Word: laugh
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Little Lou Costello, fat & funny, is a great clown. Bud Abbott, skinny & sour, is a first-rate straight man. On their own, the two can be counted on to supply plenty of low-comedy guffaws. But greedy Universal has almost squeezed the last laugh out of them before their first cinema year...
Harvard is fertile ground for a reproduction in miniature of the chaos into which Greater Boston was thrown by the air raid scare of several days ago. And while the present tendency persists to laugh off the threat of enemy raids on the Atlantic coast as alarmist melodramatics, Harvard will remain vulnerable. It should be obvious that when even the experts cannot agree on the plausibility of such raids, the gamble is not worth taking...
...Fields drew blood. Universal sent him a legal document threatening court action if he didn't mend his studio manners (i.e., references to company executives, language in front of cinemoppets, general demeanor). Back came a reply: "Dear Sir, Mr. Fields and I read your letter and did we laugh." It was signed "Adele" (Fields's Negro housemaid...
...enumeration of the laugh-provoking devices employed in "Sons 'o Fun" would be pointless; suffice it to say that they are all patterned after the successful, senseless, "all the theatre's the stage and every customer an actor" technique of "Helzapoppin." The only major deviation from the master plan in tone and substance is the addition of Carmen Miranda to the capitalized names of Olsen and Johnson. Perhaps this will be remedied to some extent if Carmen is given a little more time and another number or two like "Thanks North America"; but whether this is done or not, "Sons...
William Saroyan can raise the same kind of stirring laugh that Chekhov could. Sample: Jim Dandy's henchman reads him a sales letter from one ex-Jockey Earl Catfoot ("Why should you go without? Go with. . . . Don't be a sucker-be a winner."). The pessimist comments: "It wouldn't help." Says Jim Dandy, controlling his temper: "You may be mistaken. Weighing one hundred pounds, the man has ridden horses...