Another fine mess: a history of American film comedy

Introduction Charlie Chaplin: the most famous man on earth Buster Keaton: the camera man Harold Lloyd: the striver Laurel & Hardy: straight man and little boy The Marx Brothers: brothers of anarchy W.C. Fields: the juggler Mae West: :"it's all been done before, but not the way I do it" Ernst Lubitsch: the touch Preston Sturges: the cockeyed caravan Cary Grant: the picture of Archie Leach Katharine Hepburn: Spencer's rib Billy Wilder: "nobody's perfect!" Marilyn Monroe: funny blonde Doris Day: battle of the sexless Jerry Lewis: they're crazy about him in France Peter Sellers: the man behind the masks Dustin Hoffman: stardom, revised Robert Altman: overlapping dialogue Mel Brooks: the 2000-year-old parodist Woody Allen: Hope and Bergman Richard Pryor: rebel without a pause Albert Brooks: the return of Sully Sullivan Steve Martin: the jerk and the genius Eddie Murphy: incredible shrinking comic Bill Murray: just the usual comic inspiration- frustration, loss, and death The Coen Brothers: oddball America Christopher Guest: the Baron of the Mockumentary Ben Stiller: good Jewish boy Will Ferrell: "a pretty nice little Saturday" Judd Apatow: Peter Pan and the frat brothers

Short Entries. Abbott & Costello Wes Anderson Jennifer Aniston Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle Jean Arthur Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers Lauren Bacall Anne Bancroft Drew Barrymore Noah Baumbach Ralph Bellamy John Belushi Humphrey Bogart Bugs Bunny Frank Capra Jim Carrey Chevy Chase Cheech & Chong ( Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong) Maurice Chevalier Claudette Colbert Gary Cooper Bill Cosby Billy Crystal George Cukor Cameron Diaz Marlene Dietrich Stanley Donen Margaret Dumont Blake Edwards Nora Ephron Bobb & Peter Farrelly Tina Fey Whoppi Goldberg Elliott Gould Jean Harlow Howard Hawks Ben Hecht Amy Heckerling Audrey Hepburn Alfred Hitchcock Judy Holliday Bob Hope Edward Everett Horton John Hughes Jim Jarmusch Chuck Jones Garson Kanin & Ruth Gordon Charlie Kaufman Diane Keaton and Mia Farrow Stanley Kubrick Harry Langdon Spike Lee Mitchell Leisen Jack Lemmon & Walter Matthau Richard Linklater Carole Lombard Myran Loy

Shirley MacLaine

Jayne Mansfield

Dean Martin

Elaine May

Leo McCarey

Joel McCrea

Lorne Michaels

Mike Myers

Mike Nichols

Jack Nicholson

Alexander Payne

Tyler Perry

Pixar

Harold Ramis

Tony Randall

Samson Raphaelson

Carl Reiner

Hal Roach

Julia Roberts

Will Rogers

Paul Rudd

David O. Russell

Rosalind Russell

Winona Ryder

Morrie Ryskind, Bert Kalmar & Harry Ruby, George S. Kaufman, and S. J. Perelman

Adam Sandler

Mack Sennett

Neil Simon

Kevin Smith

Steven Soderbergh

Barbara Stanwyck

James Stewart

Whit Stillman

Meryl Streep

Barbra Streisand

Quentin Taratino

Frank Tashlin

The Three Stooges

Vince Vaughn

John Waters

Keenen Ivory Wayans

John Wayne

Gene Wilder

Robin Williams

Renée Zellweger

Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and David Zucker.