Archive for April, 2009

Lovable lunatics

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

(Canscene) — With the moving image becoming the greatest new art form of the last century, genres from straightforward dramas to film noir to situation comedy grew. One of the lowest of these growths was what I choose to call lunatic comedy as opposed to slapstick, Chaplinsque, screwball.

marx_brothers

Four lovable lunatics named Marx

The lunacy that is to be found in Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields films plus Jimmy Durante performances in some otherwise routine comedies make up the main body of lunacy in films. Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz alone had this lunatic element while the other characters played their roles superbly in the greatest of all stories which adults still admire and enjoy.

Who can forget Groucho, Harpo and Chico coping with a increasingly crowded ship’s cabin?

Or changing musical scores so that the opera orchestra breaks out into Take me Out to the Ball game? Or Bill Fields driving the“pregnant” woman to hospital, the while snarling at every impediment from pedestrian to other vehicles? And his farewell from no known source ”See ya’ in the Grampian Hills.”

And that maniac glint in Schnozzola’s eyes as he rendered Inka Dinka Doo and I’m the Guy Who Found the Lost Chord. Or his performance as Banjo in the filmed Man Who Came to Dinner.

So long guys. For me at 90, the Grampian Hills can’t be so far away. See ya’!
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