When Comedy Was King

1960 "You Never Dreamed a Film Could Be So Funny"
7.6| 1h21m| en
Details

A compilation featuring comedic stars of the silent era including Fatty Arbuckle, Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Charley Chase, and Laurel and Hardy.

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Reviews

Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible
Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%
KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.
Abegail Noëlle While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.
dbborroughs This is one of Robert Youngson's compilation features from the early 1960's. Youngson took clips from the silent slapstick films and spliced them together in a nostalgic look back at comedy of yester year. Youngson turned out a good number of these films and they all work to varying degrees. Broad spectrum look at the comedy of silent days is an excellent look at the early days of comedy with looks at Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Snub Pollard (in the influential Its a Gift) and others. While not necessarily the best work of all of the performers, Chaplin has mostly his early Sennett stuff, which shows off why he was a star but isn't the funniest stuff he ever did, Keatons's Cops is cut up and while it is a really funny film, it may not be his best work either. Then again they are actually the things I would probably show someone to begin to foster a love of silent comedy. I like this film a great deal and consider it probably Youngston's second best film after Days of Thrills and Laughter. Definitely worth a a look
Michael_Elliott When Comedy Was King (1960) *** (out of 4) Robert Youngson "documentary" showing various clips from the silent era including performers such as Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, The Keystone Cops, Laurel and Hardy, Edgar Kennedy, Gloria Swanson, Harry Langdon, Mabel Normand among various others. The film is a good way for newbies to see these legends in their prime but for me it's rather frustrating because I'd rather be watching the entire films rather than just little clips. I also always have a problem with these sorts of things because the clips are never as funny as they are in the entire movie. Either way, a decent doc that shows how great these guys were.
MartinHafer First, I must point out that it is VERY VERY hard to give a rating score to a movie that is really just a compilation film. The only original content is the mostly good narration, sound effects and music. So a good score is 100% impossible--so take my 8 with a "grain of salt".Second, while I loved watching this film, it makes a serious omission. It talks about the "3 great comics" but never even mentions Harold Lloyd--who, for a while, was the highest paid and most popular comic alive. The problem was that when the movie was made, Lloyd retained ownership of his films and Robert Youngson (who created this film) couldn't show Lloyd clips. While I do understand this, it was a great disservice to Lloyd and probably contributed to his being forgotten for many years. A discussion of slapstick without mentioning Lloyd is akin to doing the same and not mentioning Keton or Chaplin--it just isn't right.However, despite this, the clips chosen were very funny and well worth seeing. In particular, I loved the Snub Pollard clip with his amazing car!! I use this film for my history classes, as it's a great introduction to slapstick American comedy.
Norman Cook This film documents a wide range of silent classics with clips from Keystone comedies made by Charlie Chaplin in 1914 through Charley Chase's Movie Night (1929), which provides the framing sequence. Highlighted performers include Fatty Arbuckle in Fatty and Mabel Adrift (1916), Harry Langdon in The First 100 Years (1924), and Laurel & Hardy in Big Business (1929). Other featured performers include Gloria Swanson, Snub Pollard, Anita Garvin & Marion Byron, Buster Keaton, Ben Turpin, and Billy Bevan. The narration is a bit incessant, but educational.