Hokum!: The Early Sound Slapstick Short and Depression-Era Mass Culture
Hokum!: The Early Sound Slapstick Short and Depression-Era Mass Culture by Rob King
English | Apr. 7, 2017 | ISBN: 0520288114 | 271 Pages | PDF | 12 MB
English | Apr. 7, 2017 | ISBN: 0520288114 | 271 Pages | PDF | 12 MB
Hokum! is the first book to take a comprehensive view of short-subject slapstick comedy in the early sound era. Challenging the received wisdom that sound destroyed the slapstick tradition, author Rob King explores the slapstick short’s Depression-era development against a backdrop of changes in film industry practice, comedic tastes, and moviegoing culture. Each chapter is grounded in case studies of comedians and comic teams, including the Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, and Robert Benchley. The book also examines how the past legacy of silent-era slapstick was subsequently reimagined as part of a nostalgic mythology of Hollywood’s youth.
The word “hokum” is one of several examples of stage slang whose meaning, at a certain point in the 1920s, was much debated. According to a 1926 article in American Speech, it was the “most discussed word in the entire vernacular” of popular entertainment (another was “jazz”).