Word: slapsticker
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...over-the-shoulder glance at the stern repertory countenances of Chekhov and Ibsen, and only a very cursory one at Shakespeare's. The Comedy of Errors, upon which The Boys is loosely based, never was one of the Bard's greatest creations anyway-he hadn't traded in his slapstick for lofty rhetoric and sublime poetry yet. Besides, he cribbed the plot from Plautus, who in turn had lifted it from the Greeks, so Rodgers and Hart were obviously working within a clearly established tradition...
...right angular snap to accompany the vivacious goings on-but, surprisingly, these numbers are few and far between. From the wry and ironic ("He and She") to the mock angry ("This Must Be Love"), love songs carry the evening. Rodgers and Hart humanized this essentially cruel comedy of slapstick and pratfall by bathing it in soft and lyrical Broadway footlights...
...himself in a rest room--and nearly crushes a fellow passenger when he emerges. In a London hotel, he engages a clerk in a typically baffling conversation--and the misunderstandings caused by his mangled Franglais eventually lead to the partial collapse of the hotel. Sellers pulls off all this slapstick with the deftest of touches--his Clouseau never senses just how much damage he has left in his wake...
...simply isn't funny. This is the same old pretentious, anti-anti-intellectual garbage that a small coterie of snooty brie-toting critics have been shovelling out ever since the initial Pink Panther, and it's as stupid now as it ever was. Just because a movie is all slapstick and zero social commentary doesn't mean it can't be uproariously funny. So you want relevance? Trail of the Pink Panther is actually a symbolic indictment of supply-side economics during a recession-plagued post-industrial era. Satisfied...
Congress jets home after a slapdash and slapstick session...