Reading between the seams: How silent comedy still stands in the ‘Age of LOL’

The tropes, tricks, and traits of silent comedy have echoed through the decades of Hollywood from the 1930s to present day. Films like Christmas-cult-classic Home Alone, childhood cartoon classic Tom and Jerry, and the comedic genius of Saturday Night Live (SNL) are all by-products of the evolution of silent comedy which bled into and influenced the trajectory of film and TV in Hollywood.

So, what started the comedic renaissance? We’re all familiar with seeing mishaps, misfits, and misfires onscreen in comedy with the rise of parody and satire, and the use of humour becoming darker to highlight darker themes. As the 1900s capitalised on short, one-reel films starring frantic slapstick, the Keystone and Arbuckle duo took the screens (as they later paved the way for Laurel and Hardy) whose dynamic was chaotic, frantic, and stylistically physical when it came to the gags. One artist whose style echoes through the comedic hall of fame to this day is, of course, Charlie Chaplin, who became a comedic genius and a business and artistic genius, practicing comedia dell’arte. Chaplin developed the character of the Tramp, who graced the screens as early as 1915. He was clumsy, almost child-like, and genuinely good-hearted. Contrarily, an amicable rival of Chaplin was Buster Keaton who’s character of the General was fluent in the deadpan style of humour. Earning the title of ‘The Great Stone Face’, his work was full of animated surrealism that contrasted the naturalism in Chaplin’s shorts. Thus, two styles of silents were concurrently successful competitors.

The silliness which audiences were familiar with got magnified as the title cards, dialogue, and blatant breaking of the fourth wall saw characters imploring the audience to conceive their situation as it escalates.

Moving into mid-to-late 1920s, the talkies began to enter the mainstream as technology advanced. One dynamic duo who effectively bridged the gap between sound and the silent tradition was Laurel and Hardy. The pair, as Hardy described them was: ‘the dumb, dumb guy and the smart, smart guy who is dumber than the dumb guy but doesn’t know it’. They placed themselves in mundane scenarios that proceed to go horribly awry culminating in Laurel’s blubbering tears and Hardy’s heated outrage. With dialogue now entering the chat (pun intended), the silliness which audiences were familiar with got magnified as the title cards, dialogue, and blatant breaking of the fourth wall saw characters imploring the audience to conceive their situation as it escalates. It is as modern lives became more complex that watching the exaggerated, repeated action magnified the comedy and made the audience feel better about themselves. Despite the duo initially finding it hard to adjust to the addition of sound, their character’s signature cry and clamouring then became associated as a part of their brand.

As talkies prevailed, ‘screwball’ comedies were on the rise, with zany plots, rapid-fire dialogue, and strategic use of dry humour and sarcasm. Notably, with It Happened One Night and His Girl Friday, the comedic genre has influenced Hollywood as gags, trips, and incidents took stock from the comic shorts that came before. Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot saw cross-dressing as comedic relief as the characters joined an all-female band whilst hiding from a mob. This Shakespearean tradition in plays such as As You Like It or Twelfth Night later evolved into She’s The Man, White Chicks, and Big Momma’s House. The trope also later evolved into drag.

The format launches a lot of household names as it plays bits, sketches, and variety acts that still continue to trend and run to this day with performers, comedians, and singers in their own right, as well as actors and comedians who are booked onto the show.

Woody Allen liked the satirical approach and adopted it in films such as Annie Hall which plays with the conventions of the rom-com-drama genre. Allen also uses the technique of breaking the fourth wall as a plot device (which more recently we’ve seen in shows such as Fleabag and Miranda), as Allen’s character processes why his relationship with the eponymous character ended through a series of episodes and flashbacks which span the duration of the film.

Then came SNL, which gave young comedians, actors, and new comedic styles a mainstream platform to play in. The format launches a lot of household names as it plays bits, sketches, and variety acts that still continue to trend (think Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso x SNL’s Domingo skit) and run to this day with performers, comedians, and singers in their own right as well as actors and comedians who are booked onto the show. Stars such as Eddie Murphy, Adam Sandler, Steve Martin, and Will Ferrell all still make us laugh onscreen, but began their career on the SNL stage. Rob Ryner, another SNL alum, went on to direct rom-com classics The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally.

The hyper exaggeration which can only be achieved through animation, makes the altercations funnier.

Looking at films and comedy classics, John Hughes was a proficient teen-comedy filmmaker, producing films such as 16 Candles, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Breakfast Club. Hughes then shrunk the distance between adult and child as he gave us the cult-classic Home Alone (and Home Alone: Lost In New York) which puts juvenile maturity in the spotlight through the character of Kevin. He takes an adorably admirable level of self-sufficiency. In this vein, there’s a ridiculousness for adults watching a child adapting to adulthood so quickly, albeit prematurely, but for children this was something aspirational, Kevin was their hero. The films also have a heartfelt subplot which connects to Kevin (Old Man Marley and the Pigeon Lady)  who teach him a profound life lesson. Now the film would be incomplete without talking about the main fountain of comedy that is Marv and Harry, the burglars, and the boobytrap montage which never gets old. There is a level of cartoonish savagery in the traps Kevin sets (as the only one who understands that the pair are completely idiotic) as the burglars routinely underestimate him and the film uses modern slapstick and repetition of gags across the two films which makes it rewatchable. Not only are the traps wild, but they add to the aspirational level of strength and power that children aspire to. The comedy was well-timed, well-done, and the cat and mouse antics as much as they’re painful to watch (I’m specifically thinking of the first film, nail in the foot up the stairs), make the film worth watching annually each festive season.

Finally, speaking of cat and mouse, one of my favourite childhood cartoons is Tom and Jerry. The cartoon innovatively uses silence, a score, animated slapstick, and carefully placed dialogue and sound throughout the show’s evolution. Creators Hanna-Barbera used voice in moderation. An example of this would be using their own screams through the character of Tom to dramatically portray the level of pain Tom was truly in. The score by Scott Bradley also precisely and evocatively informed the action as well as the characterisation, the plucking of strings being the small, sneaky footsteps of Jerry. The music was used to drive the action and evoke an emotional response to what the audience was watching. There’s a level of absurdism to the lengths and extremities the pair go to to trap and outsmart one another: Jerry was the mischief-maker, and Tom was hungry (for Jerry, power and eager to win), but on some occasions the pair did come together (when it suited them) to challenge another character. As a result, there is a grey area in the hero-villain dynamic. The hyper exaggeration which can only be achieved through animation, makes the altercations funnier. An example of this is upon impact, whenever Tom is hit by something, falls through something or is compressed his physical form changes and conforms to the shape of the instrument that abused him (an iron or a hole in the wall for example). The pair took on more humanistic traits (walking on two legs rather than four) which created a warped sense of relatability whilst also keeping the comedy fresh. It is in this relatability that Tom becomes a regular failure and Jerry becomes symbolic of the ‘little guy’.

So there you go, a little history lesson as well as current examples of how silent comedy has indeed stood the test of time in the age of LOL.