entry into Pathé Frères’ comedies had been accidental. Stopping to watch a film being made in a street outside Paris, he had been accosted by a gentleman who had said ‘Excuse me, but I am Le Metteur de Scene of Pathé Frères. I am just filming a comic scene, and, if you will forgive my saying so, I have been watching you for some time. I must say that you have a wonderfully funny face— and I wonder if you will do me a favour. Will you let me film you for this one scene ? ’

Monsieur Prince, who had no knowledge of acting, and no particular ambition to become a film actor, shortly afterwards signed a contract with Pathé, and was for many years his country’s leading film comedian.

The French comics were versatile. Dranem appeared in his first pictures as a detective, a lady’s maid, a drunk, a porter, a dude, a policeman, an old woman, and a negro minstrel. Many of the films contained trick photography, which caused characters to disappear into thin air, tables to dance, the floor to swallow up the furniture, and old ladies to turn into mice and be chased by cats. It was Georges Méliès from the theatre R...