#1940s comedy

[busterkeatonsociety]

Movie Monday - Buster Keaton was a scene advisor for “In the Good Old Summertime,” 1949, but when no one could successfully manage this fall, he was cast in the movie so that he could do it!

[friendlessghoul]

The Villain Still Pursued Her [1940] Buster Keaton, Hugh Herbert, Joyce Compton, Richard Cromwell, Anita Louise, and Diane Fisher

[izimbracreenshots]

Mr.& Mrs. Smith by Alfred Hitchcock, 1941

[oldshowbiz]

Film Comedy of World War Two

[friendlessghoul]

Buster Keaton She’s Oil Mine (1941)

[gurumog]

Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) Universal Pictures Company, Inc. Dir. Charles Barton

Glenn Strange... or, perhaps, Lon Chaney Jnr... as Frankenstein's Monster

During the scene in the laboratory where the Monster chases Abbott and Costello after throwing Sandra through the window, Glenn Strange stepped on a camera cable, causing the camera to fall and break bones in his foot. Lon Chaney Jnr, who had previously played Frankenstein's Monster in The Ghost of Frankenstein, took over the role of the Monster for that scene as well as the scene where the monster is throwing barrels and crates off the jetty.

[oldshowbiz]

With the exception of Abbott and Costello and WC Fields, most of the early 1940s Universal comedies have fallen into obscurity. 

Joan Davis was one of the marquee talents on the Universal comedy roster. Her films were usually fast paced and fun, trapped in a purgatory between B-film and A-film. The casts were peppered with character actors and former vaudeville comedians. The screenplays were usually rehashes of things Clyde Bruckman had written for silent comedians in the 1920s. 

Universal had all kinds of familiar faces under contract at the time, many who were aging vaudevillians on a lifeline. Shemp Howard comes to mind. 

Most of the Universal comedies were quasi-musicals with a B-movie vibe. The pacing was always incredible. If you’re not always laughing, you’ll still marvel at the pacing. 

The Andrews Sisters did six films for Universal at this time. Their movies were just Joan Davis movies without Joan Davis, made to capitalize on their war time popularity. 

Universal comedies of the early 1940s. It’s a fun little genre to explore if you’re interested in the history of film.