This Comedy Business, By Wes. Ruggles
Correspondents, anxious for stories for their papers, are welcome people on anyone's sets. I know I’m always glad to see them around, because most of them ask questions, the answering of which usually teaches me a thing or two about my own business.
We’ve just drapped up “Too Many Husbands” at Columbia—44 days of intense shooting with Jean Arthur, Fred Mac Murray and Melvyn Douglas. During the picture we had more than our share, perhaps, of interested correspondents. Most of them, I found, had one question in common. Is it easier to make a comedy than a tragedy?
That question always makes me pause.
A comedy should be easier than a tragedy—certainly the atmosphere of the entire troupe shooting a comedy is considerably lighter and airier than a drama.
Potential Grief.
Truth of the matter is, however, that before it’s finished, a comedy such as “Too Many Husbands” holds much more potential grief than the starkest drama. This for the good reason that with a comedy—you never know. Those last three words are packed with meaning so far as a director is concerned. We can be pretty certain of tragedy. We usually know fairly well when we have achieved a situation that’s good for tears or remorse. We can never know, on the other hand, when we’ve got a laugh. It used to be that directors relied on (he crew—the cameramen, assistant directors, prep, men, hairdressers, grips, electricians,. labourers—to furnish clues as to the mirthful possibilities of a situation.
But even that prop., alas, is good no longer. Too often the crews would find funny something that left audiences cold. Sneak Previews. Too often they sat in dead silence through a scene that later panicked the audic-nces.
That left us the sneak previews—v/hen we would show a nearly finished film in different sections of the country,'noting reactions in each spot, then cutting and adding as we saw fit. But even this gauge doesn’t work, with certainty. Thus it 1 comes down to a point where the director must outguess the public. You begin with what you think is a funny script.
. You have your players perform that script in what you hope is a humorous way.
You keep alert for any possible stray bits of “business” which may be injected along the way. Then you hope the picture is as funny to audiences as it is to you. You do an awful lot of hoping in this business.
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Bibliographic details
Northern Advocate, 14 September 1940, Page 10
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414This Comedy Business, By Wes. Ruggles Northern Advocate, 14 September 1940, Page 10
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