What Made Pistachio Nuts?: Early Sound Comedy and the Vaudeville Aesthetic

by Henry Jenkins

Book Overview

Lively and highly readable, What Made Pistachio Nuts? examines what Henry Jenkins calls the anarchistic tradition of American film comedy. Anarchistic comedies of the 1930s mock the social order and celebrate the creativity and impulsiveness of their protagonists in a form of clowning that ultimately reestablishes the status quo.Jenkins focuses on well-known films such as the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup and W.C. Fields' It's a Gift,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0231078552
• ISBN13: 9780231078559
• Release Date: December 1992
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Length: 382 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 8.9"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher