Seriously, folks, here’s a kindly appraisal of the slapstick, sight gags, and banter—in short, the artistry—of some lively...
Entertainment enthusiast Epstein (The Haunted Smile, not reviewed) plays straight man to the comics who didn’t work alone. Like the best straight men, he has a ready knowledge of what gets laughs.
Since the first tambourine was slapped in a minstrel show, comedy has been delivered by teams. In vaudeville and burlesque a century ago, new Americans had the “Dutch” (German dialect) pairing of Weber and Fields, the baggy-pants repartee of Gallagher and Shean, the shtick of Smith and Dale, and the schoolroom sketches that nurtured, among others, the anarchic Brothers Marx. Rising from among the acrobats, dog, seal, and dance acts to headline at the Palace was a boy-girl act that became emblematic of the best, hardest-working, and most enduring teams: Burns and Allen. They conquered radio along with Lum and Abner, Fibber and Molly, Amos and Andy. The movies boasted Laurel and Hardy (of whose contribution Epstein offers a tidy analysis), Abbott and Costello (with the full text of “Who’s on First”), and the overwhelming Stooges. Postwar favorites included Martin and Lewis and the pick-up team of Hope and Crosby. Television brought pseudo teams like the Kramdens, Lucy and Ethel, and the Smothers Brothers. We are left, in the twilight of funny teamwork, with SNL and little more. The tradition seems displaced by stand-up and troupes that certainly aren’t inclined to spend their professional lives together. Where are Bob and Ray when we need them? Where is Harry Ritz yelling “don’t holler” at his brothers? Alas, they are gone. Not even the echo of a rim shot remains, though Epstein recalls enough hoary stories, burnished to a vaudeville shine, to satisfy most assiduous buffs. More importantly, he offers sharp appreciation of the work, the timing, the language, and the carefully created characters: the actual craft of those who practiced comedy in tandem.
Seriously, folks, here’s a kindly appraisal of the slapstick, sight gags, and banter—in short, the artistry—of some lively two- and three-acts of yesteryear. (b&w illustrations)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-58648-190-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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