Comedy is a Man in Trouble: Slapstick in American Movies (review)

Book Reviews | Regular Feature American GIs frequently lacked discipline, used numerous hallucinogens , bartered their supplies, pillaged so-called enemy villages , and, occasionally, fragged their officers. Now what? How could the Pentagon offer support to filmmakers when every screenplay was a caustic denunciation ofmilitary life? Certainly, it was clear that no movie aboutVietnam would everrepresent the armed forces in a positive light. Without question, Larry Suid's research completely covers Hollywood's myriad role in shaping public opinion about national conflicts and his many conclusions amplify exactly what went on between Pentagon officials and big-name directors as each side jockeyed the other hoping to find an advantageous concession. Complete with an extensive screenplay listing and an elaborate interview chart detailing approximately 400 people contacted— including John Wayne, Frank Capra, James Doolittle, Curtis LeMay, and James Jones—Guts and Glory stands firm as the latest title in the combat film genre. Clearly, it is a book of remarkable achievement. Robert Fyne Kean University RJFyne@aol.com/ Alan Dale. Comedy is a Man in Trouble: Slapstick in American Movies. University of Minnesota Press, 2000. 288 pages; $25.95. Consistent Appeal The inside cover of Comedy is a Man in Trouble describes the book as an examination of "the legacy ofphysical humor from the performances of vaudeville actors and circus clowns to its ongoing popularity inthe films ofJim Carrey and the Farrelly brothers." Yet the work of Alan Dale—a former Los Angeles talent agent who went on to earn a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Princeton University—is much more than just a survey of cinematic slapstick. Dale seeks to go beyond an encyclopedic review of movie comedians, striving to understand the place of slapstick comedy and the reasons for its consistent appeal with motion picture audiences. He contends that his work exists "to give fans a body of criticism that doesn't see slapstick preserved in soundless amber, but rather as an always vital, universally enjoyable mode that we should take gladly where we find it" (xi). Comedy is a Man in Trouble is a book that straddles the fence between the academic tendency to foist current fashionable psychological and textual interpretations on slapstick comedy on the one side and the more earthly view of slapstick as mindless entertainment on the other. Rather than a platform where comedians walked the tightrope between comedy and tragedy to generate laughter, Dale views the medium of slapstick as an outgrowth ofthe individualjokester striving to create comedy for its own sake. This assertion holds true consistently, whether its source is the physical comedy of silent legends like Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, the rapidfire verbal slapstick of the Marx Brothers, or the union of the two strands in the comedy ofJerry Lewis. Dale believes that slapstick's broad popularity stems from its ability to convey attitudes, emotions and experiences rather than ideas. Slapstick "doesn't feel profound," but rather succeeds because it "feels true to our experience very much as we live it" (27). Dale traces the slapstick tradition from the silent era to the present, devoting specific chapters to Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, female stars, the Marx Brothers, Preston Sturges, and Jerry Lewis. While this may seem to be too much material to cover in a single volume, Dale succeeds where others would fail. Building upon his thesis of two forms of slapstick, physical and verbal, he examines the contributions of each comedian and filmmaker. Such an approach provides not only insight into the various styles, but also provides an overview of the history of slapstick comedy in cinema. While Chaplin, Lloyd, and Keaton laid the groundwork for physical comedy, the Marx Brothers and Preston Sturges stand as the early masters of verbal slapstick. As stated, Jerry Lewis is the pivotal figure in Dale's analysis, because he brings all elements of slapstick together, serving as the mentor of today's comics, including Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler. What makes slapstick such an enduring form of cinematic comedy? Dale argues that since it appeals to the human experience , slapstick always resonates with audiences, whether in the pratfalls of Chaplin or its underlying elements in films like Robert Altman's M*A...