A SOLEMN AFFAIR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 249, 21 October 1933, Page 5 (Supplement)

A SOLEMN AFFAIR.

FILMING JOE E. BROWN'S COMEDIES. It is a very, solemn business when Joe E. Brown makes a comedy. Tireless in its revelations of the "new angles," its Press agents are always seeking, Hollywood has furnished the waiting world with that latest solemn fact about the 6edate production activities of the mammoth-rhouthed comedian. Whereas it is common practice, even among the Hollywood genre of tragedians, to indulge in "ribbing" and "horsing around," the sets where the Joe E. Brown comedies are filmed are very sober. Even with "Son of the Gobs" in production, Brown and his cohorts wear mental cutaways and striped pants. The cause of all the sobriety is attributed to the pretty prevalent cliche that comedians are Pagliaccis, under whose comic breasts hang heavy hearts— "make the crowd, laugh while the heart breaks." Or they want to do Hamlet. When they do, of course, they prove that they were comedians all along. But the cliche doesn't work for Mr. Brown. He says he is no Pagliacci and he doesn't aspire to be Ophelia's boy friend. He is, however, very firmly convinced that comedy is a serious thing when it is being prepared for ultimate public consumption. He thinks that everybody working on his pictures should take their labours seriously. So Brown's pictures are made solemnly. The work goes on as soberly as in business houses where everything must be done efficiently if the entertainprise is to survive. No one wears mourning clothes, there are no lily wreaths, but things are quiet just the same. Even those who almost always go in for irreverent humour, the electricians and property people, respect Brown's wishes that the proprieties be observed for the sake of the picture.