“HITCHCOCK
AND HUMOR: MODES OF COMEDY IN TWELVE DEFINING FILMS†by
Wes D. Gehring
(McFarland;
ISBN 978-1-4766-7356-1 print; 978-1-4766-3621-4 e-book; $39.95 retail)
“THE
MASTER OF DARK COMEDYâ€
By
Raymond Benson
Just
about anything with film historian and media writer Wes D. Gehring’s name on it
will be of quality. A professor of telecommunications at Ball State University
in Indiana and author of the regular column “The Reel World†in USA Today magazine,
Gehring has distinguished himself as an expert on comedy—especially as it has
been utilized in the cinema.
Among
Gehring’s several books that explore humor in film are tomes on Chaplin, the
Marx Brothers, Leo McCarey, Laurel and Hardy, Carole Lombard, W. C. Fields, and
Frank Capra, as well as topical studies on dark comedy and screwball comedy.
Now
comes Hitchcock and Humor, which evaluates the notion that the filmmaker
who earned the moniker “The Master of Suspense,†is also “The Master of Dark
Comedy.†Gehring makes his case by examining the humor in several of the early
British pictures (Blackmail; The Man Who Knew Too Much; The 39
Steps; Secret Agent; and The Lady Vanishes), and several of
the Hollywood delights (Mr. and Mrs. Smith; Shadow of a Doubt; Rope;
Strangers on a Train; Rear Window; The Trouble with Harry;
and North by Northwest). There is also an epilogue with brief comments
on Psycho, which could very well be, as Gehring acknowledges, the most
obvious example of dark humor that Hitchcock presented to an unsuspecting
audience.
Mr.
and Mrs. Smith,
of course, is one of the filmmaker’s few blatant comedies. The picture starred
Carole Lombard, about whom the author has previously written, and Gehring
spends the chapter dissecting the actress’ importance to this wacky romantic
comedy. A general public, however, might not immediately grasp the subtle humor
displayed in the other titles, although film students and Hitchcock aficionados
would surely already be aware of it. Consider this—while The 39 Steps is
a riveting thriller about a wronged man on the run, it also has the hallmarks
of a screwball comedy once Robert Donat meets and is handcuffed to Madeleine
Carroll. The two characters are a mismatched couple thrown together by
circumstances beyond their control, are initially at odds, and slowly gain
affection for each other. Rope is full of gallows humor as the two
killers (played by John Dall and Farley Granger) host a dinner party with the
guests sitting around the “table†that is really a coffin holding their victim.
(The above trailer for North by Northwest amply illustrates Hitchcock's ability to blend thrills and humor.)
As
with most publications from McFarland, the book takes a scholarly
approach—there is little in the way of illustrations (there are a few) and is
mostly dense text (290 pages). While Hitchcock and Humor is intended for
the more serious devotees of cinema and Alfred Hitchcock himself, the book is
quite readable and entertaining.