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of the first, must be definitely harmless or innocuous.
In fact, bodily harm or injury to any one on the screen, whether or not the audience is in sympathy with them, may choke back or discourage any inclination to laugh. And that holds even in the case of the corrupt Mayor. If he had been injured in his flight, the laugh would have died, because an audience will not laugh when they see any one suffering physical pain, no matter how much the audience dislikes him. For example :
An old lady in court:
"You say your husband struck you?"
"He did, your honor," plaintively. "Once he beat me for nearly three hours and honestly I never got so tired of a man in all my life. He's been gone some thirty years now and I think I ought to have a separation."
Obviously painful and therefore harmful, the beating the old lady suffered denies the theory that comedy reaction must be harmless to produce laughter. However, the woman showed no evidence of ill treatment and the laughter was an expression of relief, as well as amusement.
To insure a laugh when it is necessary for characters to fall or be knocked down, I always have them move or roll a bit, then come to a stop, either against a settee or wall, then sit up and look dazed or perplexed or angry when they recover from the shock. And that reaction always gets a laugh.
One day we were shooting on a Weber and Fields picture and the little fellow knocked the big fellow, Lew Fields, flat. Lew lay there as though he were unconscious and I knew right then that such business would not do at all but I didn't like telling those old timers.
When we previewed the picture that scene not only was greeted with silence but all efforts to get laughs suffered for a long time after that scene, and just because of a still fall. If Lew had sat up and had looked stupidly about him or over at the little fellow I know the laughter then and from there on would have been hearty.
With two factors involved in the comedy effort, quite naturally a contrast is secured. In fact it is hardly possible for any one thing to exist or occur as
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