ELLIOTT PAGE MOVIES Part One: Exceptional Examples of Eccentricity
When the movie industry was born, it was limited to a small range of genres, the most popular being comedy. The category was so well liked that many of the comedians’ names, including Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Marion Davies, and Carole Lombard, actors that smoothly transitioned from silent films to talkies, are still familiar. The ability to speak was important because it broadened a comedian’s range from slapstick stunts to more sophisticated stratagems like employing sexual innuendo or sarcasm, which provided richer content. One factor that audiences loved about funny movies was unconventionality. Eccentric situations and screwball characters took center stage in movies like A Night at the Opera (1935), Topper (1937); the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby Road series (1940s); Ma and Pa Kettle (1949); Harvey (1950); and Some Like It Hot (1959), among many others. Disney and Warner Brothers even used the technique in animation, producing cartoons with eccentric animal charact