Preface by Norman Wisdom. Foreword. 1. The First Comedies 2. The Hepworth Story 3. The Fun Continues 4. Early Film Studios 5. The Rise of the American Film 6. The Keystone Touch 7. Chaplin – The Perfect Clown 8. Harold Lloyd 9. The Roaring Twenties 10. The End of Visual Comedy 11. All Talking! 12. The Thirties 13. The British Quota Boom 14. Crosby and Company 15. Walt Disney 16. The Eccentrics 17. The Forties 18. The Summing Up 19. Flashback. Acknowledgements. Index of Names.
Biography
John Montgomery
Reviews for the original 1954 edition:
"Loaded with facts, names, titles, biographies and anecdotes, but trotting along easily enough to make reading comfortable, I can’t think of any other book devoted to the cheerful screen which bundles together not only the internationally famous English-speaking comics, but also the great army of good comedians, the multitude of players and the multitude of films too." Dilys Powell wrote in The Sunday Times
"Highly informative and interesting and, for the middle-aged, almost unbearably nostalgic," said the New Statesman
"A little monument to painstaking research made readable by unswerving love," wrote Paul Dehn
"A valuable and fascinating book," said Maryvonne Butcher in The Tablet
