NEW BRAND OF HUMOUR

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 154, 27 March 1937, Page VII (Supplement)

NEW BRAND OF HUMOUR

‘ i yVE can't compete with Donald Duck for knockabout effects.” Jack Hulbert, united in a film again with Cicely Courtneidge for “Take My Tip.” new G.B. comedy, gave bis views on humour.

“What was funny yesterday, is not so to-day,” says Jack. “The film cartoons are making things harder for us comedians. In the past, I could walkdown the street on the screen, slip on a banana skin and crash down on the pavement. That would make people laugh. Nowadays Donald Duck can slip on a banana skin, shoot a 100 feet into the air, ricochet against a chimney pot, explode into pieces, plunge down to earth, gather himself together again and stroll off without a murmur. How can I compete against that? “Nowadays the greatest humour of all is in life itself. Comic situations don’t have to be manufactured in the old slap-stick style to get laughs. All our material is waiting for us in everyday affairs. In our new comedy Cicely and I progress toward this new style of humour. The story, which tells of a butler who gives his ex-master and mistress the job of running a hotel for him, is not so improbable as some of my other films. We shall make our humour out of the things that could happen to anyone in everyday life.”