newcritics - Latest Comments in Comedy in Character

Re: Comedy in Character

Jim — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 05:49:52 -0000

And a couple more from the extras end of the supporting cast. Lots of films from the thirties and forties liked to show how cool they were by setting a scene or two at a nightclub full of exuberant dancers. And if the camera chooses to focus for a few seconds on one couple then there is a very good chance that they will be Dean Collins and Jewel McGowan. Almost never credited. Google can tell you lots more about them.

Re: Comedy in Character

Jim — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 14:53:32 -0000

And not forgetting Edward Everett HortonÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s parody of Medicine Man Roaring Chicken as Chief Screaming Chicken, partner to Vincent Price's Egghead in Batman. Who's the best one in that, then?

Not from classic times perhaps, and one further rung down on the glamour ladder, but I recently came across this site http://www.harryfielder.co.uk/ run by a chap who spent over thirty years working as an extra, mostly at Pinewood studios in Britain. Several hundred different films with the same face appearing in every one.

Re: Comedy in Character

Self Styled Siren — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 09:09:31 -0000

Jim, I thought of Demarest and cut him at the last minute, but you have me thoroughly chastened. His delivery of Sturges' line on daughters in Morgan's Creek alone should have earned him a spot.

Dan, I never saw F Troop but I am sure Horton earned the classic actor's epitaph: "darling, you're the best thing in it."

Re: Comedy in Character

Dan Leo — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 07:01:50 -0000

"a voice like a piccolo with the hiccups"

Brilliant.

And let us not forget Edward Everett Horton's late-career triumph as Medicine Man Roaring Chicken in the much-maligned "F Troop".

Edward Everett Horton: actors don't even have these kinds of names any more.

Re: Comedy in Character

Jim Tourtelott — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 19:29:18 -0000

I am genuinely baffled by your failure to mention William Demarest, Siren. It is almost impossible to imagine the great Sturges pictures without him. He is not only the perfect put-upon father as Officer Kockenlocker in Miracle of Morgan's Creek and a brilliant comedy drunk (a very hard thing to do right, a very easy thing to do wrong) as the chairman of the Ale and Quail Club in Palm Beach Story. He's also the voice of truth, the guy who can't be bamboozled. Think of his speech to the election rally in Hail the Conquering Hero: "We just got back from Guadalcanal, and no foolin' what I mean." Think of the curtain line in The Lady Eve; "Definitely the same dame."
Demarest is one f the glories of 40s movies, precisely because he is the working stiff who takes no guff.