Trends of the year: Everyone’s making noir, and it’s getting a bit old. The only funny comedy team of the 30′s and 40′s makes their last movie. Horror isn’t particularly scary, but it’s getting to a point where it’s no longer just some guy in monster makeup walking through the fog. And Britain keeps doing their own thing.
Favorite moments: A pilot jumping to his death, Peter Lorre going mad, two professional killers walking into a diner, Vincent Price being EVIL, and Rita Hayworth being indecent.
British invasion
Noir
Noir on Ice
The yearly Hitchcock
Post-war reality check
Creeps, freaks and amputated limbs
Depressed Europeans
The rest
No,no. Abbott and Costello were funny, The Three Stooges were funny, Laurel and Hardy were funny (and yes, I failed the name ONE funny Laurel and Hardy movie test) and, agreed, none were as great as The Marx Brothers.
In the end, it’s all about putting “bums in the seats.” That’s all Hollywood cares about – bums in the seats – who put the most bums in the seats, Comedywise, in the forties?
I don’t doubt that these comedy groups were popular. It’s the entire WW2 generation’s sense of humor I’m attacking.
Got it. Actually, after posting, I recognized my error in even mentioning the bums in the seats and was reminded of H.L Mencken’s line that no one went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. Still, maybe it was because I was young when I watched them but I thought Abbott and Costello and The Three Stooges were funny (Laurel and Hardy are a couple of classes above, in my humble opinion).
Oh yeah, forgot – viewed any Ma and Pa Kettle flicks yet? Cut – just checked IMDb and the first Ma and Pa came out in 1949. Only about two years to wait before you get to 1949.
Never even heard of them, so I look forward to it! I should reach 1949 sometime this fall.