They know the old sketches and the whiskered
jokes. If they wanted them they would write them themselves."
The success of a comedy composition lies fundamentally in the novelty
of its plot, or in some new and interesting phase of an old situation;
it prospers in proportion to its interest-holding qualities, its
natural logic, its probability, and the constant humor of the
individual scenes and situations. There is a wide difference between
comedy and comic pictures, and the difference lies chiefly in that
comedy depends largely for its humor on the cleverness displayed in
the construction of the plot, whereas the comic picture is usually
merely a series of funny situations arising from one basic situation,
but having little or no plot. In the "comic," the scenes are loosely
connected, while the humor of the picture depends upon the uproarious
fun in each scene. These comic pictures, usually of the slap-stick
variety, would naturally be classed as farces; but even in photoplay
it is possible to produce a better and more natural brand of farce
than that which depends for its humor upon the silly antics of
different characters in a series of loosely connected scenes, which
have no logical or consistent plot.
There is steady demand for the unusual and genuinely humorous light
comedy--by which is meant the kind of photo-comedies that approximate
the legitimate plays usually employed as vehicles by Mr.
Pages:
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367