MGM's Big Parade of Comedy

Robert Youngson is generally acknowledged as the filmmaker who helped revive interest in silent film comedy in the late fifties and early sixties due to a popular series of compilation films that began with The Golden Age of Comedy in 1957 and also included When Comedy Was King (1960) and Days of Thrills and Laughter (1961). His success with these features have always been a blessing and a curse for most silent film buffs because his compilations took excerpts from dozens of shorts and features and presented them out of context with often inferior music scores and incorrect projection speeds giving rise to the belief that speeded-up motion was a typical stylistic device of silent comedy. Despite his questionable aesthetic sense or lack of it, Youngson still deserves credit for reintroducing masters of the craft such as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Fatty Arbuckle, Harold Lloyd, Charley Chase, Laurel and Hardy and others to a new generation of filmgoers who had little awareness of this rich period in American cinema. MGM's Big Parade of Comedy (1964) follows the same formula of Youngson's past compilations but instead of a heavy reliance on clips from the Hal Roach studios and other independent outfits such as Mutual and Essanay, he pillages the vaults of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and edits together a rapid-fire sampler of some of that studio's finest comedic performers. Among the clips on display are Marion Davies in both The Red Mill [1927] and Show People [1928], Buster Keaton in The Cameraman [1928], Marie Dressler in Reducing [1931] and Tugboat Annie [1933], Jean Harlow in Bombshell [1933], Hold Your Man [1933] and Dinner at Eight [1933], Laurel and Hardy in Hollywood Party [1934] and Bonnie Scotland [1935] and other luminaries such as Carole Lombard, The Three Stooges and W. C. Fields (in David Copperfield [1935]). The film may whet your appetite to seek out some of the films from the clips on display and there are occasional scenes and rare material that won't be familiar to the average viewer such as an early Joan Crawford screen test when she was still using the name Lucille LeSueur. The downside of all this is the uninspired narration, written by Youngson and spoken by Les Tremayne, and an irritating music score that includes new songs written especially for this compilation that are unworthy of the material on view. These songs were co-written by Bernie Green and Youngson who also produced, directed and created the title sequence. MGM's Big Parade of Comedy was Youngson's second to last feature compilation (Four Clowns in 1970 was the last). He actually enjoyed a better critical reputation during his earlier career when he was producing and directing short subjects. Two of those, in fact, won Oscars® - World of Kids (1951) and This Mechanical Age (1954) – and he received Academy Award nominations for three others - Blaze Busters (1950), Gadgets Galore (1955) and I Never Forget a Face (1956). Producer: Robert Youngson Director: Robert Youngson Screenplay: Robert Youngson Music: Bernie Green Cast: Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Chico Marx, Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Jean Harlow, Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, W.C. Fields, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Lucille Ball, Red Skelton, Robert Taylor, Joan Crawford, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Carole Lombard, Jimmy Durante, Buster Keaton, Ted Healy (all archive footage). BW-90m. by Jeff Stafford