Chapter XVI

: Nothing is funny that offends against good taste, or that, in any way, causes pain to any number of the spectators. Comedy, to be worthy of appreciation, must always be good-natured. National types as caricatured by many comedians with the aid of eccentric costumes and weird make-ups are usually as far from being real national types as one could well imagine. Humor must have more than mere extravagance or caricature for its basis. Even in farce and in musical comedy, as well as in vaudeville, the once familiar green-whiskered Irishman, the Frenchman who is all shrugging shoulders and absurd gestures, the negro who walks as if he were trying to take two steps backward for every one forward, and whose most noticeable facial feature is an enormous mouth, and the "Busy Izzy" type of Jew, who when not getting robbed himself, or being otherwise abused, is doing his best to defraud others, are gradually going out of fashion. And in the photoplay, which is now seen by all classes of people and is for all the people, racial characteristics must be treated in at least a fairly accurate manner, _and always good-naturedly_. Six or seven years ago, more than half the comedies produced were based upon a chase, or else depended largely upon slap-stick humor to raise a laugh. Not a few of them had as their chief comedy-incident an act of downright cruelty to some animal, or even to some human being. Today, when manufacturers are vying with each other to produce better, cleaner, and more universally enjoyable pictures, the script that violates Censorship rules or studio ethics by including any of the foregoing undesirable subjects stands but little show of reaching the production stage, if, indeed--which is extremely unlikely--it is accepted at all.

"Good sense is at once the basis of and the limit to all humor. He who lacks a fine perception of 'the difference between what things are and what they ought to be,' as the always-to-be-quoted Hazlitt expressed it, can never write humor. All the way through we shall find that mirth is a matter of relationships, of shift, of rigidity trying to be flexible, of something shocked into something else.

"Let us think of a circle on which four points have been marked:

[Illustration:

5 The Serious 1

4 The Contemptible 2 The Laughable

3 The Ridiculous]

"Beginning with a serious idea, we may swiftly step from point to point until we return to the serious, with only slight variations from the original conception. Take the perennial comedy-theme of the impish collar, and visualize the scenes:

"1. A man starts to button his collar. Nothing is less comical, as long as the operation proceeds normally.

"2. But the button is too large and his efforts begin to exasperate him, with the result that his expression and movements become incongruous. We see, and laugh--though he does not.

"3. He begins to hop around in a mad attempt to button the unbuttonable, and soon rips off the collar, addressing it in unparliamentary language. He is ludicrous, ridiculous, absurd.

"4. In his rage he violently kicks a pet dog that comes wagging up to him. Our laughter subsides, for the fellow is more contemptible than amusing--a deeper feeling has been born in us.

"5. The little dog limps off with a broken leg--we are no longer amused, we are indignant. What is more, not only have we gotten back to the serious, but there is no amusement left in any of the previous scenes.

"Still applying the test of the _extent_ of the variation from the normal as shown in the effects, we conclude that _serious consequences kill humor_. The mere idea of such consequences, when we know that in the circumstances they are really impossible, may convulse us with merriment, as when we see a comedian jab a long finger into the mouth of his teammate and the latter chews it savagely. In real life this might sicken us with disgust--I say 'might,' because we can easily conceive of such a situation's exciting laughter if the victim were well deserving of the punishment. It is human for us to laugh when the biter is bit; indeed, variations on this theme are endless in humorous writing.

"_Sympathy also kills humor._ The moment we begin to pity the victim of a joke--for humor has much to do with victims--our laughter dies away. 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. It is well to remember also that just as the American public has tired of the chase and the foolish powder, it has also sickened of the coarse, suggestive, and even the questionable subjects that could once be depended upon to "get a laugh." There is absolutely no excuse for introducing anything into a picture today that would offend the good taste of any member of an audience. The local censorship boards of some cities have made themselves ridiculous in the eyes of thinking photoplay patrons, but the work done by the National Board of Censors has been the means of slowly and surely causing the lower class of photoplay patrons to acquire an appreciation of good dramatic subjects as well as more refined comedy.

It may be said in passing that not all the companies producing farcical photoplays or slap-stick, as it is generally called--exclude the work of the outside writer. Such firms as do accept outside scripts of this kind are prepared to "go the limit" in the matter of expense in order to make their pictures superlatively funny and unusual in the matter of staging. The Pathé comedy, "Cleopatsy," featuring the famous clown Toto, was a striking example of how a slap-stick comedy today is unhesitatingly given as elaborate and sumptuous a scenic investiture as was accorded a few years ago to screen-versions of Shakespearean or other "classic" plays. The laughs in this Pathé production were produced, principally, by the introduction of business and situations that simply could not have happened in the time of Cleopatra, Antony and Cæsar. Thus we saw traffic policemen with their Stop and Go signals in the middle of the Sahara; telephones, check books, motorcycles and automobiles in use, and so on. In addition, the leaders were filled with modern business and other slang; and the spectacle of a huge negro wrapping Cleopatsy in a modern Axminster rug and carrying her in to show her to Antony (instead of, as according to history, Cæsar) kept the spectators in a roar of laughter. For an originally-worked-out idea such as this there is nearly always a ready market.

Finally, remember that comedy-action should run as smoothly as a well-oiled machine. Start with a good, fresh, funny idea and then make each scene run smoothly and logically into the next. There are certain series of comic pictures in the comic section of the newspapers which might well serve as your models for progressive and logical action. Mr. Bud Fisher's well-known "Mutt and Jeff" and Mr. George McManus's "Bringing Up Father" series are excellent examples.

## Particularly in the McManus pictures do we get funny, logical, and,

above all, generally natural--in the sense of its being probable--comedy action. Take as an example the one which is sub-titled "It's a pity the valet left--he would have been such a nice playmate for Father." "Father," as we know, is the very much hen-pecked husband of a socially impossible woman who holds her place among the "400" only by reason of her husband's wealth. It is Father's constant ambition and determination to spend as much of his time as possible amongst his old "roughneck" working-man pals, instead of in attending his wife's receptions and other society functions. A sociable companion of his own class is what he constantly seeks. In this picture there are, as is usual in the Sunday supplements, twelve scenes. The action of the picture may be roughly synopsized as follows:

## Scene 1. Mrs. Jiggs introduces Mr. Jiggs--"Father"--to the new, and

very English, valet--who "waited on Count de Miles until he died." To which Father (possible sub-title) replies: "No wonder he died!"

## Scene 2. The butler, in Father's room, announces that he "thinks

he'll like the job and that Father won't find him hard to please."

## Scene 3. Shows Father making a critical inspection of the statue-like

valet, and muttering that "his folks must have been fond of children, to raise him!"

## Scene 4. Shows Father glancing up at a shield and some ancient

battle-clubs, spears and axes, hung on the wall. We can easily guess what is passing in his mind.

## Scene 5. Father takes the valet over to the window and stands him

facing out, saying that he wishes to show him the wonderful view. Behind his back Father holds one of the war-clubs.

## Scene 6. As the valet gazes out of the window, Father swings the club

upward, preparing for a mighty blow, muttering as he does so: "It's a duty I owe my country."

## Scene 7. Just as Father is about to strike, the valet glances down at

something on the corner of the dresser, and exclaims: "Ah! A pinochle deck! My favorite game!" To which Father replies: "_Oh!_ Do you play cards?"

## Scene 8. Here they are in the middle of an exciting game, Father

winning everything, the chips piled high before him. The valet asks: "Will you pardon me? I'll see if I can get some of my wages in advance."

## Scene 9. In the lower hallway. Shows the valet asking Mrs. Jiggs for

his salary in advance, adding that "the count always paid him ahead."

## Scene 10. Back in the room upstairs, with Father at the table, on

which are piled the valet's clothes, while the constantly losing valet plays his last hand from behind a screen.

## Scene 11. Shows the entrance of the butler, who tells Father that Mrs.

Jiggs "wishes to see him at once."

## Scene 12. Shows the inglorious dismissal of the pinochle-loving valet,

dressed only in three of Mrs. Jiggs' hat boxes, the bottoms of which have been knocked out. When Mrs. Jiggs declares "Pack your things and get out immediately--you are fired!" the valet answers gloomily: "I have nothing to pack, Madam!"

This, although merely an idea drawn out into a dozen pictures, is the sort that might easily be made the foundation for a laughable short comedy. Barring the fact that one or two of the scenes are played (so to speak) in the same setting, with no leader or other scene separating them--as would be the case in photoplay--this newspaper "funny" is much better put together, much more logical, and is just about the same number of scenes as were many of the split-reel comedies of a few years ago. Almost all of the more popular comic series in the newspapers, in fact, may be studied with profit by the would-be writer of screen comedies. There is action, and often very funny action, in every picture, and the plot moves quickly, logically, and without the slightest sign of unnecessary detail or irrelevant

## action, to an extremely funny climax, which, best of all, is usually a

surprise to the reader.

Apply the same working-principle to the writing of humorous photoplays, especially the plan of having a surprise climax followed by a quick denouement, and you can hardly fail to produce a comedy that will cause the editor to notify you favorably.

##