Old Comedians Just Fade Away

A few nights ago I was watching my favorite W.C. Fields film, Never Give a Sucker an Even Break, on a home-recorded videotape in the dark and woody confines of our den. My wife Anne watched along with me until she fell asleep. Loss of consciousness during a film probably shouldn’t be taken as a commentary on its quality or lack thereof. I’ve frequently succumbed to untimely bouts of slumber over the years -- in French class, at work, or in a theater filled with rowdy, foot-stomping moviegoers. I've nodded off even when I wanted to keep my eyes open. Sleep, like death, will creep up from behind and toss its net over your head you when you least expect it. 

Still I wondered exactly what had put Anne to sleep that evening. Was it simple fatigue, or did the antics of the great bulb-nosed comedian fail to tickle my wife's humor receptors? The first time I ever saw the film, with my old friend Holup during a classic comedy marathon at our college student center, we both cackled helplessly at Fields’ verbal and physical mischief; simply the way he intoned the phrase ‘a cup of mocha java’ touched off waves of glee. When he took a drink on the fanciful observation deck of an airborne plane, then inadvertently knocked it over the edge and dove headlong after his falling libation, we felt we were witnessing one of the supreme moments in movie comedy. But as I watched the film with Anne, I became acutely aware of the creaky spots, the occasional flat notes, the chunks of dead wood. That’s the risk of introducing a favorite old film to someone you love: you see it through the other person’s eyes, and you writhe uncomfortably in your seat if any part of it fails to meet expectations. At least I do. Instead of merely loving the film the way I would love a dog or a Tootsie Roll Pop, I begin to see it from a critic’s point of view -- a critic with contemporary sensibilities. And that can be lethal.

Contemporary sensibilities are the nemesis of vintage popular culture. They're like a 36-year-old corporate VP who has to judge the fitness of that 60-year-old middle manager in the office down the hall. The pop of the past depends on the charity of each succeeding era to keep it alive. It has to keep making the cut, generation after generation, to linger in our cultural memory. Louis Armstrong has made the cut. So has Bogart. But a past megastar like Al Jolson, who electrified audiences both in and out of blackface throughout the first half of the twentieth century, has virtually disappeared from our consciousness. My generation was vaguely aware of him as a slightly embarrassing relic of a racially insensitive age. Today’s twenty-somethings probably aren’t aware of him at all. Toot-toot-tootsie, goodbye! 

Few silent film stars have made the cut, since silent films aren’t a staple of late-night TV. Glittering idols like Ramon Novarro and Pola Negri have been dropped into the cultural dumpster, known only to film scholars and a handful of eccentrics like me. We remember a few silent-screen names like Valentino and Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, but that’s the extent of it -- they’ve become mere names. In another generation or two even those sad remnants will probably crumble away, like so many of the films themselves. But who would have imagined that those immortal names were printed on degradable nitrate stock?

I’m especially concerned about the old-time comedians, who seem to be fading from our minds like photographs left too long in a sunny room. We remember Chaplin, of course, but do we watch him? Do audiences raised on Star Wars still respond to his cane-twirling walk and Victorian pathos? Will the video-game generation carry his memory to their children? I probably have a better chance of recouping my investment in JDS Uniphase. 

Buster Keaton still enjoys the esteem of professional critics (as much as a man who died in 1966 can enjoy anything), but how many of us can name two of his films? Do skateboarders and rock-climbers know about his unsurpassed deftness in physical comedy? They’re too busy injuring themselves to care. 

Laurel and Hardy were my boyhood favorites, a quarter of a century after they made their films. But today’s restless moviegoers would have a tough time concentrating long enough to savor their meticulously constructed gags. I think they’d have just as hard a time appreciating their bumbling innocence, their innate sweetness. These aren’t sweet times. 

The classic ‘Road’ pictures of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, as much as I loved them as a kid, seem dated now -- products of the hubba-hubba ‘forties. Ditto for Abbott and Costello, though few could top either team for snappy patter.

The Marx Brothers enjoyed a second heyday in the ‘sixties, when a hairy young generation adopted them as madly inspired anti-establishment icons. But who watches their films today? How often do they run Horse Feathers or Duck Soup on American Movie Classics? 

As for the ombibulous W.C. Fields, you’d think his place on comedy’s Mt. Olympus would be assured. But will future generations respond to the lazy drone of his rasping voice, his whiskey-glazed view of domestic life, his wonderfully ornate verbal flummery? Fields is a comedian for cynical men who love words, and unfortunately that market seems to grow slimmer with each passing decade.

So who’s left? Of all the vintage black-and-white film comedians, who still commands our attention, affection and viewership these many years later? Whose name will be most likely to survive the age of Nintendo? In short, who made the cut? One guess, you knuckleheads! Yep, the Three Stooges seem to have enjoyed the last ‘nyuk’ on the likes of Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, W.C. Fields and the Brothers Marx. Who would have believed it fifty years ago? Who can believe it NOW? 

If you think about it, the boys' staying power really isn't so incredible. Out of all the aforementioned masters of comedy, the Stooges are the most cartoonlike as well as the most consistently violent. Those are two big points in their favor these days. They move fast, even frenetically, like characters in a video game. You feel you could almost operate them with a joystick. They have a repertoire of stock sayings and mannerisms that are fun to repeat at home. And yes, they’re endearingly wacky. They may not be artists, but does anyone out there still care about art?

Cynic's Pick of the Week

Oil widow and buxom bombshell Anna Nicole Smith will be following in Ozzy Osbourne's footsteps this summer as she stars in her own cable TV 'reality' show for our amusement and astonishment. At least we won't need subtitles to understand what's going on.