Leonard Maltin - The Great Movie Comedians: From Charlie Chaplin to Woody Allen (Revised and Updated)

Other books by Leonard Maltin

Leonard Maltins Movie Guide
Leonard Maltins Classic Movie Guide
Leonard Maltins 151 Best Movies Youve Never Seen
Leonard Maltins Family Film Guide
Leonard Maltins Movie Encyclopedia
The Great American Broadcast
The Disney Films
Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons
The Art of the Cinematographer
Selected Short Subjects
The Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang (with Richard W. Bann)

Copyright 1978, 1988 by Leonard Maltin
eBook edition 2015 by Leonard Maltin
Original print edition(1978) published by Crown Publishers, Inc. New York, New York
updated edition (1988) published by Crown Publishers, Inc.

DEDICATED WITH LOVE TO MY FATHER-IN-LAW, BEN TLUSTY, WHO NOT ONLY ENJOYED THESE MOVIES WHEN THEY FIRST CAME OUT, BUT WHO REMEMBERS THEM WITH UNCANNY ACCURACY

CONTENTS

FOREWORD TO 2015 EDITION

When I wrote this book I never dreamed that someday I would get to meet Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, and Woody Allen. I did have the distinction of chatting briefly with Buster Keaton when I was 13 years old (as he was shooting Samuel Beckett's Film) and receiving an autographed photo-postcard from Stan Laurel that same year. I even got a glimpse of Charlie Chaplin at Lincoln Center during his triumphant return to America in 1972. How lucky can one guy get?

Years later, my interviews gave me some insight into the comic giants who meant so much to me, but mostly it was thrilling just to talk with them. (As a kid, I thought the sun rose and set on Jerry Lewis. The first time I had a chance to say a quick hello, in the offices of Entertainment Tonight, I was calm as he politely engaged in a few minutes of small talk. But that night, I actually felt myself shaking: after all, that was Jerry Lewis!)

Two other unforgettable experiences colored my thinking about a pair of comic luminaries. In 1979 my wife and I were among a sold-out crowd that packed Carnegie Hall to see Red Skelton in a rare New York appearance. I don't know what I expected, but what we got that night was a lifetime's worth of show business experience wrapped up in one stunning performance. He told jokes, did shtick, performed pantomimes, and summoned all his considerable savvy to make us laughand love him. I've never been so impressed.

A decade later, I finally had a chance to conduct a bona fide interview with Jerry Lewis, after watching him perform in Las Vegas. I returned for a second interview several months later, accompanied by my wife Alice. Someone had asked Jerry if he would record a greeting for a testimonial dinner honoring the team of Marty Allen and Steve Rossi; our cameraman was happy to oblige. Jerry said hello to the imaginary audience through the camera lens and explained that he'd been asked to sum up his feelings about Allen and Rossi. He then stared into the camera, saying absolutely nothing. He held the look, longer than anyone could imagine, and then held it some more; it got funnier and funnier with each passing second. Crowded into his dressing room the crew, my wife and I had to stifle our laughter lest we ruin the recording, and when he finally toppled over in a pretend-faint we finally let go. He had accomplished this feat with no script, no props, no straight manjust his comedic instincts. To quote one of his later films, he's a man with funny bones.

When it came time to update this book for the first time since its original publication, I had reason to ponder the "big picture," as I first undertook it and as it strikes me from today's vantage point. So much has changed since I wrote this book in the 1970s: not just the emergence of new talent, but a sea change in screen comedy, which of course is a reflection of our society. National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) unleashed a new level of irreverence and bawdiness that, like a genie in a bottle, could never be undone. The enormous success of Porky's (1982) pried open this Pandora's Box even wider, and in the decades since writers, directors and performers have competed to see who can break down more barriers. There is an unmistakable through-line from There's Something About Mary (1998) and American Pie (1999) to The Hangover (2009) and beyond. Material that was once reserved for shock value is now the norm although it seems there's always one more taboo to demolish.

I've tried to explain this cultural shift to my students at the University of Southern California, who have grown up in the age of raunchiness. I'm not sure they believe me when I tell them that the kind of humor they've absorbed for most of their liveseven on TV sitcomswas absolutely verboten just a couple of decades ago. The Three Stooges were considered extreme, almost beneath contempt, and Jerry Lewis was outr. How quaint.

That's why, when people ask me to cite my favorite movie genre and I say "comedy," I hasten to explain that I'm referring to a different brand of comedy than most people think of today. I grew up watching Laurel and Hardy and The Three Stooges every single day on television. I collected 8mm home movies of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. I was lucky enough to see my first Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields movies at revival theaters in New York City, surrounded by appreciative audiences. These experiences helped shape my outlook on life, as well as my sense of humor.

To be clear, I liked American Pie and laughed out loud at The Hangover, but I still have difficulty with films that automatically equate "outrageousness" with humor. That's one reason I decided against updating this book to embrace Eddie Murphy, Steve Martin, or Robin Williams, or their successors, like Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell. They don't just represent a different approach than the classic comedians: they inhabit an entirely different world. They deserve, and require, a book of their own.

Whether I'm right or wrong, I see the span of this volume as a continuum, from the earliest days of silent film through the emergence of Woody Allen, who built on the foundation of the comedians that preceded him.

I made minor adjustments to the chapter on Bob Hope, who died since this book's publication in 2003 (at the age of 100!), and Red Skelton, who died in 1987 at the age of 84. But I wrote extensive new material about the two men whose careers have continued to grow and evolve since 1978: Jerry Lewis and Woody Allen.

I also decided to leave most of the text in the present tense, except for specific references ("the past fifty years," "twenty years ago," etc.), because I think it preserves the immediacy of the people I describe. I never want to think of these towering figures in anything but the present tense. Their humor is still very much alive, and thanks to movies, so are they.

INTRODUCTION

"Through humor, we see in what seems rational, the irrational; in what seems important, the unimportant. It also heightens our sense of survival and preserves our sanity."

CHARLES CHAPLIN

"A friend once asked me what comedy was. That floored me. What