Funny Comedians of Old We have had some of the greatest comedians in the past. It is such a shame they are no longer with us and most people today wouldn’t recognize their names. If the younger generation who are interested in comedy would listen to me, I would recommend looking at many of them even though the movies and videos of movies are really old. One thing I do not understand is the hate many young people have for older movies. When I say older, it seems to be anything before 1990 is said to be unwatchable. It is really too bad they feel this way some of the movies before that, which were not comedies were great movies. The kids are missing movies like the original Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, and the Magnificent Seven to name a few, but we can go further back to Gone With The Wind, Citizen Kane, and just about all the Humphrey Bogart movies, and there are far more which are still very enjoyable even though they might be in black and white. I just wanted to illustrate the point of not only did we have great comedians who go back to the silent era, but many great actors. Getting back to the comedians they came several ways. There were single ones, teams of two and teams of three or more. Let’s look at some of the single silent movie comedians. They were so funny you didn’t even need sound. The greatest ones of all were Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd. There are others who would put more comedians on this list, but that is their choice. Buster Keaton formed his own film company and my personal opinion is he was funnier than Chaplin. You can agree or disagree. I find he could be laugh falling off the chair funny. Chaplin did more cute things like making 2 potatoes dance. While he was doing this type of stuff, Keaton was fast at work building a boat in his cellar, only to find out it was too big to get out. One of the funniest things I ever saw was Keaton as a moving man. It was Saint Patrick’s Day and a policeman hired him to move the contents of his home with his horse and wagon. As Keaton is doing the moving, he comes to the big parade with thousands of cops and breaks in, and the cops get angry and start to chase him, and as he is trying to get away furniture if flying all over the place. My description doesn’t do the film justice. Harold Lloyd was famous for his stunts. He dressed like a businessman of his time and no matter what type of problem he had; he always seems to land up somewhere high hanging off places like high buildings. One of his most famous scenes is one where he is hanging on to one of the hands of a clock which is mounted on top of a tall building. It gives one chills just watching this guy, because he did some stunts himself, but not all. He had a stunt double named Harvey Parry. When we get to comedy teams of two, who could be funnier than Laurel and Hardy? There were funny people around in their time, but they were the best as far as I am concerned. Stan Laurel was always getting Oliver Hardy hurt in many different ways. This may sound sadistic, but he was sometimes knock down funny. There was one scene which I still laugh about when I think about it. I don’t remember who kicked who in the leg first, but people started to interfere and then they got kicked in the legs and so forth until you had dozens of people hopping around on one leg. It was much funnier than it sounds. There was also a skit where Laurel is a vet and wants to sit down while he is at the vet’s home, but the only seat he finds is a wheel chair with one leg place so he folds his other leg under him. At that point Hardy comes to visit and hasn’t seen him since World War One and thinks he only has one leg and takes Laurel home with him by carrying him everywhere. Again, a very funny movie. Abbott and Costello came along later. At the time they were considered by some to be to be the funniest duo, but I was not a big fan as a kid. I did like it when they were in horror comedies such as the famous Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Invisible man and others. When it came to larger groups of comedians I thought the Three Stooges, The Marx Brothers and the Ritz Brothers were the best. The Three Stooges were the classic slap stick group and even though they changed from Curley Joe to Shemp they were still just as funny. When Joe Besser got a part, I thought they went downhill. I never found that guy funny. Curley had replaced Shemp, then had a stroke and then Shemp came back. The Marx Brothers were very funny and had some slapstick, but no one ever seemed to have as much as the Three Stooges. There were really five Marx Brothers although only three would appear at a time. There was Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Zeppo and Gummo. The act was usually performed by Groucho, Chico and Harpo. Harpo stopped talking after he got a bad review which stated when he played the fool it was convincing, that is until he spoke. The brothers were a huge success and the act went on for more than 30 years. Some of their movies became very famous like A Night at The Opera, Duck Soup and Horse Feathers. The team made 13 movies in all. They was another comedy team named the Ritz Brothers. They were not as famous but, in their day, made several movies and the kids loved them. I don’t believe anyone would recognize the names of the movies today. For example, they made Pack Up Your Troubles and a Three Musketeers movie and a few more. There was Al, Jimmy and Harry Ritz. The manager of the act was George Ritz their brother. They were also famous for short films. I remember when one came on all the kids in the theater would yell excitedly. One big difference in this act was they all acted the same way, where other teams had individual personalities. I believe if people would not be prejudice about old movies, they would find themselves laughing at these great comedians.
|
