Comedy Tonight!

Movie Comedy Advertising & Publicity: The Silent Era, Vol. 1

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by Jordan R. Young

Type

Studies

Subject

Genre > Comedy/Humor

Keywords

Comedy/Humor, advertising, silent cinema

Publishing date

2020

Publisher

Past Times Publishing

Collection

Past Times Film Close-Up

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 190 pages
8 x 10 ½ inches (20.5 x 26.5 cm)

ISBN

978-0-940410-51-0

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Book Presentation:
Some things never change. As far back as the 1910s and ‘20s, movie studios proclaimed practically every new release in their ads as “the funniest,” “the greatest,” “the most important,” and so forth. Not only was Buster Keaton’s Battling Butler (1926) not “the biggest comedy of history,” it was one of the strangest and least satisfying features turned out by a major comedian in the silent era. There’s far more than meets the eye in advertising and promotional materials for the silent era, notes film and show business historian Jordan R. Young, who has rounded up the usual suspects and their contemporaries in this compilation of vintage trade magazine and newspaper ads and other ephemera (behind the scenes stills, lobbies, press books, cigarette cards, glass slides and heralds) for a closer look at how they were sold to the movie-going public.Meet Charles Chaplin when he was first labeled “the greatest comedian… the world has ever seen” and Keaton when he was promoted as “a new stellar comedian who is going to reach the peak of filmmaking.” Look in on Harry Langdon when he was touted “a new comedy find” at the outset of his career.Harold Lloyd’s Lonesome Luke shorts enjoyed an extensive ad campaign in motion picture trade publications; one ad trumpeted them as “the best comedies on the screen today.” The filmmaker himself would later dismiss them as mere imitations of Chaplin. Hal Roach Studios’ trade ads confirm that Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were not considered a team when they began working together; as merely two of Roach’s “All Stars,” they’re not even mentioned in small press sheet ads for their first two joint appearances at the studio. Roach’s ads for Mabel Normand’s comeback effort, Raggedy Rose, do not hint at the sad comedown it was from her lofty heights. Ads reveal Clara Bow had it before she had It. Louise Fazenda was unrecognizable in her pre-Mack Sennett days, when her versatility was already winning plaudits as “one of her great assets.”And let’s not forget the lesser luminaries who toiled alongside them in the studios of Roach, Sennett, Christie, and other fun factories of a long gone time and place. Some, like Charley Bowers and Alice Howell, have been happily rediscovered in recent years, while others like Rosemary Theby and Lige Conley have been largely forgotten. And some of course, like Edward Everett Horton and Billie Burke, gained renown in the sound era. Famous and obscure alike, they all live again in these visually stunning compilations.Volume I includes: John Bunny & Flora Finch, Mack Sennett Comedies, Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Harry Langdon, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, Mabel Normand, Hal Roach Studios, Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy, Charley Chase, Marion Davies, Lloyd Hamilton, Clara Bow, Eddie Cantor, W.C. Fields, Ben Turpin, Al St. John, Louise Fazenda, Alice Howell, Charley Bowers, Laura LaPlante & Reginald Denny, Syd Chaplin, Billy West, Gloria Swanson, Wallace Beery & Raymond Hatton, Edward Everett Horton, Marie Dressler, Ford Sterling, Carole Lombard, Zasu Pitts, Mack Swain, Bert Roach, Marcel Perez, Frank Daniels, Dorothy Gish, Johnny Dooley, Charles Ray, Marie Cahill & Marie Tempest, Viola Dana, Shirley Mason, Billy Bevan, Marie Prevost, Hank Mann, Billie Burke, Kate Price, Smiling Bill Parsons, Harry Myers & Rosemary Theby, Madge Kennedy, Carmel Myers, Chester Conklin, and others.Volume 2 will include: Chaplin, Arbuckle, Keaton, Lloyd, Langdon, Laurel & Hardy, Hal Roach, Our Gang, Max Linder, Mack Sennett, Mabel Normand, Charley Chase, Will Rogers, Max Davidson, Colleen Moore, Bebe Daniels, Lupino Lane, Raymond Griffith, Baby Peggy, Monty Banks, Douglas Fairbanks & Mary Pickford, Weber & Fields, Beatrice Lillie, Leon Errol, Clyde Cook, Snub Pollard, Anita Garvin & Marion Byron, James Finlayson, Edgar Kennedy, Mae Busch, Harry Watson Jr., Victor Moore, Olive Thomas, Jack Pickford, Gale Henry, Douglas MacLean, Mickey Rooney, and others.