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Lame Brains & Lunatics
The Good, the Bad,
and the Forgotten of
Silent Comedy
By Steve Massa
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BRIEF NOTES
Lame Brains & Lunatics:
The Good, the Bad, and the Forgotten of Silent Comedy
By Steve Massa
BearManor Media : Albany, Georgia : 2013
Hardcover Edition : ISBN 978-1629330228 : 481 pages
$36.95
Trade Paperback Edition : ISBN 978-1593932688 : 481 pages
$26.95
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Silent Film Comedy was a fortuitous combination of art and technology, where the physical comedy skills and artistry passed down from the Commedia dell’Arte, English music hall, and American vaudeville were captured for posterity by the newly created motion picture camera. While the Chaplins, Keatons, and Laurel & Hardys are still remembered and celebrated, this book profiles unsung practitioners such as Billie Ritchie, Marcel Perez, Lige Conley and George Rowe, with special focus on the neglected comediennes Alice Howell, Gale Henry, Fay Tincher, and Josie Sadler. Popular icons on the order of Mack Sennett, Marie Dressler, Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle, and W.C. Fields are reexamined, plus detailed histories of silent comedy teams and kid’s comedies are offered.
The book also includes selected filmographies and is lavishly illustrated with more than 225 rarely-seen photographs and advertising images.
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