Slapstick film

Slapstick films are comedy films using slapstick humor, a physical comedy that includes pratfalls, tripping, falling, practical jokes, and mistakes are highlighted over dialogue, plot and character development. The physical comedy in these films contains a cartoonish style of violence that is predominantly harmless and goofy in tone.

History

Silent film had slapstick comedies that included the films starring Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, the Keystone Cops and Harold Lloyd. These comedians often laced their slapstick with social commentary while comedians such as Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy and The Three Stooges did not. Slapstick is about uninhibited action and timing, which may include being made to look foolish or to act with tomfoolery.

There were fewer slapstick comedies produced at the advent of sound film. After World War II, the genre resurfaced in France with films by Jacques Tati and in the United States with films It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and The Great Race, starring the stoic, aloof and mild mannered Buster Keaton, also known as "The Great Stone Face", as well as the films of comedians like Jerry Lewis.

In the 1970s, Jackie Chan revived slapstick comedy in Hong Kong action cinema. His brand of action comedy combines the martial arts film genre with physical slapstick comedy and stunt work. He pioneered this style of slapstick martial arts comedy with films such as Drunken Master (1978) and Project A (1983).

Slapstick films and television series

Slapstick films and television series include:

1910s

1920s

1930s

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

See also

References

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