----------------------------Original message----------------------------
 I think congratulations, or at least a big THANK YOU are due to Shawn Levy
for his EXCELLENT point about 50's TV comedy vs. 50's screen comedy, and
how many first-rate comic writers--M. Brooks, W. Allen, Neil Simon, and
let's add Larry Gelbart, who continued in TV after the 50's!--worked in TV
before turning to films.  However, 30's and 40's movie screen comedy
(dialogue comedy was my point so that we won't have to get into the real
geniuses of silent comedy) was far superior to 50's film comedies.  Was it
because the real talents had turned to TV?  Was it the every increasing
artistic failure of Hollywood movies as the 50's wore on?  In any case, Mr.
Levy's points are extremely helpful and thoughtful. So here they are again:
 
>I think it's true, but it may always have been.  For instance, whereas there
>were many worthwhile comedies in the movies of the '50s, the television of
>the era was a far, far greater trove of comedic talents -- Berle, Gleason,
>Lucy and Desi, Kovacs, Your Show of Shows, Burns and Allen, etc.  The
>biggest comic film stars of the decade -- Martin and Lewis -- were better on
>TV than in movies.  And some of the best comedy writers of the '60s and '70s
>-- Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Norman Lear, etc. -- were writing TV
>comedy in the '50s.
>
>One reason -- indeed, one related to the cinema's reaction to TV in the '50s
>-- is that cinema (and cinema-going) has always been more of an 'event,'
>both in the reception and in the production, whereas TV is an ongoing
>process.  In the time  it took to make a comedy in the '50s -- say, 8 months
>from script to screen for a Martin and Lewis film  -- the Desilu people
>would have produced ten times as much finished material.  Where drama might
>more usually benefit from the polish and scale implied in a feature film
>production schedule (not to mention the meddling of autocratic producers),
>comedy seems to thrive more in less structured, less centralized working
>environments (Jacques Tati to the contrary, even Chaplin improvised vast
>portions of his work).
>
>Currently, comedy on TV is also closely tied to personalities -- Tim Allen,
>Paul Reiser, Roseanne, Fran Drescher, Seinfeld, etc. -- in a way that film
>comedy rarely manages to be.  Right now, Jim Carrey is enjoying a run the
>likes of which hasn't been seen in years.  But how many years of
>3-$100-million-pictures can he realistically sustain?  Movie actors who
>continually trot out the same personality wane at the boxoffice; the  Golden
>Age studios knew this and cast for variety.  Even Stallone and Arnie try new
>things.  A comic doing the same shtick on the big screen tires very, very
>fast (not since Woody Allen has anyone made more than a half-dozen or so hit
>films in the same comic persona -- Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams and Steve
>Martin have all checkered their careers with different sorts of roles -- and
>many flops).  But on TV, a comedy can be in the Neilsen top 10 for a decade.
>And then 15 years later it can enjoy a sentimental reunion show while its
>reruns clean-up in syndication.
>
>     Shawn Levy       |   "In a far recess of summer
> [log in to unmask]  |    Monks are playing soccer."
 
_____________________________________
David Desser,UIUC Cinema Studies
2109 FLB/707 S. Mathews, Urbana, IL  61801
217/244-2705