Classical Hollywood Comedy: AFI Film Readers

Introduction; Two Traditions; 1: A Spanner in the Works?; 2: Comedy, Melodrama and Gender; Narrative; 3: Introduction; 4: Crazy Machines in the Garden of Forking Paths; 5: Pie and Chase; 6: Response to “Pie and Chase”; 7: Commitment and Reaffirmation in Hollywood Romantic Comedy; Performance; 8: Introduction; 9: The Keystone Film Company and the Historiography of Early Slapstick; 10: The Making of a Comic Star; 11: Goin' to Town and Beyond; 12: “The Laughingstock of the City”; Ideology; 13: Introduction; 14: Divorce, DeMille and the Comedy of Remarriage; 15: Romantic Love and Friendship; 16: Queerness, Comedy and The Women

Applies the recent `return to history' in film studies to the genre of classical Hollywood comedy as well as broadening the definition of those works considered central in this field.