Word: funnyman
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...Uncle (French). A wicked satire on mechanized modern living by Jacques (Mr. Hulot's Holiday) Tati, who is probably the funniest funnyman in films, but in this one overdoes his wit by at least 30 minutes...
...such moments-when he throws all social and philosophical considerations to the winds and concentrates on building up the exquisitely precarious card house of a complex gag-Comedian Tati seems the funniest funnyman now at work in films. The trouble is that Tati is not content to be merely a comedian. He has developed all sorts of crypto-Chaplinesque rationalizations about the deeper significance of Monsieur Hulot-"modern man ... at the mercy of objects . . . enmeshed by circumstances." The film, as a result of these lucubrations, is at least half an hour too long, and in the length it fails...
Coffee Break. Funnyman Bob Hope took a turn with the gavel, twitted Crooner Bing Crosby, whose new young wife is expecting a baby in August: "You can tell how important this tournament is to get Bing away from the nest. Bing had his last child 20 years ago. That's quite a coffee break." Comedian Hank Henry came on to peddle Texan Billy Maxwell and tried to swing a deal with one of the more belligerent celebrities in the crowd. "What am I bid for Elsa Maxwell? This would be a good buy for Walter Winchell. How about Elsa...
...Danny Thomas, the Hollywood M.C. on a Hollywood-Manhattan coaxial hookup: "They should never have comedians as presenters. Any comic on a dais figures he's got to do four or five minutes or the audience will think he's a bum." Milton Berle, TV's funnyman emeritus, quipped for 90 seconds longer than his allotted seven minutes. But like the man condemned to hang, Berle was as sassy as he liked, for there was nothing TV could threaten him with-the onetime Mr. Television has not had a steady job on TV since 1956. And without...
...forgot to gargle before keynoting a dockers' meeting. His trademark is his preposterous nose ("If you're going to have a nose, you ought to have a real one"). But the U.S.'s currently favorite tele-comedian, boasting no single towering talent, succeeds as a funnyman mostly because his humor seems to well up from a sizable heart. Or, as Danny Thomas puts it, citing his favorite philosopher, Lebanese Mystic Kahlil (The Prophet) Gibran: "Comedy and tragedy aren't very far apart. Like Gibran says, 'Your joy is your sorrow unmasked...