Quand le rire était roi

Oscar winner Robert Youngson actually got his start at Warner Brothers in the 1940s producing sports short subjects. He latched onto a terrific idea as this lead to award winning short movies about crazy, daredevil stunts tied to silent movies, particularly comedy.

The rest is history.

This is one of the earliest film documentaries on silent screen comedy icons, although some graduated to sound films with even greater success. However, Youngson clearly wanted to accentuate the golden era of screen comedians, via a series of historical clips which are outstanding.

More over, this film was instrumental in pushing for the preservation of silent movies. Many old films, dating back to the teens when this documentary was produced, were in need of remastering or had simply deteriorated to the point where they could not be saved. As much as this was a labor of love, this film made history itself.

Best of the best, and not surprising, are priceless clips of Charlie Chaplin, the outrageous Keystone Cops and Buster Keaton. Honorable mention to the early days of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, whose silent films were a prelude to their classic sound films.

Never to forget the great Fatty Arbuckle and his insane complications with pretty Mabel Normand. Fatty and Mable were the first screen male and female comedy team, and they shine.

The gang's all here, and you'll want to see this one again.

Remastered on dvd and blu ray for film completists and all us big kids who grew up on this stuff.

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.

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.

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.

Really astonishing feature length footage of the greatest silent comedy stars and the stunt films that thrilled millions, all lovingly set in a nickelodeon and chapters for each personality and type of film. The voice over is the 'radio with pictures' type that suits and I guess seems like the Joe MacDoakes shorts or some inventor- cartoon narrator. The scenes are hilarious and exciting and reveal a rich heritage of silent movie history and the recognizable stars that made them justly famous. Each sequence is different and equally terrific. The Harry Langdon maid in the kitchen clip is fall down funny; My personal favorite is the awesome train stunt with Gloria Swanson tied to the tracks which had me screaming.