Therefore the subject of the joke must not be one for whose
distress we feel strong sympathy. The thing that happens to a fop is
quite different in effect from that which affects a sweet old lady.
True, we often laugh at those--or at those ideas--with whom or with
which we are in sympathy, but in such an instance the ludicrous for
the moment overwhelms our sympathy--and sometimes even destroys
it."[32]
[Footnote 32: J. Berg Esenwein _Writing for the Magazines_; published
uniform with this volume in "The Writer's Library."]
This one thing bear especially in mind: _clean_ comedy is even more
essential than clean drama. It is so easy, when writing humorous
material, to go wrong without intending it--indeed, even without
knowing it. Under the guise of comedy some producers are responsible
for scenes and situations that manage somehow or other to pass the
censors, whereas the same scene in a dramatic photoplay would not be
tolerated for a moment. But these are exceptions.
The marital relation should be touched upon only in a way which admits
of no offense being taken by right-minded and refined people. Real
infidelity had far better be left out of humorous photoplays
altogether. Here more than in any other branch of photoplay writing
you should remember that what merely _might_ be tolerated on the
regular stage would never do on the screen.
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