Professor Elam

Weekend January 19 2014

I just watched a special DVD on the careers of William Powell and Myrna Loy. The two struck pay dirt with six films in The Thin Man Series. A director cast them in another movie and noticed how well they hit it off, kidding one another and such between takes of the real movie. This led to their casting as a detective with shady characters in his past marrying an heiress, they shared a wire haired terrier named Asta. 

By the mid 1930s Myrna Loy was the number one female box office star in the US. She got there by playing the all American woman, not a vamp or a dittzy blonde. 

But movie goers came fthe dialog and witty lines not the plot as the eternal male female battle of the sexes played out, just as it would with Lucy and Desi two decades later. 

What's the point here?  You will be called up on to do oral presentations in class. Often these are team presentations. There is a lot to learn from the classic acts. 

Such performances had their roots in vaudeville. Vaudeville was live comedy before a live audience. Often this would consist of two characters trading barbs between them.

Another great duo was Burns and Allen. George and Gracie had been honing their craft since the 1920s. They also moved to radio and then to a successful television program in the 1950s.Here is a clip of their doing a short named Lambchops way back in 1929. Prior to television movies used to feature short subjects like this, a newsreel, a cartoon, and the movie. HEre are some clips from the television show to get an idea of what I mean.

 

 

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello began in vaudeville and were popular into the 1950s. They began in vaudeville, and moved to radio, 

Their most famous skit was titled Who's on First?  The skit succeeds as a play on words and misunderstanding. The timing between the two performers however is perfect in that each gets more frustrated with the other. 

 

Martin and Lewis  eventually displaced Abbott and Costello. Dean Martin had been a night club singer and Lewis a comedian. In the act Lewis became the straight man while Lewis was the comic foil. When they split many predicted Dean Martin would not make it on his own. In fact each became even more successful Lewis produced a series of oddball comedies, he was even more popular in France than the US if that tells you anything. Dean Martin became part of the Rat Pack with Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. Peter Lawford, and Joey Lewis. 

 

 

 

Perhaps the most successful paring in my lifetime was Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon. 

Here is a clip featuring Carnac from the show to demonstrate what I mean.

One can view many of these acts on You Tube. Observe the timing, no one ever did it better than Burns and Allen, and the chemistry in these acts. Your own presentations will be better for having studied the greats.